By Ronald Katz (February 12, 2018, 12:22 PM EST) -- Early last week when the International Olympic Committee president — after losing an appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport that cleared 28 Russian athletes of doping allegations — stated that that court might need to be restructured, that statement, given the power of the IOC, had the potential of intimidating the CAS. On Friday, when the CAS essentially reversed itself by stating that the IOC had the right to keep the cleared athletes out of the Pyeongchang Olympics, it appeared that that intimidation had worked. This is especially true because the basis of the CAS opinion is diametrically opposed to a 20-page 2011 opinion of the CAS, United States Olympic Committee v. International Olympic Committee. Ironically that 2011 decision was decided by a panel of judges presided over by Richard McLaren, whose reports on alleged state-sponsored doping by Russia have been at the center of the current CAS decisions about whether there was sufficient proof that individual Russian athletes doped....