Doping-Russia withdraws appeal against weightlifting ban - report

ZURICH, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Russia's weightlifting federation (RWF) has withdrawn its appeal against a one-year ban from the sport, the Russian news agency TASS said.

Russia was banned last July for breaching an International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) ruling that any country with three or more positive tests in re-analysis of samples from the 2008 and 2012 Olympics would be banned.

The RWF had taken its case against the IWL to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) which had been due to hold a hearing on Thursday. The RWF and CAS could not immediately be reached for comment.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is keeping samples from past Games for up to a decade to conduct re-tests with newer methods.

Re-tests of samples from the Beijing and London Games have so far caught more than 100 doping offenders, affecting weightlifting, athletics, cycling, swimming and wrestling.

The specialist website Inside The Games said the withdrawal of the appeal followed a meeting between Russian weightlifting chief Maxim Agapitov and IWF head Tamas Ajan.

CAS was due to hear appeals from Belarus and Kazakhstan against similar bans from the sport on Friday.

(Writing by Brian Homewood)