World ski body pays to end defamation claim by Vanessa-Mae

OBERHOFEN, Switzerland – The International Ski Federation has settled a defamation claim by Vanessa-Mae after wrongly accusing her of helping fix races so she could qualify for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

FIS said Wednesday it had apologized and made an “appropriate payment” to Vanessa-Mae, which she intends to pay to a charity.

Vanessa-Mae won an appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport last June overturning her four-year ban. The court cleared the musician of rigging low-level races in Slovenia organized by her entourage in January 2014.

Vanessa-Mae had sued FIS for unspecified damages.

The musician and her entourage “did not in any way fix, contrive or improperly influence the result, progress, conduct or any other aspect” of qualifying races in Slovenia, FIS said in Wednesday’s statement.

FIS said it accepted that its previous statements about Vanessa-Mae’s conduct at the races “were unjustified and unreservedly withdraws them.”

The CAS ruling last year found that a “number of irregularities” had occurred in the running of the qualifying races but there was no evidence to implicate Vanessa-Mae.

The musician, then aged 35, competed in Sochi for her father’s native Thailand and finished last in giant slalom.