LAUSANNE: The World Anti-Doping Agency said on Friday that its compliance review committee (CRC) had recommended the reinstatement of Russian anti-doping agency RUSADA, which has been suspended since 2015 over alleged state-backed doping.
RUSADA’s reinstatement is expected to be made official WADA’s executive committee meets next on 20 September.
During its pre-ExCo conference call, held Friday, the independent Compliance Review Committee reviewed at length a letter from the Russian Ministry of Sport to WADA and was satisfied that this letter sufficiently acknowledged the issues identified in Russia, therefore fulfilling the first of the two outstanding criteria of RUSADA’s Roadmap to Compliance. For the second outstanding criterion, the CRC accepted that the new commitment to provide access to the data and samples in the Moscow laboratory to WADA via an independent expert would be sufficient to justify reinstatement, provided that the ExCo imposes a clear timeline for such access.
The ExCo will fully discuss this recommendation during its 20 September meeting and its decisions will be communicated publicly.
In making public its decision, WADA noted that since RUSADA was declared non-compliant in November 2015, the agency, the Russian authorities and partners have been “working very hard to rebuild a credible, and sustainable, anti-doping program in Russia; and that, there have been significant developments across their anti-doping system”.
Russian sports minister Pavel Kolobkov told Russian news agencies on Friday: “I was certain that the compliance review committee would, sooner or later, recognise the huge work that has been done by Russia in the fight against doping. We have always strived toward cooperation, we did everything that depended on us… We are open to the maximum because we have nothing to hide. Only together were we able to reach this result.”
He added that Russia looked forward to returning to WADA.
“For us the reinstatement of RUSADA at the next WADA executive committee is important. We will wait for the September 20 decision with hope. Believe that we did everything that we could. And we are ready to cooperate with our foreign partners, to continue work in that direction, to follow uniform rules that are equal for all.”
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) reinstated Russia in late February after the remaining tests from this year’s Pyeongchang Winter Games all returned negative, Reuters reports. The IOC had banned Russia from the Pyeongchang Olympics after it found evidence of an “unprecedented systematic manipulation” of the anti-doping system.
The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) has yet to reinstate the Russian athletics federation.
“The IAAF’s task force will prepare a report for the next council meeting in Monaco in December, which is expected to cover any developments relevant to Russia’s position in the sport,” Reuters quoted the sport’s governing body as stating on Friday.
The IAAF suspended the Russian federation in 2015 and had allowed only one of its athletes to compete at the 2016 Rio Olympics. A number of Russian athletes have been able to compete in international athletics competitions, including the world championships, as neutrals by passing a series of doping tests.
