MONACO: World athletics body IAAF on Tuesday upheld a ban against Russia’s athletics federation over doping in the country, pending full access to doping data stored in Moscow and financial compensation. Russia’s athletics federation (RUSAF) has been suspended since 2015 over a report commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) that found evidence of widespread, state-sponsored doping in the sport. The IAAF said Russia’s anti-doping agency (RUSADA) still needed to meet two criteria – access to data on Russian athletes in a Moscow lab and full financial compensation for investigation and legal costs – before the ban is lifted. “If the Russians can and will release the (drugs) samples is up to them. I hope they will deliver the data by the end of this year,” said Rune Andersen, head of the IAAF’s task force on Russia, sitting next to IAAF President Sebastian Coe. “We have received no assurances it will be delivered to us directly.”
To be reinstated, the IAAF has said Russia must acknowledge the findings of the WADA-commissioned McLaren report that doping in the country was state-sponsored and must also provide access to the data from testing of samples at the RUSADA Moscow laboratory from 2011-2015. “I am not surprised, but we had hopes because the federation has done lots of work,” Dmitry Shlyakhtin, president of Russia’s athletics federation, told TASS. Russia, whose athletics team was banned from the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, has accepted there was extensive doping in the country, but its authorities have continued to deny any of it was state sponsored and access to the Moscow lab data has not happened. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and WADA have both reinstated Russia.
WADA’s controversial reinstatement in September this year was on the condition that Russia recognise the findings of its report and allow access to RUSADA’s stored samples. Failure to provide access to the full data from the Moscow lab by Dec. 31 could lead to another suspension, WADA has warned.
Published in Daily Times, December 5th 2018.