U.S. Senate Introduces Rodchenkov Act

(ATR) The U.S. government takes steps to criminalize doping in sports.

Legislation bearing the name of Russian doping whistleblower Gregor Rodchenkov was introduced in the U.S. Senate this week.

"It recognizes doping as fraud and it really elevates conspiring to dope in international events to the same level of bribery or extortion," Travis Tygart, CEO Of the U.S. Anti Doping Agency tells Around the Rings about the Rodchenkov Act.

U.S. prosecutors would be given power to pursue those who participate in doping schemes aimed at defrauding major international events. Under the bill, fines for offenders can reach up to $1 million or a prison term of ten years.

The legislation would operate in a fashion similar to the prosecution of executives from FINA. Dozens of cases have been handled by U.S. authorities for charges of bribery, money laundering or other financial crimes. Jail terms, fines as well as acquittals have been the result.

The legislation is aimed at ringleaders of doping, not athlete victims Tygart says.

Tygart says if this legislation had been in effect in 2014 at the time of the Sochi Olympics, victims such as U.S. athletes who finished behind Russian medal winners might be receiving compensation. NBC-TV, which holds the U.S. broadcast rights, would also have been entitled to recompense for airing competitions tainted by doping.

"We obviously think it is a gamechanger. It’s like the FIFA cases that the rest of the world turned a blind eye to, where you can ensure the rules and standards we all agree upon are enforced in a robust way," says Tygart.

Republican Senator Orrin Hatch and Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse introduced the bill, which must be passed by both the Senate and House of Representatives to become law. Tygart says he is confident that the bill will make it through Congress, but exactly when isn’t known. The next session of Congress opens in January and runs for two years.

Rodchenkov, the namesake of the bill, was the whistleblower who exposed the scheme of manipulation of the anti-doping system at the Sochi 2014 Olympics. He ran the anti-doping laboratory in Moscow and admits to helping Russian athletes avoid detection for years. He now lives in hiding in the U.S.

The fallout from the scandal is still ongoing. Russia was barred from competing under its own flag at the PyeongChang Olympics. Since then the IOC has restored recognition, as has WADA. But the Russian Athletics Federation , first suspended by the IAAF in 2015 remains out of the athletics fold.

WADA’s Russian reinstatement was dependent on gaining access to the de-listed Moscow lab and its test results before the lab was closed in 2015. This week WADA officials received that access. It will likely take months to review the test results.

Reported by Ed Hula.