WADA Decision Shifts Focus to IOC

(ATR) World Anti-Doping Agency President Craig Reedie tells Around the Rings there were "no demands" placed on the anti-doping body to make any recommendations regarding the Russian team for the 2018 Olympics.

The WADA Foundation Board ruled at a meeting in Seou that the Russian Anti-Doping Agency remains non-compliant. RUSADA was first declared non-compliant by WADA following an independent investigation by Professor Richard McLaren in 2015.

RUSADA has fulfilled most conditions required for reinstatement by WADA. To be compliant with the anti-doping code WADA says RUSADA must publicly accept the findings of both McLaren reports and allow WADA investigators access to the Moscow anti-doping lab.

Reedie said that both of these conditions had been known throughout the entire process. Compliance could be restored fairly quickly if Russian authorities were to make tangible progress on WADA’s roadmap. Should the conditions be met, Reedie said that the WADA board could meet by teleconference to reinstate compliance.

"The Olympic Movement understands the situation and there are no demands from WADA to make any declarations about what decision the IOC might take in December," Reedie said to ATR. "The Russians asked to come and present. The Sports Minister was with us as was the NOC President.

"They presented to both the executive board and the full board and they both said that RUSADA is compliant. They were saying the top conditions which have not been met are effectively political conditions."

Two people with knowledge of the board meeting tell ATR that no vote was taken on the matter, but no member of the board disagreed with the decisions taken. One member said that the board was allowed to question both the Russian delegation and the Compliance Review Commission. The questions and interjections during this time were "pretty intense" before the decision was taken.

Focus will now shift to the IOC Executive Board meeting in early December. Both the Oswald and Schmid IOC commissions are expected to present findings before the EB takes a decision.

International observers noted that a non-compliant RUSADA could lead to the entire Russian team being banned from the PyeongChang 2018 Olympics. That stance was bolstered after WADA confirmed its investigative team had obtained electronic records from the Moscow anti-doping lab from 2012-15. Reedie said he had not seen the data since the investigative team operates independently, but Reedie says "they are confident that what they have is genuine".

"If it is and if it certainly corroborates everything McLaren said, it is very important," Reedie added.

After the board meeting a Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told TASS that the decision was "bad news".

"We have strongly rejected the accusations that the use of doping had some kind of government support," Peskov said. "That’s out of the question.

"We proceed from the recent statement made by [International Olympic Committee President] Thomas Bach who said that WADA’s decision [refusal to reinstate RUSADA] was not related directly to the Olympic Games."

Russia’s non-compliance will have a direct effect on one major sporting event in 2018, however. Samples from the 2018 World Cup in Russia will be analyzed in labs abroad. This will mark the second straight World Cup with such an arrangement, after 2014 samples were analyzed in Lausanne due to Brazil’s non-compliance.

Three Countries Named Non-Compliant

Kuwait, Equatorial Guinea and Mauritius joined Russia as countries non-compliant with the WADA Code.

For Kuwait it means the country is suspended by both the IOC and FIFA and now non-compliant with WADA. The earlier suspensions came from breaches of autonomy of sport organizations in Kuwait in October 2015.

Reedie said that the anti-doping organization in the country is "in disarray," and being declared non-compliant came only after numerous efforts by WADA.

"It has been for some time and we’ve tried many times to resolve it with them without any success," Reedie said. "The hope is that as soon as we can operate properly with any of the authorities in Kuwait then we can resolve this very quickly."

Written by Aaron Bauer

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