WADA Waiting on Russian 'Proof'

(ATR) The World Anti-Doping Agency tells Around the Rings it has not received any information from Russia that supposedly undermines Grigory Rodchenkov’s testimony over a state sponsored doping system, nor is it waiting for it.

Reports emerged today from Russia that federal investigators sent "proof" to contest testimony by former Moscow Anti-Doping Lab director Rodchenkov about instances of sample swapping at the Sochi 2014 Olympics. Russian Investigative Committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko told Russian state-run news agency TASS that "objective evidence" was delivered to WADA regarding the delivery of samples from the Sochi Games.

Petrenko said that the evidence runs counter to "Rodchenkov’s testimony that during the Olympic Games in Sochi 2014 the samples of the specified Russian athletes were stored after collection, nightly substituted with clean ones and only after the substitution tested for the presence of banned substances in them".

Rodchenkov’s testimony was used by WADA to show a state-sponsored doping program ahead of and during the 2014 Winter Olympics. The program extended to athletes in other sports, including athletics, which was discovered in 2015. The scandal has extended to nearly every Olympic sport, disrupting the 2016 Summer and 2018 Winter Olympics.

WADA spokesperson James Fitzgerald told ATR that the organization has "not received any documentation from Russia in this regard". Fitzgerald added that WADA stands by its conclusions and is not in a position to change its requirement for Russia to be compliant with the WADA code.

"The findings of the McLaren investigations were based on extensive, credible and corroborated evidence of institutionalized doping in Russia and WADA remains entirely confident in those conclusions," Fitzgerald added.

WADA’s Foundation Board will meet next week in Montreal to discuss the current state of Russia’s non-compliance and review the anti-doping procedures from the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics.

Written by Aaron Bauer

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