Pyeongchang Olympics

WADA mum on Russia’s status

Athletes have called for Russia to be banned from competing in the Pyeongchang Olympics. So have leaders from national anti-doping organizations.

But the World Anti-Doping Agency, the global regulator, has been mum on its recommendation three weeks before the International Olympic Committee is set to consider what sanction Russia might face for operating a statesponsored doping system.

Without WADA calling for a ban, as it did before the Rio Olympics last year, its stakeholders are looking to its foundation board meeting in Seoul on Thursday during which it will decide whether the Russian Anti-Doping Agency will be declared compliant with the world anti-doping code for the first time in two years.

Maintaining RUSADA’s non-compliant status seems obvious to antidoping leaders following increased rhetoric last week from Russian officials declaring that the country had not run a state-sponsored doping system.

“If it’s still not regarded as compliant, that’s a further hurdle — ethical or political or practical — that affects the IOC,” said Dick Pound, a Canadian IOC member and member of WADA’s foundation board. “It’s gonna be hard for the IOC to say, notwithstanding the fact that there’s no accredited laboratory in Russia and there’s no accredited national anti-doping agency that we can ignore all that. All these pressures are building up.”

WADA declared RUSADA non-compliant with the world anti-doping code in November 2015 after an investigation led by Pound found widespread doping in Russian track and field.

In July 2016, a WADA-commissioned investigation by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren into information Grigory Rodchenkov, the former director of the Moscow lab, brought forward revealed a system of sample tampering during the 2014 Sochi Olympics that included passing urine samples through a hole in the wall.

McLaren’s final report showed more than 1,000 Russian athletes were involved in the state-sponsored system and mentioned 28 Russian athletes who competed in Sochi where evidence showed their samples had been tampered with.

WADA instituted a road map to compliance for RUSADA, of which the agency has satisfied nearly 20 criteria. Many are technical and personnel changes, and RUSADA has been able to conduct limited testing.

Of the dozen remaining criteria, two loom largest — that Russian officials must accept the McLaren report’s findings and that the government must give WADA access to electronic data and samples from the Moscow lab.

In an interview with Reuters last week, WADA director general Olivier Niggli stressed the road map to compliance won’t be changed.

WADA declined to make Niggli available for an interview.

Instead, WADA pointed to a statement it gave after revealing Friday that it received digital data late last month on drug tests run on Russian athletes at the Moscow laboratory. WADA President Craig Reedie said the agency stands behind the McLaren report and reiterated the requirement that Russian officials accept its findings.

The New York Times, which first reported the news of WADA receiving the data, cited an anonymous source who said it came from a whistleblower and not through official channels.

“There seem to be quite a number of very important criteria that have yet to be dealt with,” said Joseph de Pencier, CEO of the Institute of National AntiDoping Organizations, “and therefore I’d be very surprised if WADA took any other decision but to say we cannot make any determination that RUSADA is code compliant.”

After WADA revealed it had the data, which it believes to be the Moscow lab’s database covering testing from 2012 to 2015, a Russian investigative committee looking into doping said it is ready to cooperate with WADA.

The IOC will decide on any sanctions for Russia at its executive board meeting Dec. 5-7.