USADA hits out at IOC over Russia

THE head of the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) blasted the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Wednesday for failing to hold Russia accountable for doping in sports.

Refer r ing to t he IOC decision to allow Russian athletes to ta ke pa r t i n t he Rio a nd Pyeongchang Olympic games, t he CEO of USA DA, Trav is Tyga r t, sa id t he IOC “chose not to stand up for clean at hletes and against institutiona lised doping”.

“Certainly, history will not judge that decision kindly,” Tygart said at a hearing on doping in sports held by the US Helsinki Commission, a US agency that looks at human rights in Europe.

A lso test i f y i ng before t he commission was former Russian athlete Yuliya Stepanova, who f led to the United States wit h her husband Vita ly follow ing t heir 2014 revelations of widespread doping in Russia n sport.

“The fight against corruption in Russian sports is not easy,” Stepanova said. “From the beginning it was our hope to get more people to tell the truth.

“We are now traitors to Russia,” she said.

‘Failure to lead’

Stepanova also said she believes most Russian athletes who dope “don’t feel like they’re doing something wrong because they believe all athletes around the world are doing the same.”

The commission also heard from the lawyer for another Russian whistleblower, Grigory Rodchenkov, the anti-doping lab chief who left Russia in 2015 and exposed the country’s scheme to evade drugtesters at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

Jim Walden, Rodchenkov’s attorney, said t hat his client could not appear personally “due to the ever present threat of Russian reta liation against him”.

Tygart, the USADA CEO, said that after “widespread, states u p p o r t e d” d o p i n g wa s exposed in Russia the IOC “missed – or ignored – a defining moment to confront, in the clearest way possible, the winat-all-costs culture of corruption through doping in global sport.

“It was an opportunity to draw an unambiguous line in the sand – a chance to stand up for clean athletes,” he said. “Ye t , when t he deci s i v e moment arrived, when the lights were shining brightest, the IOC failed to lead.”