Doping bodies urge Wada to take action

The leaders of 16 national antidoping agencies have called on the World Anti- Doping Agency to immediately suspend Russia again for failing to comply with the controversial reinstatement deal struck in September.

The compromise agreement was cast into doubt on Tuesday when Russia missed a December 31 deadline to comply with its key requirement – access to the Moscow anti-doping laboratory at the heart of their state-sponsored doping programme.

As promised in September, the Russian authorities did eventually let a small team of experts visit the laboratory last month but they were prevented from extracting the raw data from their testing equipment.

The raw data is needed so that global sports federations can proceed with hundreds of potential anti-doping cases against Russian athletes.

Russia’s failure to meet its reinstatement obligations prompted an angry response from United States Anti-doping Agency boss Travis Tygart, who described the episode as ‘‘a total joke and an embarrassment for Wada and the global anti- doping system’’.

Wada president Sir Craig Reedie was forced to admit he was ‘‘bitterly disappointed’’ by the setback, which has again called into question his judgement when it comes to dealing with Russia.

USADA is one of the 16 agencies to now call on him to reverse the September reinstatement without waiting for the scheduled meeting of its compliance review committee on January 14.

The national anti-doping organisations yesterday said Russia had failed to meet their obligations.

‘‘Therefore, we now call on Wada to stand firm, enforce the missed deadline and move without delay towards a decision in this matter,’’ the group said in a joint statement.