WADA gets access to Moscow lab, secret data
TORONTO: The World Antidoping Agency said on Friday an inspection team will be given access to a Moscow laboratory and data it has long demanded thereby removing the final obstacle to the Russian Antidoping Agency’s (RUSADA) full reinstatement.
A five-person WADA delegation will travel to Moscow and be allowed to enter the laboratory and have access to samples and other raw data that threatened to derail RUSADA’S conditional reinstatement if not handed over by the end of the year.
Access to the lab and data within that timeframe was a condition of WADA’S September decision to reinstate RUSADA.
The Russian authorities must also ensure that any re-analysis of samples required by WADA following the review of the laboratory data is completed no later than June 30 2019.
“Gaining full access to the laboratory and the data contained within it was the reason behind the 20 September decision (to reinstate RUSADA) and it is satisfying that we are another step closer to realizing that,” WADA Director General Olivier Niggli said in a statement on Friday.
“The raw data is the missing piece of the puzzle that will complement the duplicate LIMS (Laboratory Information Management System) database that is already in WADA’S possession and help conclude WADA’S Mclaren and Operation LIMS investigations.”
The WADA team led by independent expert Jose Antonio Pascual, a Spanish research scientist and academic with 30 years’ experience in anti-doping, is expected to require three days to complete the data extraction. That information will be used in conjunction with the re-analysis of samples to build cases against athletes who cheated. DOPING SCANDAL The decision to open up the Moscow lab could mark the end of the longrunning doping scandal that began in 2015 and rocked the sporting world, peventing Russian athletes from competing in two Olympics and world championships.