POUND LIKENS WADA CRITICS ON RUSADA TO ‘LYNCH MOB’

RICHARD POUND stressed the negative response to Russia’s failure to open up the Moscow Laboratory by the December 31 deadline is like a “lynch mob.”

The Canadian, the founding president of the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) who sits on the organization’s Foundation Board, made the comments in an exclusive blog for insidethegames.

Wada has faced frequent attacks after the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (Rusada) failed to hand over key data from its laboratory within the agreed time frame.

Doing so was a compulsory condition set when Wada controversially reinstated Rusada in September after a suspension stretching back to 2015.

A Wada team did travel to Moscow but were turned away empty-handed by Russian authorities who claimed the equipment they wanted to use had not been certified under the country’s law.

It meant the crucial Laboratory Information Management System— which Wada say could help catch more drugs cheats while clearing others— could not be obtained.

Critics reacted by saying that the “gamble” to reinstate Rusada had not worked while claiming it was obvious that such a scenario would take place.

The chief executive of the United States Anti-Doping Agency Travis Tygart described the situation as a “total joke and an embarrassment” but Pound has launched a hard-hitting defense of Wada.

Lynch mobs are just that—unruly gangs having a single objective, murdering someone without any due process of justice, he said.

“Much of the response to Russia’s failure to provide access to the former Moscow laboratory data by the deadline imposed by the World Anti-Doping Agency’s Executive Committee in September 2018 has all the elements of a lynch mob.

“Many of those making up the mob know or should know that they are out of line.

“What is their real end-game? “Many others are not familiar enough with the issues to have such strident views and still more have not bothered to inform themselves.”

Wada’s independent Compliance Review Committee is now due to review the Russia situation at a meeting on January 14 and 15 in Montreal, with Rusada facing another ban.

This has also been questioned with critics claiming a meeting should have been convened immediately to ban Rusada again without delay.

Pound said that doing this could not happen as due legal process means Russia needs to have the chance to respond.