Russia seems set for another Olympic ban

● The prospect of Russia being banned from next year’s Olympics loomed closer this week when a World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) panel recommended the country’s drug-testing authority be declared noncompliant with international rules.

In a statement, Wada said its Compliance Review Committee (CRC) had recommended that the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (Rusada) be suspended again when the global anti-doping watchdog’s executive committee meets in Paris on December 9.

If Wada chiefs adopt the recommendation, Russia faces severe sanctions including a possible ban from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

The CRC issued its recommendation after asking Russia to explain “inconsistencies” in laboratory data handed over by Moscow to Wada investigators in January.

Full disclosure of data from the Moscow laboratory was a key condition of Russia’s controversial reinstatement by Wada in September 2018.

Rusada had been suspended for nearly three years over revelations of a vast, statebacked doping regime, which included a systematic conspiracy to switch tainted samples at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

Wada had previously warned that Russia would face the “most stringent sanctions” if any of the data handed over was found to have been tampered with.

In its statement, Wada said the CRC suggested “serious consequences in line with the International Standard for Code Compliance by Signatories”. The US Anti-Doping Agency, which was sharply critical of Wada’s decision to lift its suspension of Rusada, called for a lengthy ban following Friday’s announcement.

“Anything less than a four-year sanction for this critical violation that includes aggravating circumstances following years of denial and deceit would be another injustice in a long line of many for clean athletes,” Usada CE Travis Tygart said in e-mailed comments.

This week’s development is the latest twist to a saga that exploded in 2015, when an independent Wada commission investigating allegations of Russian doping said it had found evidence of a vast state-supported conspiracy stretching back years.

A 2016 report by Wada investigator Richard McLaren said more than 1,000 Russian competitors across multiple sports had benefited from the scheme from 2011-2015.

In an interview with AFP last month, Rusada chief Yuri Ganus appeared resigned to Russia getting an Olympic ban, accusing unidentified Moscow authorities of handing over falsified lab data to Wada.