Russia’s anti-doping agency chiefs resign
President Putin pledges to eradicate doping from country’s athletics
>> MOSCOW: The leadership of Russian anti-doping agency Rusada has resigned following President Vladimir Putin’s pledge to crack down on athletes, trainers and officials involved in doping, an agency spokeswoman said on Thursday.
It is the latest in a string of events that unravelled following scandalous allegations of state-sanctioned doping in Russian athletics, as officials are trying to keep up hopes of track and field stars competing at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
“All four leaders of Rusada, including [acting director] Nikita Kamayev, have resigned,” a Rusada spokeswoman told AFP. “Anna Antseliovich has been named interim general director.”
Rusada came under fire in a report published in November by a World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) independent commission that alleged the Russian agency “routinely” violated international testing standards and allowed suspended athletes to compete.
Rusada’s announcement came shortly after Putin called for Russian officials, trainers and athletes to take responsibility for engaging in or abetting doping.
“Responsibility should always be personal, if it is proved,” Putin said at his annual press conference. “Those who are guilty — a coach, an organiser, an athlete — they have to answer [for their actions].”
“I will demand that all bureaucrats of all levels from all departments work openly with international structures, that they not camouflage or hide anything,” Putin added.
Rusada’s general director, Ramil Khabriev, had resigned earlier this month as a team of experts from Wada began work in Moscow to help Russia clean up its act.
The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) provisionally suspended Russia in November, and both Rusada and Moscow’s anti-doping laboratory were suspended over the bombshell report.
Russian officials have vowed to reinstate the national athletics federation in time for track and field athletes to compete in next summer’s Olympic Games and to fight the use of performance enhancing drugs in sport.
“We are against any kind of doping, first of all because doping destroys people’s health,” Putin said on Thursday. “Those who resort to doping, of course, must be punished accordingly.”
Although Russia has fully accepted its suspension by the IAAF, Putin, top sports officials and track and field stars have deplored that the ban violates clean athletes’ right to compete on the international stage.
“Those who have nothing to do with this [doping] should not have to answer for those who violate [rules],” Putin said. “This is nonsense. It is unfair and wrong.”
Putin, a judo enthusiast who occasionally plays pick-up hockey with government officials and former NHL stars, assured that he stayed in shape “absolutely without doping”.
After Russian officials initially dismissed Wada’s claims as “groundless”, Putin said that Russia must “do everything” to eradicate doping.