Russian doping agency wins support

A key review committee changed directions suddenly this week, and is recommending Russia’s anti-doping agency be reinstated after a nearly three-year suspension resulting from the country’s scheme to circumvent rules and win Olympic medals.

The World Anti-Doping Agency released a statement Friday saying its compliance review committee was satisfied with Russian promises to fulfill two key criteria for RUSADA’s reinstatement: That authorities provide access to data that could help corroborate positive tests uncovered during the investigation into the doping scandal, and that Russian sports entities publically accept that there was a widespread, government-directed effort to manipulate drug tests in order to win medals.

The compliance committee’s recommendation came a day after the BBC published a WADA document that was to be distributed at next week’s executive-committee meeting, saying neither of the criteria had been satisfied and that it would not recommend reinstatement.

That document is marked as an agenda item for the Sept. 21 meeting of the WADA executive committee.

Russian sports minister Pavel Kolobkov told the Russian state news agency Tass that he was sure “sooner or later, the WADA compliance committee would recognize the huge amount of work which has been done in Russia to fight doping.”

“We have always strived for cooperation and have done everything required of us, bearing in mind our legal norms. We are open to the maximum because we have nothing to hide,” Kolobkov said.