BERLIN – Russia faces being declared non-compliant again by the
World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) which on Tuesday expressed bitter
disappointment that Russia has not met a key deadline.
WADA controversially lifted the suspension of of the Russian agency
Rusada in September, under two conditions, one of them gaining access
by December 31 to data in Moscow's anti-doping laboratory.
Experts from WADA left Moscow empty-handed on December 21 after
Russian authorities demanded WADA certify their equipment under
Russian law.
WADA said Tuesday that no further visit has followed and that the
deadline "has elapsed without the data having been retrieved" from
the lab.
"I am bitterly disappointed that data extraction from the former
Moscow Laboratory has not been completed by the date agreed by WADA's
ExCo in September 2018," WADA chief Craig Reedie said in a statement.
"Since then, WADA has been working diligently with the Russian
authorities to meet the deadline, which was clearly in the best
interest of clean sport. The process agreed by WADA's ExCo in
September will now be initiated."
The WADA Compliance Review Committee meets January 14 and 15 and will
make a recommendation to the WADA ExCo. It said it has also notified
Russian sports minister Pavel Kolobkov.
Russia faces another suspension but WADA also left the door open for
them.
"Given the importance for clean sport of access to, and subsequent
authentication and analysis of, the data from the former Moscow
Laboratory in order to build strong cases against cheats and
exonerate other athletes, WADA experts continue to be ready to
proceed with extraction of the data should the issue reported upon on
21 December be resolved by the Russian authorities," it said.