The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) decided on Thursday to lift the ban of the Russian Anti-doping Agency (RUSADA).
RUSADA had been banned since November 2015 for alleged state-sponsored doping. This announcement made WADA a barrage of criticism over its supposed indulgence.
Athlete Committees, Anti-Doping Agencies and many voices, especially in the United States and Western Europe, urged WADA not to lift sanctions against Russia.
“I have a written letter from Russia’s Minister of Sport accepting the conditions that we imposed for the reinstatement of RUSADA,” said WADA President Craig Reedie.
“One of them was to accept effectively the Schmidt report, which they did, and the important part there was an admission that there was involvement of officials from the Ministry of Sport.
“Secondly, they have guaranteed us access to the laboratory and the time limit we set was December 31. I take the view that it is unlikely that senior ministerial officials in Russia would make those guarantees when they weren’t prepared to make them.
The Executive Committee decided on a deadline – unspecified – by which RUSADA will have to give access to WADA to its samples and data from its Moscow laboratory.
If this date was not respected, the executive committee made a “clear commitment” to suspend the Russian agency again, according to the same source.
Access to these data and samples was initially one of the preconditions for lifting the sanctions against Rusada.
Rusia’ membership in the IAAF had been banned due to allegations of state-controlled doping. (Source:www.theindianexpress.com)
But WADA had announced last week that it had received an internal recommendation to lift the ban on RUSADA, decided in November 2015 at the beginning of the scandal that revealed the existence of an institutional doping system between 2011 and 2015 in Russia.
“It is better to move forward, above all to get access to the data we need because there are 2,800 samples we need to look at. It is really important that we have a functioning anti-doping agency in Moscow.” said Reedie.
“I can’t understand why people would prefer to do nothing and carry on with the situation that existed before when quite clearly there was no move at all from Russia to make any change on the two conditions that had been imposed.” added Reedie
