Russia expecting end to two-year WADA ban – anti-doping boss
The Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) expects a two-year ban imposed by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to come to an end in December, with general director Veronika Loginova stating that the organization had made every effort to restore full compliance status.
“We are waiting for the restoration [of compliance status]. We’ve gone through the audit, we’re waiting for the result,” Loginova told journalists on Wednesday, as quoted by TASS.
“We’re implementing all the decisions of December 17 [2020 – when the ban was imposed]. We’re implementing everything and counting on a positive decision.”
WADA carried out an online audit of RUSADA earlier in September as part of the roadmap towards the reinstatement of the Russian organization’s status.
Russia was initially handed a four-year ban from major international sporting events in December 2019, after allegations that a Moscow anti-doping laboratory had deliberately manipulated data sent to WADA.
By that stage, Russia was already embroiled in a long-running doping scandal stemming from accusations of state-sponsored doping of athletes – something the country has vehemently denied.
The four-year ban imposed by WADA was challenged by Russia at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Switzerland, which halved the sanction to two years in a decision issued on December 17, 2020.
The punishment still meant that Russian athletes and teams were forced to compete under neutral status at numerous major sporting events until the ban expired.
The nation’s athletes appeared at the Tokyo 2020 and Beijing 2022 Olympic Games under the banner of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC).
WADA president Witold Banka said earlier this month that “an open line of communication” remains with colleagues in Russia.
“We have to wait for the end of the year, we monitor what they are doing, let’s see in the next weeks or months what happens in terms of [readmitting] them to the system,” said the Polish official.
