WADA Foundation Board refuses to reinstate Russian anti-doping agency

SEOUL. KAZINFORM The Foundation Board of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has refused to recognize Russian anti-doping agency RUSADA as compliant with the international code. The decision was taken at the WADA Foundation Board Meeting that is being held in Seoul on Thursday, TASS reports.

Ahead of the vote, the WADA Compliance Review Committee issued a recommendation on non-compliance of RUSADA with the WADA code. During the official vote, WADA head Craig Reedie asked whether the Foundation Board members had doubts about the preservation of RUSADA's status. Receiving no objections, Reedie declared the decision to prolong the status of non-compliance for RUSADA.

The reason was the failure to fulfil two reinstatement criteria by the Russian side. The first criteria demands public recognition of the findings by the WADA independent commission headed by Richard McLaren about the existence of a state doping system, and the second criteria demands provision of access to doping probes that are sealed in the Moscow anti-doping laboratory due to the ongoing federal investigation. According to the Chair of the Compliance Review Committee Jonathan Taylor, the access of WADA employees and inspectors to closed cities also remains a problem.

Russian Sports Minister Pavel Kolobkov spoke at the WADA executive committee that preceded the Foundation Board Meeting. He declared there that Russia recognized the importance of the information contained in McLaren's report, but the document contains a lot of inconsistencies, so it still remains to learn what is true and what is not.

RUSADA was recognized as non-compliant to the WADA code in November 2015. After that, RUSADA and WADA coordinated a roadmap to restore the Russian anti-doping system.