Doping scandal: WADA to decide whether Russia is in compliance with code

Athletes have called for Russia to be banned from competing in the Pyeongchang Olympics. So have leaders from National Anti-Doping Organizations.

But the World Anti-Doping Agency, the global regulator, has been mum on its recommendation three weeks before the International Olympic Committee is set to consider what sanction Russia might face for operating a state-sponsored doping system.

Without WADA calling for a ban, as it did before the Rio Olympics last year, its stakeholders are looking to its foundation board meeting in Seoul on Thursday during which it will decide whether the Russian Anti-Doping Agency will be declared compliant with the world anti-doping code for the first time in two years.

Maintaining RUSADA’s non-compliant status seems obvious to anti-doping leaders following continued and increased rhetoric last week from Russian officials declaring that the country had not run a state-sponsored doping system.

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“If it’s still not regarded as compliant, that’s a further hurdle — ethical or political or practical — that affects the IOC,” said Dick Pound, a Canadian IOC member and member of WADA’s foundation board. “It’s gonna be hard for the IOC to say, notwithstanding the fact that there’s no accredited laboratory in Russia and there’s no accredited national anti-doping agency that we can ignore all that. All these pressures are building up.”

WADA declared RUSADA non-compliant with the world anti-doping code in November 2015 after an investigation led by Pound found widespread doping in Russian track and field.

In July 2016, a WADA-commissioned investigation by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren into information Grigory Rodchenkov, the former director of the Moscow lab, brought forward revealed a system of sample tampering during the 2014 Sochi Olympics that included passing urine samples through a hole in the wall.

McLaren’s final report showed more than 1,000 Russian athletes were involved in the state-sponsored system and mentioned 28 Russian athletes who competed in Sochi where evidence showed their samples had been tampered with.

WADA instituted a roadmap to compliance for RUSADA, of which the agency has satisfied nearly 20 criteria. Many are technical and personnel changes, and RUSADA has been able to conduct limited testing. WADA audited RUSADA in September.

Of the dozen remaining criteria, two loom largest — that Russian officials must accept the McLaren report’s findings and that the government must give WADA access to electronic data and samples from the Moscow lab.

In an interview with Reuters last week, WADA director general Olivier Niggli stressed the roadmap to compliance won’t be changed.

“We will not consider that they have fulfilled the conditions as long as there are still conditions on the roadmap that have not been fulfilled,” he said.

WADA declined to make Niggli available for an interview and did not respond to emailed questions from USA TODAY Sports.

Instead, WADA pointed to a statement it gave after revealing on Friday that it received digital data late last month on drug tests run on Russian athletes at the Moscow laboratory. WADA president Craig Reedie said the agency stands behind the McLaren report and reiterated the requirement that Russian officials accept its findings.

The New York Times, which first reported the news of WADA receiving the data, cited an anonymous source who said it came from a whistleblower and not through official channels.

“There seem to be quite a number of very important criteria that have yet to be dealt with,” said Joseph de Pencier, CEO of the Institute of National Anti-Doping Organizations, “and therefore I’d be very surprised if WADA took any other decision but to say we cannot make any determination that RUSADA is code compliant.”

After WADA revealed that it had the data, which it believes to be the Moscow lab’s database covering all testing from January 2012 until August 2015, a Russian investigative committee looking into doping said it is ready to cooperate with WADA.

That comes after vehement denials last week from Russian officials who said there was no state-sponsored doping system.

Russian news agency TASS reported that sports minister Pavel Kolobkov said the investigative committee found no evidence to support the state operated a doping system. That committee seeks Rodchenkov’s extradition from the United States, where he is in witness protection.

Despite assertions from Russian officials that no system existed, “empirical evidence is totally to the contrary,” Pound said, adding, “so I think what we’re seeing in the Russian press is for domestic consumption.”

Absent a recommendation from WADA to the IOC, leaders from NADOs have stepped in to call for sanctions of Russia similar to what WADA recommended before Rio.

In September, leaders from 17 National Anti-Doping Organizations, including the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, called for a ban of Russia with a path for Russians to compete as neutral athletes provided they can demonstrate their anti-doping record. An additional 20 NADOs have signed on.

Without WADA weighing in, NADO leaders feel compelled to fill a void.

“We’d all love to go back to doing what we do on a daily basis in our own countries,” said USADA CEO Travis Tygart. “The problem is it’s a global system, and when those at the top are not fulfilling the promise the way our athletes are demanding we have to take that on our shoulders and be part of the responsibility and stand next to them, the clean athletes, to ensure that politics and other issues don’t get in the way of protecting their rights.”

The IOC will decide on any sanctions for Russia at its executive board meeting Dec. 5-7.

Already, a commission chaired by IOC member Denis Oswald has held hearings leading to sanctions against six Russian skiers.

With even more evidence now than it had in July 2016 when it recommended a ban — including the potential for more in electronic data it received — WADA should be in a place to make a similar recommendation, anti-doping leaders argued.

“I would say that all the information we have on the public record, and I suspect information that isn’t yet on the public record, suggests WADA’s call before Rio was the correct one and that there is no reason now to change that call,” de Pencier said. “If WADA needs to make a pronouncement, then it should be making the same one.”