MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 19th November, 2019) The executive committee of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) will discuss on December 9 recommendations issued by the independent Compliance Review Committee (CRC) concerning the status of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA), the agency said on Monday.
In September, WADA launched a formal compliance procedure against Russia and gave RUSADA three weeks to explain "inconsistencies" that the anti-doping watchdog found in data received from the Moscow anti-doping laboratory earlier this year. The agency's Intelligence and Investigations Department suspected that the records from the Moscow laboratory had been tampered with before being submitted. Russia sent responses to the data manipulation allegations to WADA on October 8.
"The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) confirms that WADA's independent Compliance Review Committee (CRC) met yesterday, 17 November, to consider a report from the Agency's Intelligence and Investigations Department (I&I) and independent forensic experts and, accordingly, to discuss the ongoing compliance procedure brought against the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA)," the agency said in a statement.
The CRC is now expected to bring a formal recommendation to the executive committee.
"The [executive committee] ExCo is scheduled to meet on 9 December to discuss the recommendation," the statement said.
It was also stressed that the report took into account "responses from the Russian authorities to a list of detailed and technical questions."
In October, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that Moscow was open for dialogue with WADA and ready to cooperate on the matter.
In 2015, RUSADA was banned by WADA over accusations of a large-scale state-sponsored doping scheme involving thousands of Russian athletes, coaches and officials. As a result, Russian athletes competed under the Olympic flag at the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea's Pyeongchang. Last September, the ban was lifted, and RUSADA was recognized as compliant under the key condition that Moscow would provide the agency with access to a massive database of athlete records.�
