RPT: PREVIEW - WADA To Decide Monday On 4-Year Sporting Events Ban For Russia

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 09th December, 2019) The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) will consider Russia's suspected noncompliance with its rules on Monday, which could potentially bar it from competing in the upcoming Olympics in Tokyo and Beijing.

The WADA Executive Committee will meet in the Swiss city of Lausanne to look into recommendations of its Compliance Review Committee (CRC), which said Russia had tampered with data from its Moscow lab.

Russia had to hand over data from the now defunct test lab as a condition for its reinstatement in 2018 after a three-year ban from sports over claims that its government ran a doping cover-up scheme.

CRC studied the lab data it obtained in January and concluded that it was "neither complete nor fully authentic."

The watchdog suspects that hundreds of presumably positive test results were wiped out of the system and instead evidence was planted to incriminate Russian officials who blew the whistle on the alleged doping abuse.

CRC suggested that for the next four years Russia should again be barred from sending an official team to sports events, while athletes who prove to be clean should be allowed to participate as neutrals.

Russia should also be prohibited from hosting any major events or fly its flag at them, while Russian government officials and representatives may not sit on any sports panels or attend major sports events.

The committee recommended that WADA send a formal notice to Russia's anti-doping authority RUSADA this week, asserting its noncompliance and demanding an authentic copy of the Moscow lab data.

Should the executive committee accept CRC's recommendations on Monday, RUSADA will have 21 days to comply or take the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. If the WADA panel rejects CRC's findings they will be returned to the committee for a review.