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RUSSIA-DOPING-POLITICS
Putin says Russia complying with all World Anti-Doping Agency demands
MOSCOW, Oct 10, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – President Vladimir Putin said on
Thursday that Moscow was complying with all of the World Anti-Doping Agency’s
demands, as Russia faces a another possible ban in the build-up to the Tokyo
Olympics.
“We are actively cooperating with WADA. The requirements presented by this
organisation are being fully complied with,” Putin told a sports conference
in the city of Nizhny Novgorod.
“Our athletes are, above all, concerned with ensuring that any
shortcomings relating to anti-doping issues remain in the past and that
Russian athletes can compete on an equal footing,” he said.
Russia stands to be declared non-compliant by WADA if it fails to explain
why evidence of some positive tests handed over by a whistleblower does not
show up in data provided by Moscow’s anti-doping laboratory in January.
In September, WADA gave Moscow three weeks to respond to what it said were
“inconsistencies” in the data.
This week the agency said it had received a response.
Russian sports minister Pavel Kolobkov said the response addressed “all
requirements.”
On Wednesday, Russia’s anti-doping agency chief Yuri Ganus told German
media he believed data handed over from Moscow to WADA had been intentionally
manipulated.
Russia’s Athletics Federation has been banned from international
competition since 2015 over a vast state-run doping conspiracy, and the
International Association of Athletics Federations last month extended the
ban.
BSS/AFP/BZC/1830