World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) retained the compliance status of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA). WADA made this decision during its meeting on January 22. CEO of the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) Travis Tygart and Western sportsmen have earlier encouraged to withdraw RUSADA’s status and bring Russian sport back to international isolation, Gazeta.ru informs.
All 11 members of WADA’s Executive Committee voted for remaining in force the decision to keep RUSADA’s status, which was made in September of 2018. The possibility of status withdrawal has begun to be discussed in the beginning of the year. The experts of WADA could not copy data from Moscow anti-doping laboratory in 2018 for several reasons, although that was one of the mandatory requirements for status return. The delay was eliminated fast, and the representatives of the organization started their work in Moscow in the middle of January.
Several international organizations and sportsmen that consistently opposed the restoration of Russian sport’s status after doping scandals encouraged WADA to isolate Russia again, but members of its Executive Committee considered the delay a minor violation. WADA Compliance Committee also made a positive assessment of the audit in RUSADA in the end of 2018.
Russian Minister of Sport Pavel Kolobkov called WADA’s decision a result of intensive work of Russian sport officials with the experts of agency. According to him, Russian party has provided WADA all analytics and servers data about doping tests. Minister expressed his hope to the continued cooperation with WADA.
As Russkiy Mir reported, RUSADA’s membership in WADA has been put on hold in 2015. Because of that, many Russian sportsmen could not participate in major sport events after unverified accusations.