Paris (AFP)

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has deprived the Moscow laboratory of its authority to analyze "blood samples as part of the athlete's biological passport program," the Montreal-based agency said on Wednesday.

"This measure, says WADA, was taken in light of the decision of December 9", which prohibits Russia from participating for four years in major international events, including the 2020 and 2022 Olympics and the World Cup football 2022.

Since 2015 and the revelation of an institutionalized doping system in Russia, the anti-doping laboratory in the Russian capital had already lost its WADA accreditation authorizing it to conduct doping controls but had been rehabilitated in May 2016 to carry out analyzes in connection with the organic passport only.

"It is practically impossible for the laboratories to interfere with the blood variables of the samples (in the context of the biological passport)", said Wednesday in a press release the AMA which finally decided to suspend the authorization of the laboratory at the heart of the scandal of Russian doping.

According to the "McLaren report" commissioned by WADA, it was remote-controlled by the Ministry of Sports, which asked it to launder more than 500 positive controls between 2011 and 2015.

This is one of the reasons why WADA demanded to recover all the raw data from the lab controls. Until computer experts commissioned by the agency discover that the data, released in early 2019, had undergone numerous alterations, including "hundreds" of deleted suspect results.

The drop of too much having provoked the unprecedented series of sanctions against Russia, which appealed to the Arbitration Tribunal for Sport (CAS) for its exclusion from the Olympic Games 2020 and 2022.

© 2020 AFP