Zeppelt's syndrome: in the ROC responded to reports of a possible removal of Russia from participation in the 2020 Olympics

On Monday, September 23, a meeting of the executive committee of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) will be held in Tokyo. Shortly before this event, a number of Western media again raised the topic of doping in Russia, and also talked about the possible removal of domestic athletes from the 2020 Olympics.

Commenting on these publications, the spokesman for the Russian Olympic Committee, Konstantin Vybornov, called rumors information about the "threat" of the removal of the Russian Federation from the 2020 Games. In an interview with the Moscow Says radio station, he urged journalists to wait for official information on this to appear.

“We are rumors, we never comment on media information. This is already standard practice, it was written by our German favorite journalist. We will definitely never comment on him, ”Vybornov emphasized.

The first with a new portion of the accusations was the German journalist Hajo Zeppelt, who repeatedly raised this topic and shot several documentaries about doping in Russia. He said that WADA allegedly suspects the Russian Federation of manipulating the data of the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory, which were transferred to the organization in early 2019 as part of the fulfillment of one of the key conditions for the restoration of the rights of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA).

According to Seppelt, the process of recognizing RUSADA’s activity as not complying with the WADA code has already been launched, that is, the organization may wait for re-suspension (its functionality was significantly limited in 2015-2018). The German journalist said that the WADA compliance committee, which checks the activities of national anti-doping agencies, should inform the executive committee of the world agency in the near future.

WADA has not yet commented on this information. In RUSADA, they were assured that at the moment there are no grounds for reviewing the status of the organization.

“There has not yet been an official report from the investigations department to the WADA Compliance Committee, so no recommendations on the status of RUSADA from the committee will be heard at the nearest executive committee in Tokyo. No official statements have been received from all involved parties, ”Margarita Pakhnotskaya, RUSADA Deputy Director General, told TASS.

The transfer of the Moscow Laboratory database took place in January 2019. Initially, RUSADA was required to complete the procedure in December, but due to technical problems, the deadline was briefly extended. The information was passed to WADA forensics, who had to carefully verify it. RUSADA was informed that if in the course of investigative actions traces of a database hacking or falsification were discovered, new sanctions would be more severe than in the past.

In May 2019, the agency noted a “high percentage of authenticity” of the data and their almost complete correspondence to the copy received from the informant in 2017. WADA did not consider the partial discrepancy of data to be a sign of falsification.

It was reported that the information provided may indicate anti-doping rule violations in the period up to 2015 and become a reason for new disqualifications of athletes. In June, WADA stated that 298 athletes were suspected, and the evidence base for 43 of them was sent to international sports federations, which had to deal with newly identified cases. In particular, the International Weightlifting Federation has already managed to remove 12 Russian weightlifters precisely on the basis of data from the Moscow laboratory.

Seppelt did not specify what kind of “falsification” could have been if WADA since 2017 had a copy of the data, which was almost completely confirmed after being removed from the Moscow laboratory.

Despite the lack of official information on this topic, a number of publications have already hastened to declare possible far-reaching consequences for Russia. So, The Telegraph and Associated Press, citing their anonymous sources, said that Russia could face removal from the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

This is due to the fact that, according to the current rules, the punishment of the national anti-doping agency leads to the fact that the country loses the right to host international competitions, and its athletes - to participate in them, including in the Olympic Games. Jonathan Taylor, chairman of the WADA Compliance Committee, previously warned of these sanctions in the event of cases of database manipulation.

The Telegraph also reported that the question of the removal of RUSADA will be considered on September 23, without specifying, however, what exactly is the essence of the claims against the Russian side. According to journalists, evidence of alleged manipulations will be presented within the next two months.