Moscow (AFP)
Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia was complying with global anti-doping requirements, at a time when Moscow faces new sanctions and its own anti-doping leader has accused the authorities of manipulations.
"We are actively working with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) whose demands on Russia are fully respected," Vladimir Putin told a sport forum.
"Our athletes are the first to want all the shortcomings related to the issue of doping to be relegated to the past so that Russian athletes can participate without restrictions" in international competitions, he added from Nizhny Novgorod.
Vladimir Putin's statements come as Rusan Anti-Doping Agency (Yuri Ganous) boss has twice openly accused his country's sporting authorities twice of manipulating electronic data submitted to WADA .
"The Russian sports authorities, the very ones that were supposed to solve the doping crisis that has been going on for five years now, shocked the world once again with manipulations, this time from databases," wrote the head of state on Tuesday. appointed two years ago to rebuild Russian anti-doping, after the revelations in 2015 about an institutional doping system in the country.
According to Ganous, the authorities are "pushing (Russian) sport into the crisis" and the national media peddle "false propaganda" on the subject.
In the wake of this letter, largely unnoticed in Russia, Ganous on Wednesday gave an interview to the German magazine Der Spiegel where he repeated his accusations and warned that the Russian sport again risked heavy penalties.
- 'Scientific evidence' -
According to him, "the sanctions will be very tough, because this is not the first time that Russia violates the rules." Russia's participation in Tokyo 2020 and Beijing 2022 is at stake.
Remarks the severity of which contrasts with the assurances of the Russian Minister of Sports Pavel Kolobkov.
He said Tuesday he had satisfied the 30 requests made in September by the WADA on "inconsistencies" found in the electronic data of the former Moscow laboratory, the source of recent suspicions of manipulation.
Forensic experts need to look at these Russian responses, and on October 23, the WADA Compliance Review Committee (CRC), which has the authority to recommend sanctions, must meet with these experts.
An anti-doping actor, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP this week that WADA teams had "scientific and technical evidence that data was erased from the databases transmitted. "by Moscow.
The release of these data by Russia at the beginning of the year had allowed an early exit from the crisis, the AMA having made it a strict condition after having lifted, in September 2018, the suspension of Rusada, decreed in November 2015.
The scandal led the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to ban the Russian Olympic flag and anthem for the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, even though a selection of "Russian Olympic athletes" had been admitted. Russian emblems have also been removed from any international athletics competition since November 2015, including the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and the London (2017) and Doha World Championships this fall.
At the next WADA Executive Committee, announced in early November in Poland, the Russian question should be high on the agenda.
© 2019 AFP