Montreal (AFP)

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) called on Monday the Sports Arbitration Tribunal (CAS), which it seized in early January of the Russian doping file, to have its hearings to determine whether Russia should be excluded from the next Olympic Games. Tokyo-2020 are public.

The CAS, headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland, must make a final decision on the exclusion for four years of Russia from any international competition, pronounced on December 9 by WADA to sanction the "manipulation" of control data. anti-doping, given to WADA by the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (Rusada).

"WADA's investigations into Russia, and this latest case of non-compliance, have aroused enormous interest worldwide," said director general of the anti-doping agency Olivier Niggli to justify the request.

"WADA - and many of its partners - believe that this CAS dispute should take place in a public environment so that everyone understands the process and hears the arguments," added Niggli, who was quoted as saying in the statement.

According to several sources close to the file interviewed by AFP in Lausanne, the CAS decision may not be made before May, two months before the start of the Tokyo Olympics on July 24, 2020.

WADA recalled that, despite the exclusion of Russia, Russian athletes will be able to participate under neutral flag in competitions provided that they prove that they are not involved in this vast affair.

This doping case institutionalized in Russia between 2011 and 2015 involves several cogs in the state, including the Ministry of Sports and the FSB secret service, according to several international surveys.

Since the end of 2015, international athletic competitions only accept selections of "neutral" Russian sportsmen, without the colors of the country. The white, blue and red flag was also not raised at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.

In early 2019, the submission of thousands of raw doping control data, stored on the servers of the former Moscow laboratory, should have closed the case.

But computer experts commissioned by WADA discovered that "hundreds" of suspicious results had been erased from this data, some between December 2018 and January 2019, just before their delivery by the Russian authorities to the world anti-doping policeman.

© 2020 AFP