The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (Rusada) clash from November 2 to 5, 2020 in Switzerland, before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), the supreme body in matters of…

Anti-doping: the World Agency and Russia clash at the Court of Arbitration for Sport

The flags of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Russia (right).

Yuri KADOBNOV / AFP

Text by: David Kalfa Follow

5 mins

WADA wants Russia to be excluded from all competitions for four years, including the Olympics, if it does not make the progress claimed in recent years.

Rusada, she disputes the basis of sanctions pronounced in December 2019.

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The fate of Russia, one of the leading nations in world sport, will be played out largely in Switzerland, from November 2 to 5, 2020. It is before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), the supreme body in matters of sports disputes , that the country of Vladimir Putin will try to stop its banishment, which began in 2015 following the disclosure of organized doping at the highest level of this state.

Its anti-doping agency (Rusada) will indeed challenge before the CAS a range of sanctions proposed in December 2019 by WADA.

This includes excluding Russia from all major sports competitions - Olympic Games in Tokyo, Beijing and Paris included - for the next four years and prohibiting it from organizing any on its soil.

Only Russian athletes who can prove their integrity could thus line up under a neutral banner at the 2020, 2022 and 2024 Olympics.

A case that has lasted for more than ten years

The recurring suspicions surrounding Russia took on a new dimension in 2010. A long-distance runner (Yuliya Stepanova) and her husband, ex-controller of Rusada, then alerted WADA to the subject of institutionalized doping in their country.

In 2014, the couple also contributed to a series of documentaries for the German channel ARD.

In November 2015, WADA rose to the front by demanding the suspension of the Russian Athletics Federation (Rusaf) for the 2016 Olympic Games. In July 2016, the latter assured in a new report that Russia had set up a "

system state doping

", involving even its secret services (FSB), during the Olympic Games in Sochi in 2014. The said report was fueled by the accusations of Grigory Rodchenkov.

The former boss of the Russian anti-doping laboratory, a refugee in the United States, claims to have orchestrated the cover-up of doping there in coordination with the Ministry of Sports, then headed by Vitaly Mutko, a close friend of Putin.

In December 2016, the Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren submitted a final version of his investigation covering the period 2011-2015.

He implicates nearly 1,000 Russian athletes from around thirty different disciplines.

Threats not always followed by effects

Despite WADA's countless accusations, Russia and its representatives have not always been punished.

For the 2016 Olympics, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) thus leaves the responsibility to each sport to ban or not suspected Russian athletes;

nearly 280 are thus accepted in Rio and 111 banned.

Very criticized decisions.

For the 2018 Winter Olympics, the IOC this time decrees the suspension of Russia.

But, just before the Pyeongchang Games, the Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned the life suspension of 28 of the 43 Russian athletes sanctioned by the IOC, partially disavowing the latter.

“

The evidence was insufficient,

” says CAS.

Thus, in total, 168 Russians travel to South Korea, either under their flag or under a neutral banner.

Progress deemed insufficient

At the same time, Moscow is playing the apparent strategy of appeasement.

WADA too, which voted for the reinstatement of the Russian Agency (Rusada) in September 2018, after three years of exclusion.

However, this is subject to conditions, including access to past data and samples from the Moscow anti-doping laboratory.

In December 2019, WADA believed, however, that it had been fooled: many elements transmitted had been falsified or erased by Russia.

The World Anti-Doping Agency then uses the new power given to it in April 2018: to exclude a nation from all major sporting events.

What Rusada now disputes.

Sanctions founded or not?

At the end of 2019, the Russian Agency denied any wrongdoing.

She rejects WADA's allegations and the conditions for her reinstatement.

In January 2020, WADA then decided to attack Rusada's refusal not to admit his wrongs before the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The task that awaits the three CAS referees promises to be enormous and will have serious consequences on the sports world.

The Australian Mark L. Williams, the Italian Luigi Fumagalli and the Franco-Iranian Hamid G. Gharavi will lead the proceedings over the next few days in an undisclosed location in Switzerland, sheltered from the media in particular.

They will deliver their eagerly awaited conclusions at a still undisclosed date.

Anti-doping: the World Agency and Russia clash at the Court of Arbitration for Sport

Anti-doping: the World Agency and Russia clash at the Court of Arbitration for Sport

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