President Vladimir Putin yesterday said Russia will give “every assistance” to World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) inspectors probing allegations of organised doping among its Olympic athletes.
“If there are any doubts, they need to be eliminated,” Putin said during a televised news conference in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.
“I have instructed the sports ministry and all the Russian government agencies and institutions to provide WADA inspectors with every assistance in organising their work.”
WADA is investigating sensational claims published in an interview with The New York Times with the former head of Russia’s anti-doping laboratory Grigory Rodchenkov, as well as allegations made by Vitaly Stepanov, a former employee of Russian anti-doping agency RUSADA.
Rodchenkov, who has fled to the United States, gave details of an organised doping campaign including at least 15 medallists during the Sochi Games, with the close involvement of the sports ministry and the FSB security service.
Putin said that the investigation into Russian athletes’ use of performance-enhancing drugs comes “against a backdrop of politically motivated restrictions in respect to our country”, referring to Western sanctions over Ukraine.
“But I hope that WADA’s actions are not in any way linked to this,” the Kremlin strongman said.
Russian prosecutors said Thursday that they have launched an inquiry into doping allegations involving athletes who competed at the Olympic Games in Beijing, London and Sochi, and would be requesting information from WADA.
The announcement came after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said that 31 athletes from 12 countries had failed doping tests following new examinations of samples taken during the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Russia meanwhile is scrambling to reform its scandal-ridden anti-doping programme in time for its track and field stars to compete at the Rio Olympics in August.
Athletics’ international governing body, the IAAF, provisionally suspended Russia in November over a bombshell report by WADA independent commission that found evidence of state-sponsored doping and mass corruption in Russian athletics.
The IAAF will rule on Russia’s participation at the Rio Games at an extraordinary Council meeting in Vienna next month.
The statement comes after WADA president Craig Reedie urged Russia to give WADA drug testers unfettered access to athletes in its so-called ‘closed cities’.
Reedie wrote to Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko two weeks after a German WADA official was threatened with deportation by Russia’s FSB intelligence service for trying to test a Paralympic athlete in the closed city of Tryokhgorny, according to a report in the Times of London.
“These kinds of actions are totally unacceptable and full access to these ‘closed cities’ must be guaranteed,” Reedie told the Times. The term refers to towns where Russia restricts the movements of foreigners because they are home to national security installations.
Reedie, who has been criticised in some media for appearing to take a soft line towards Moscow on the issue, said Russia was dragging its feet over improving its anti-doping system and ruled out compliance in time for the Rio Olympics, which start in August.
“We are having to deal very firmly with a never-ending set of issues in Russia.”
“I think it highly unlikely they will be compliant by the time of the Olympic Games. Our roadmap could take two years to implement at the current rate,” he said.