The World Anti-Doping Agency continued to crack down on Russian Federation drug cheats on Wednesday by suspending the country’s anti-doping agency amid calls to extend investigations to other countries and sports.
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WADA’s foundation board unanimously passed a recommendation from a committee on Wednesday which found RUSADA non-compliant with the global body’s charter.
According to WADA, non-compliance with anti-doping regulations means that anti-doping organizations can not conduct operations until they reinstall the quality of their anti-doping programs.
The IAAF then provisionally suspended the All-Russia Athletic Federation (ARAF) from IAAF membership.
Mr Bouchard said Rusada had acknowledged a few of the breaches and “expressed full openness and willingness to work with Wada to address them”.
WADA voted Wednesday to find five other counties “non-compliant” with its standards, though for far less serious infractions than Russia’s.
Brazil, which will host next year’s Summer Olympics, France, Belgium, Greece, Mexico and Spain were placed on a compliance “watch list” and have until March to get their house in order and bring their anti-doping programs in line with the WADA Code.
The non-compliant countries have failed to responded fully to Wada’s request for information and Argentina, Bolivia and Ukraine have used non-accredited laboratories.
The WADA independent commission report which said Russian Federation was guilty of state-sponsored doping also added that it was not the only country “facing the problem of orchestrated doping in sport” and the pressure has intensified on Kenya.
On the money topic, Russia’s representative to the WADA board, deputy sports minister Pavel Kolobkov, said the Moscow lab that has already been decertified by WADA is in jeopardy of losing government funding.
Craig Reedie, WADA’s president, said for starters Russian will have to find a new roster of WADA-approved testers and scientists to manage the anti-doping testing program.
“The way I read the report, the testing that took place (at the Olympics) in Sochi is, at least suspect, and perhaps completely worthless”, Cobb said.
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“As we have seen from WADA’s immediate response to the Independent Commission’s report, action is now well underway to right wrongs that exist in anti-doping”. “Our athletes are concerned, particularly the elite athletes, because they feel they are being tarnished with the same brush as those tested positive”, he said.
