The documentary comes as the IAAF – track and field’s global governing body – prepares to decide on June 17 if Russian athletes will be banned from next month’s Summer Olympics in Rio.
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Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko on Thursday denied allegations in a German documentary that he intervened to hide a soccer player’s positive drug test, dismissing the report as “laughable” and “implausible”.
At the end, Seppelt meets with an experts who earlier worked for the German secret services, who compares Chegin’s photo with that on the footage, and says he is “95-99% percent sure” it was Chegin. “They are trying to get in from the other side”.
Ahead of a decision by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) on whether to reinstate the banned All-Russia Athletic Federation ahead of the Rio Olympics, a new documentary by the German broadcaster will claim on Wednesday that sports minister Vitaly Mutko blocked the reporting of a doping offence by a Russian footballer.
Pressure on Mutko mounted when the World Anti-Doping Association (WADA) publicized the results in November 2015 of a lengthy investigation charging Russian Federation with utilizing a systemic and widespread sports-doping program.
“The aim of this film is obvious: to influence the [IAAF] committee on the reinstatement of Russian athletics on the eve of its meeting”, Mutko told Interfax on June 8.
It came at a time when Russian Federation is hoping the IAAF will lift its suspension of Russia’s track and field athletes in time to compete in the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
“To control RUSADA’s reform process, two independent experts nominated by WADA are now leading their work”.
She has responded to these claims via Twitter, saying she was “upset and disappointed” by the programme’s allegations, as they are “untrue and made by one disgraced person who disagreed with me on the importance of fair and clean sport”.
As well as implicating Mutko, who is also the president of the Russian Football Union, chairman of the organising committee for the 2018 World Cup in Russia and a member of FIFA’s Council, Rodchenkov was also filmed in the ARD piece accusing Mutko’s advisor Natalia Zhelanova of obstructing anti-doping work.
“We are under some sort of a media attack”, he said, “however, the prosecutor general’s office is investigating all facts an I believe it is possible that criminal probes are to follow”.
“Rodchenkov works for the people that have given him refuge”.
“He hates me in all his interviews”.
“We regard this as absolute slander”, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in comments carried by state news agency TASS.
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When doping control samples are taken, they are divided into two samples: an “A” and a “B” sample, so that if the initial tests on the “A” sample come back showing a positive test for a banned substance, the athlete can request that their “B” sample be tested to verify the result.
