“It does not mean that the athletes will be stopped from participating in the Olympic Games”. But in Moscow, top officials called it a treacherous attempt to besmirch Russian sport. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman denounced them as “a turncoat’s libel”.
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Alexander Legkov, Maxim Vylegzhanin and Ilia Chernousov at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics.
Alexander Zubkov, a veteran bobsledder who won two gold medals in Sochi, echoed his sentiment. Larry is our main news editor.
That no-notice testing policy is a hallmark of the US’ anti-doping program – an intrusive part of life for thousands of US athletes that, Holcomb says, makes him “frenemies” with US Anti-Doping Agency CEO Travis Tygart.
The allegations are only the latest against Russian Federation and only further raise questions about anti-doping and WADA’s response to whistleblowers. However, Rodchenkov said that as many as 100 dirty urine samples were expunged during the Games.
Grigory Rodchenkov told the paper he developed a three-drug cocktail that was given to dozens of athletes, but those claims drew short shrift from a Kremlin spokesman.
Holcomb, who won gold in the four-man bobsled in Vancouver, said his emotions ranged from anger to resignation as he read the news on Thursday.
Korir, a former Boston marathon victor who has led a campaign to criminalise doping and has been selected for Kenya’s Olympics team, said tinkering with the bill was “completely unacceptable” and called on the sports ministry to reveal where and how mistakes were made. “The claims made in the program offer real cause for concern, as they contain new allegations regarding attempts to subvert the anti-doping process at the Sochi Games”.
WADA does not have the authority to actively introduce a suspension, but the decision regarding Rio 2016 can still be overturned by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
“It is all nonsense and slander directed at Russian sportsmen, who took part in the Olympics”.
Following the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) declaration that Kenya is in violation of doping laws, Kenya was cleared by the IAAF on Friday to compete in the Rio Olympics.
The IAAF said in a statement to The Associated Press that Kenya remains on a “monitoring list” of countries with doping problems until the end of the year.
In a dark-of-night operation, Russian antidoping experts and members of the intelligence service surreptitiously replaced urine samples tainted by performance-enhancing drugs with clean urine collected months earlier, somehow breaking into the supposedly tamper-proof bottles that are the standard at worldwide competitions, Dr. Rodchenkov said.
“It is a kind of a political game aimed against Russia”, Legkov said.
“Yes, we are considering a lawsuit”, he said. He said the problem areas can be “rewritten or rectified”.
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“He knows where all the bodies are buried”, Dick Pound, the Canadian lawyer who served two terms as WADA president, said at the agency’s board meeting in Montreal on Thursday.
