The ministry said it supports the WADA’s investigation, but doping allegations should be made against individual athletes, not the country in general, according to the report.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has a message for the U.S. Justice Department, which is reportedly investigating his country’s athletes for state-sponsored doping in the Sochi Winter Olympics: Your laws don’t apply to us.
The Epoch Times contacted the attorney’s office for the Eastern District of NY for a comment.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of NY is scrutinizing Russian government officials, athletes, coaches, anti-doping authorities and anyone who might have benefited unfairly from a doping regime, the Times said. American prosecutors can bring charges against foreigners living overseas, if they have some connection to the U.S., including the use of an American bank for payments or deposits linked to a crime. Rodchenkov is now one of the people under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department. He has since admitted to swapping urine samples sent for testing at the direction of the Russian government.
The Times said federal prosecutors are expected to scrutinize anyone who might have facilitated unclean competition in the United States or used the USA banking system to conduct a doping program.
A number of other testimonies and interviews have surfaced since that report, including a CBS news (“60 Minutes”) special on a whistleblower who claims to have sent proof of the scheme to WADA.
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During the Sochi Olympics, the director of the Russian anti-doping lab, Grigory Rodchenkov, said at least 15 medal winners were part of the state-sponsored doping program that had been planned for years to make sure the nation dominated the games. The news follows a warning from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that as many as 31 unnamed athletes, hailing from 12 nations and representing six sports, may be banned from the Rio de Janeiro games after a re-analysis of tests concluded that they used performance-enhancing drugs at the Beijing summer games, held in 2008.
