Mutko said the criminalization legislation also is aimed at showing Russian Federation is purging its sports programs of dopers to bring the doping scandal to an end.
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Russian Athletics has been embroiled in a doping controversy for months and the International Olympic Committee has threatened to suspend 31 Russian athletes from competing at this year’s Rio Olympics.
A decision regarding the suspension of Russian Federation for the 2016 Rio Olympics will be made on June 17.
The criteria include a provision that any potential participant in the Olympic Games caught in doping abuse in previous years can not be a member of the Russian national team at the forthcoming Olympics in Rio. The competitors ranged from 12 countries and six different sports.
Fourteen Russians athletes, including 10 medallists from the Beijing Olympics, have tested positive for doping following a reanalysis of their samples, the Russian Olympic Committee revealed.. The failed samples may result in the loss of nine medals.
The Russian national team could be banned from the upcoming Olympic Games in Brazil August 5-21 amid several major doping scandals in the country’s sports, reports Tass.
The country’s original anti-doping law approved jail sentences of up to a year for doping offences, after WADA had given authorities until May 2 to make necessary changes to its anti-drugs measures.
Pressure to bar Russian Federation from the Olympics has already grown after UK Anti-Doping recently revealed its testing operation in the country had been hampered by a number of obstacles.
Dikunets said she was “very surprised” by Rodchenkov’s allegations and denied any malpractice among her laboratory staff at the Sochi facility but declined to comment on Rodchenkov’s work.
“We built them a lab at great expense, installed the newest equipment, and then handed it over to the International Olympic Committee”, he said.
“WADA put 18 of its experts in there and they worked in shifts around the clock, all watched by cameras”. Formal positive cases are not declared until the “B” samples are also tested and confirm the original findings.
“We are spending billions of dollars on sport”.
“We cooperate with WADA and are ready to fulfil all the regulations they are introducing”.
Russian sports has been in the centre of doping-related scandals since a year ago.
WADA’s independent commission published on November 9 a year ago the results of its probe into the activity of ARAF, the Moscow anti-doping laboratory, RUSADA and the Russian sports ministry. Should the country be allowed back into the global fold, the All-Russian Athletics Federation has announced that it will not select anyone convicted of doping offences “in recent years” for the Rio Olympics.
As of January 2016, 18 Kenyan athletes were suspended for doping. “We’re a sports family”, he said. “But it won’t be in our hands – it will be in WADA’s hands”.
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In a later online statement, the Russian Sports Ministry said it was “extremely disappointed” by the report, adding “any athletes found cheating should face corresponding sanctions”.
