Russia’s Athletics Federation (VFLA) president Valentin Balakhnichev wants doping to become a criminal offense in his country, he said on Friday.
“We need to treat doping as a class A drug,” the 65-year-old Balakhnichev, who is to leave his post this month, told reporters.
Russian athletics has recently been rocked by a number of doping revelations. Three Olympic walk champions, Olga Kaniskina, Valery Borchin and Sergei Kirdyapkin, were found guilty of doping offenses and handed long bans last month.
This led Russian athletics team head coach Valentin Maslakov to resign on Jan. 23, while Balakhnichev said he will step down on Feb. 17, having been president since 1990.
Russian anti-doping agency RUSADA suspended a number of athletes last month, including Kaniskina, Borchin and Kirdyapkin.
A German television documentary, broadcast by ZDF/ARD in December last year, alleged systematic doping in Russian sport.
It featured an undercover video of what it said were athletes and coaches admitting covering up positive drug tests.
The allegations have not been verified by reporters and Balakhnichev has previously denounced them as “a pack of lies.”
He conceded that the past two months had been the hardest of his 25 years as federation president, but defended his record.
“This has not been a shameful period,” Balakhnichev said. “It has been a period where we are continuing the fight against doping, which I have led for all these years.”
“We are constantly updating the anti-doping laws,” he added. “In 2008, we created the independent RUSADA anti-doping agency, while we have made our coaches more answerable to our sportsmen.”
Balakhnichev has previously failed in his bid to make doping a criminal offense.
“I said that this should be done quite a few years ago to make the punishment a lot more serious than just a two-year disqualification,” he said. “However, the VFLA is unable to change the laws of the Russian Federation.”
“Discussions took place regarding this topic and opinion was split into two camps. Half supported this move, however the other half, who asked: ‘Do you want to put our sportsmen in jail?’ were unsure,” he said. “Therefore doping in Russia has not yet become a criminal offense.”
According to Balakhnichev, the fight against doping in Russia should be carried out at government level.
“Today the amount of doping products being sold around the world reaches the levels of illegal drugs,” he said. “If doping is seen as equal to taking drugs then it will become more effective to fight it. Anyway we will be able to decrease the trafficking of doping products in our country.”
“Sport has become part of a huge commercial system which involves sums of money running into billions,” he said. “The old saying: ‘faster, higher, stronger’ does not work any more. You need to add the word ‘cleaner’ to the list.”
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