The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) on Friday revoked the accreditation of the Moscow Antidoping Center as Russia continues to grapple with the scandal that could see its athletes barred from the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
The laboratory had been suspended on Nov. 10 last year as recommended in the WADA independent commission report that laid bare evidence of state-sponsored doping and corruption in sport in the country.
The report found that laboratory director Grigori Rodchenkov had ordered close to 1,500 samples to be destroyed, prompting his resignation.
A statement on Friday said the lab’s accreditation was revoked “due to non-compliance with the International Standard for Laboratories and the related Technical Documents.”
Since it’s suspension in November, the lab has been prohibited from carrying out any WADA-related anti-doping activities including all analyses of urine and blood samples.
“The revocation, which has been accepted by the laboratory, will enter into force immediately and means that the laboratory will continue to be prevented from carrying out the testing of doping control samples on behalf of WADA or any testing authority,” WADA said. “The decision was taken by WADA’s executive committee following a thorough review of the status of the laboratory by an independent WADA appointed disciplinary panel.”
Russian Minister of Sports Vitaly Mutko voiced optimism that the move was a first step toward re-accreditation of the lab.
“I wished this decision to be taken a couple of months ago,” the TASS news agency quoted Mutko as saying. “It’s a wise decision and I hope the process of [Moscow’s] laboratory’s re-accreditation will now start promptly.”
“When the lab’s work is suspended, you just wait for another six months while its re-accreditation is a kind of a guarantee. What would you choose?” Mutko said.
WADA spokesman Ben Nichols said re-accreditation might not be a quick process.
“It takes as long as it needs to take,” Nichols told reporters. “The next goal is to bring the laboratory back up to standard. We’ll have to wait and see what the time frame will be.”
In the meantime, the Russian Athletics Federation remains under scrutiny, with new head Dmitry Shlyakhtin working to overturn a ban by the International Association of Athletics Federations over doping that could see Russian track and field stars sidelined from the Rio Games in August.
The WADA independent commission report published in November alleged that senior Russian federation officials enabled the use of performance-enhancing drugs and covered up doping violations, among other damning accusations.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier