The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) on Monday gave Russia three weeks to explain “inconsistencies” in a cache of laboratory data handed over to investigators, raising the possibility of a fresh ban on the nation in the buildup to next year’s Tokyo Olympics.
Russia stands to be declared non-compliant by WADA if it fails to explain why evidence of some positive tests handed over by a whistle-blower does not show up in data provided by Moscow’s anti-doping laboratory in January.
In another blow on Monday, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) maintained a ban on the Russian athletics federation pending analysis of the data.
IAAF president Sebastian Coe said after a meeting in Doha that his organization’s anti-doping task force had given “the strongest recommendation we’ve probably had” that Russia should remain suspended from athletics.
Though the Russian federation has been banned since November 2015, athletes from Russia have been competing for years as neutrals and 118 are due to participate in the World Athletics Championships which get underway in the Qatari capital on Friday.
If Russia challenges an eventual wider suspension by WADA the case would go to the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport, whose decision would be binding on sports bodies, including the International Olympic Committee.
“Forensic experts looked at what we got from whistle-blowers, what we got from Russia, and they noticed some inconsistencies,” WADA director-general Olivier Niggli said. “Then they studied the differences and this came to a situation where there are some questions that need to be asked and answered.”
WADA has previously warned that it would take the “most stringent sanctions” if any of the data was found to have been tampered with.
Russian Olympic Committee president Stanislav Pozdnyakov acknowledged that the situation is “very serious.”
“We risk running into various sanctions due to reasons that we have nothing to do with,” he said in a statement.
He advised senior Russian officials to sort out the issue and “give convincing answers.”
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