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Giant of world sports accused of a cascade of cheating and institutional doping, Russia was excluded for two years from major international competitions, including two editions of the Olympic Games (Tokyo 2021 and Beijing 2022), announced this Thursday the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
Russia may make its return to the Games in Paris 2024, contrary to what the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) demanded, which defended a four-year suspension for Russia.
“WADA is happy to have won this case that will make history,” stated its president, Witold Banka. The CAS “has clearly confirmed our conclusions, according to which the Russian authorities manipulated the samples from the Moscow laboratory, with the aim of disguising an institutionalized doping program, “he added in a statement.
After four days of closed-door hearing in early November, the three judges appointed by the CAS in Lausanne delivered their verdict in a sentence of more than 180 pages, a decision unprecedented in the history of sports justice.
The “consequences” of Russian cheating “are not as important as WADA wanted”, the judges acknowledged in their decision, which justified themselves by saying that they had “taken into account proportionality issues and in particular the need to promote a change in culture. and to encourage the next generation of Russian athletes to participate in clean international sport ”.
Russian athletes played a lot. In Tokyo (2021, Summer Games) and Beijing (2022, Winter Games), Only those who demonstrate that they never resorted to doping may compete under a neutral flag.
Although the suspension applies until December 16, 2022, its effects on the World Cup that will conclude in Qatar two days later are not clear: the TAS statement does not specify how its sentence can be applied to team sports.
On the other hand, the CAS condemned Rusada, the Russian Anti-Doping Agency, to pay 1.27 million dollars (about one million euros) to WADA to reimburse the expert opinions carried out since January 2019 on the manipulation of the samples. from the Moscow laboratory.
Clear directives
Founded in 1999 following the Festina cycling scandal, WADA made a vast effort in the investigation and was at stake in its credibility at a time when the United States threatened to cut aid and just adopted a law allowing it to lead its own world crusade against doping.
For their part, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Federations were waiting for clear directives from the TAS, seven months before the Tokyo Games, to avoid the uncertainty and ups and downs of recent years in the Russian case.
Just before the Rio Games in 2016, WADA recommended an exclusion of Russian athletes which was rejected by the IOCWhile a few days before the start of the Pyeongchang Winter Games in 2018, the CAS exonerated 28 Russian athletes suspended for life by the IOC.
But the legal framework is clearer on this occasion, since it was about whether or not to validate the set of sanctions proposed in December 2019 by WADA and rejected by Rusada, because of the manipulation of the computer files of the Moscow anti-doping laboratory for the period 2011-2015.
Espionage novel
This computer fraud infuriates WADA so much because it involves the secret services and the Russian Ministry of Sports, and has fueled tensions between Moscow and sports institutions, perceived as instruments of Western rule.
“Our athletes are prevented, by not very sporting means, from achieving the successes they deserve,” Russian President Vladimir Putin launched in October.
Ten years ago, the Russian middle-distance runner Yuliya Stepanova and her husband Vitaly, a former Rusada controller, alerted WADA to institutionalized doping in Russia, and later denounced it on the German channel ARD, which broadcast from December 2014 an enlightening documentary series.
The scandal took on the overtones of an espionage novel when Rodchenkov, forced to resign from the Moscow laboratory and a refugee in the United States, acknowledged in the spring of 2016 that he had orchestrated the cover-up of Russian doping for years in coordination with the Ministry of Sports.
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