Russia Will Never Agree With State-Sponsored Doping Allegations - Minister

KOLOMNA (Moscow Region) (Sputnik) - Russia will never agree with the allegations that there was a state-sponsored doping system in the country, Russian Sports Minister Pavel Kolobkov said Saturday.
Sputnik

"We will never agree with the statements alleging that we had a state-sponsored doping system," Kolobkov told reporters.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) accused Russia of multiple anti-doping violations in 2015; the accusations resulted in the suspension the Moscow laboratory of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA).

In 2016, McLaren, head of a WADA independent commission, presented a two-part report on doping violations in Russia that alleged the existence of a state-supported doping program.

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Moreover, the International Olympic Committee launched two commissions to decide on appropriate sanctions and measures.

The first was led by Denis Oswald and tasked with re-verifying doping probes of Russian athletes from 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi.

The second was headed by former President of Switzerland Schmid and focused on the alleged involvement of the Russian Ministry of Sport and other Russian government agencies in doping abuse among the country's athletes.

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The commission headed by Samuel Schmid said in December that there was no proof of state support for the doping system in Russia.

Russian officials, in their turn, have numerous times refuted the allegations of state-sponsored doping but admitted that Russian athletics had some issues with doping abuses.

The scandal resulted in a lifetime ban for a number of Russian athletes, the revision of the 2014 Olympics results, as well as disqualification of the Russian national team from the 2018 Games. Only "clean" Russian athletes were allowed to compete in the Olympics under a neutral flag. Following the Pyeongchang Olympics, the membership of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) in the International Olympic Committee was restored.

 

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