WADA seeks Russian ban

The recommended four-year ban comes after WADA investigators examined data from Russia’s doping-tainted Moscow laboratory.

MONTREAL, Canada (AFP) — A key World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) panel has recommended Russia be barred from all sporting competition for four years after accusing it of falsifying laboratory data handed over to investigators, the global anti-doping watchdog said on Monday.

In a bombshell statement, WADA’s Compliance Review Committee called for the sanctions, which would see Russia banned from next year’s Tokyo Olympics, to be approved at a meeting in Paris on 9 December.

The WADA committee has also recommended Russia be barred from staging or bidding for major international sporting events for a four-year period — potentially placing Saint Petersburg’s status as one of the venues for the Euro 2020 football tournament in jeopardy.

If the WADA’s executive committee approves the sanction, Russia can appeal the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The proposed punishments followed what WADA investigators described as “an extremely serious” case of non-compliance “with several aggravating features.”

The recommended four-year ban comes after WADA investigators examined data from Russia’s doping-tainted Moscow laboratory, which was handed over to WADA in January.

Full disclosure of the data from the Moscow lab was a key condition of Russia’s controversial reinstatement by WADA in September 2018.

The Russian Anti-Doping Agency had been suspended for nearly three years previously over revelations of a vast state-supported doping program.