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WADA to decide on RUSADA compliance status on January 22

Earlier the Minister of sports of the Russian Federation Pavel Kolobkov said that WADA experts have started to work on obtaining data from the Moscow laboratory

© Valery Sharifulin/TASS

MOSCOW, January 12. /TASS/. The Executive Committee of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) will discuss compliance status of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) on January 22, WADA press service said on Saturday.

"… WADA ExCo to discuss Compliance Review Committee recommendation regarding RUSADA compliance status on 22 Jan via conference call," WADA wrote on Twitter. "ExCo members requested that time to review appropriately the CRC recommendation (which will be provided to them at the latest on 17 Jan) and to consult with their stakeholders."

"WADA will publicly communicate the ExCo decision on 22 Jan following the conference call," the tweet says.

On Thursday, Russian Sports Minister Pavel Kolobkov said that WADA experts had begun accessing and extracting data at the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory. The work is being continued. On Friday, the WADA press service told TASS that there was no information yet when the work would be finished.

A delegation of WADA experts arrived again in the Russian capital on Wednesday to have another try to access the data of Russian athletes’ doping samples for the period of 2011-2015 stored at the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory.

The delegation is led by independent expert Dr. Jose Antonio Pascual, who is a research scientist and academic in Barcelona. He already paid a visit to Moscow with his colleagues on December 17, but was unable to accomplish the set task as his group was denied the right to use their equipment since it was not certified in Russia.

The WADA Executive Board reinstated the compliance status of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) on September 20 on condition that WADA experts would be granted access before December 31 to doping samples at the Moscow Anti-Doping Lab, which was sealed off in connection with a federal investigation.

Since the Russian side failed to provide access to the data from the Moscow Anti-Doping Lab before December 31, heads of 16 National Anti-Doping Agencies proposed stripping RUSADA again of its compliance status, which means that all Russian athletes would be barred from international sports competitions.

The WADA Compliance Review Committee is set to analyze at its session on January 14-15 information regarding Russia’s implementation of WADA’s requirements on the reinstatement. The Compliance Review Committee will then present a recommendation to the WADA Executive Committee, which will make a final decision in regard to the Russian Anti-Doping Agency.

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