KATOWICE /Poland/, November 6. /TASS/. Russia has provided answers in full to all additional questions from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) regarding the recently reported inconsistencies in the data retrieved from the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory, Russian Sports Minister Pavel Kolobkov said on Wednesday.
On October 8, Russian experts provided WADA with answers to each of the organization’s 31 questions. German ARD journalist Hajo Seppelt said on Tuesday that Russia answered only 23 follow-up questions from WADA.
ARD Doping Editorial Team: According to sources close to @wada_ama Russia only answered 23 of 31 WADA questions regarding the alleged inconsistencies in the Moscow lab data and didn’t provide all requested devices/data. Also EPO analytical data.
— Hajo Seppelt (@hajoseppelt) November 5, 2019
"The Russian side has answered all follow-up questions and provided [WADA] experts with additional materials," the Russian sports minister told the 5th World Conference on Doping in Sport, hosted by Poland’s Katowice this week.
"We will carry on with the constructive cooperation on our behalf," Kolobkov added.
"Should more questions arise, our experts are ready to provide all of the required answers," the sports minister noted. "It will be even better if they [the questions] come up."
"It will be a proof that the work continues, experts really want to establish all circumstances regarding the database," Kolobkov added.
Russia fulfills all obligations set by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) for full membership reinstatement of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) with the global organization, Russian Sports Minister Pavel Kolobkov went on.
WADA announced on September 23 that it had initiated a probe into the compliance status of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency with the Code of the world’s governing anti-doping body based on the inconsistencies reportedly discovered in the data from the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory.
"In line with the WADA Executive Committee’s ruling [as of September 20, 2018], the Russian side handed over all of the required samples," Kolobkov reported.
The WADA Executive Committee reinstated the compliance status of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) on September 20, 2018 on condition that before December 31, 2018 WADA experts would be granted access to doping samples at the Moscow Anti-Doping Lab, which was sealed off in connection with a federal investigation.
"WADA experts were granted full access to the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory to retrieve the data," the Russian sports minister continued.
"We are fulfilling all obligations, which we were capable of fulfilling," Kolobkov stated. "This year we have been in such a tight cooperation with WADA that we had never been before."
Specialists from WADA were granted access to the database of the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory in January this year and copied 24 terabytes of information on Russian athletes’ doping samples collected between 2012 and 2015. WADA experts finished their work to retrieve doping samples from the Moscow Lab on April 30 having collected 2,262 doping samples in 4,524 containers (Samples A and B).
Chair of the WADA Compliance Review Committee Jonathan Taylor told TASS late last month that a decision on the expediency of imposing sanctions on the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) may be made at an extraordinary session of the WADA Executive Committee, which will take place after November 7 under the organization’s new president.
This Sunday, on November 10, WADA will be celebrating the 20-year anniversary since its foundation. WADA President Sir Craig Reedie revealed on Tuesday addressing the conference in Katowice he believed that the doping scandal involving Russia was ‘the worst’ in the entire history of the global organization.