MOSCOW, July 14. /TASS/. The International Swimming Federation (FINA) has provisionally suspended Russian swimmers Veronika Andrusenko and Alexander Kudashev for alleged anti-doping rule violations, the FINA press service said on Wednesday.

The Russian swimmers were reported to be provisionally suspended based on evidence supplied by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which had been received from the former Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory, including the Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS).

"FINA is grateful to WADA for its diligence in helping to ensure clean competition at Tokyo 2020," FINA President Husain Al-Musallam said. "As a proud signatory of the WADA Code, we have followed up quickly and carefully to process the information supplied as a result of the work of WADA’s Investigations and Intelligence unit. FINA remains fully committed to protecting clean athletes and promoting clean competition at Tokyo 2020."

Both swimmers are on the roster of Russia’s national team at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, which will be held from July 23 to August 8.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) said in April 2020 that it had completed an investigation into 298 Russian athletes based on the LIMS database, which contains their doping samples taken between 2012 and 2015. The collected data was shared with the international sports federations. Based on the LIMS evidence, 298 doping cases were opened, with athletes from 27 sports under suspicion.

Sanctions against Russian sports

The Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland’s Lausanne partially upheld on December 17, 2020 WADA’s (the World Anti-Doping Agency) previous ruling on a number of sanctions against Russian sports.

Following the CAS decision, Russian athletes were deprived of their right to participate in all World Championships, Olympic and Paralympic Games under the national flag of Russia for a two-year period.

The national anthem of Russia was also prohibited from being played at international sports tournaments over the course of the next two years, even at the upcoming Olympic Games in Japan this summer.

The ruling of the Swiss-based court also stripped Russia of the right to bid for the organization of all international sports tournaments for a period of two years. WADA’s sanctions will be in force until December 2022.