The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) has been warned by its own athlete committee that if it does not ban Russia again it will have failed clean athletes.
Wada was left with egg on its face after the Russian authorities allowed a New Year’s Eve deadline to hand over doping data from its Moscow lab to lapse – the key condition of a controversial deal to lift the three-year suspension on the Russian Anti-Doping Agency in September.
To make matters worse for Wada, its president, Craig Reedie, had offered a "100 per cent" guarantee the Russians would comply in November.
Wada’s compliance review committee (CRC) will now meet on January 14th to make a recommendation to Wada’s executive committee on how to proceed but Wada’s athlete committee said the only option is for Russia to be suspended again.
“We are extremely disappointed that the Dec 31 deadline imposed on Russia by Wada has not been adhered to by the Russian authorities,” the committee said in a statement. “We now expect that following the process recommended by the CRC that Russia will be declared non-compliant. Only this action will be suitable and appropriate in the view of the athletes. Anything less will be considered a failure by Wada to act on behalf of clean athletes.”
Wada also faced mounting pressure from national anti-doping organisations (Nado) who called for an immediate review and recommendation from the CRC.
“We recognise Rusada has been working with Wada in an effort to resolve these issues, but the conditions were unequivocal and without data there can be only one outcome,” Nado leaders said in a statement. “The importance of this situation does not warrant providing a further two weeks for Russia to comply.” – Guardian
