Russia facing new doping scandal
Yuri Ganus, the director of Russia's anti-doping agency Rusada, has confirmed allegations that large amounts of data on doping tests from the years 2012-2015 were manipulated before being passed on to the global anti-doping agency Wada - during inspections carried out by Russian investigators. Which consequences will this have for Russia's participation in future sporting events?
We won't live this down
Radio Kommersant FM sees little chance of Russia participating in the 2020 Olympic Games and other major international sporting events:
“In the eyes of the Wada, we are now repeat offenders, even malicious - which means that all the efforts of our anti-doping campaigners are no longer worth a cent. After the scandal about the falsified data from the Moscow laboratory, no one in the world of sports will pay any more attention to their achievements. ... The looming scandal is being kept quiet for now, with the old Russian house rule still in effect: perhaps it will blow over. ... The sports officials naturally have their own explanations for what went on. They will probably stress that external Wada employees worked with the data and that it is no longer possible to determine who changed what or when.”
A lone voice in the wilderness
Novaya Gazeta is perplexed that so far Ganus seems to be the only person in Russia who is taking the issue seriously:
“He is constantly sounding the alarm, exposing and accusing dark forces that are preventing Russian sport from getting back on track and changing its mentality. The Rusada boss is making increasingly drastic statements yet no one is publicly contradicting him. There has been no reaction whatsoever from 'above'; it's as if he were screaming into space. Thus, in the reports on the sports forum held in Nizhny Novgorod, 'Russia - the sports superpower', this problem, which could soon send Russia back to the dark days when it was universally ostracized, was admonished with blatant disregard.”