RUSSIAN PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN HAS ORDERED A DOPING INVESTIGATION

USPA NEWS - Russian president Vladimir Putin has ordered an investigation into the World Anti-Doping Agency's findings that his country's athletes were involved in a systematic doping programme. The allegations have raised the prospect of Russia's track and field athletes being denied participation...

Russian president Vladimir Putin has ordered an investigation into the World Anti-Doping Agency's findings that his country's athletes were involved in a systematic doping programme. The allegations have raised the prospect of Russia's track and field athletes being denied participation in next year's Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

Vladimir Putin was speaking for the first time since a World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) independent commission revealed its damning findings on Monday.

The 325-page report published by the World Anti-Doping Agency independent commission(WADA) on Monday outlined a vast state-sponsored doping programme that it said had sabotaged the London 2012 Games. The commission, chaired by the former Wada president Dick Pound, said six athletes with previous suspicious test results competed at the London Olympics.

Vladimir Putin was speaking after his sports minister Vitaly Mutko, who was described by WADA commission chairman Dick Pound as being "complicit" in the scandal, had said Britain's anti-doping system must be worth "zero" if it failed to catch six Russian athletes with previous suspicious test results whom the WADA report said competed in London in 2012... Russia could still face a ban from next year's Rio 2016 Olympics although the threat receded on Wednesday when IOC president Thomas Bach admitted the organisation lacked the power to bar the country. (The Independent)

Lord Coe, president of athletics' governing body, the IAAF, has told the Russian athletics federation to respond to Wada's report by Friday. The report's author, Dick Pound, recommended Russian athletes be suspended from the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

Vladimir Putin is up against Friday´s deadline for the International Association of Athletics Federations to decide on whether to suspend Russia ““ a first step toward exclusion from next year´s Olympic.

A provisional suspension would see Russians excluded from international athletics competition, including events such as the London marathon. The suspension would have to be confirmed by a disciplinary panel which could see the country banned until it can prove its anti-doping programme is working properly...Russia could also be stripped of two IAAF events next year: the world junior championships in Kazan in July and the world race walking team championships planned for Cheboksary in May. (The Independent)

Grigory Rodchenkov resigned on Tuesday as director of Russia's anti-doping laboratory, a day after he was accused of concealing positive doping tests, extorting money from athletes and destroying 1,417 samples.

Sebastian Coe, the IAAF´s new president, will convene an emergency meeting of its council in Monaco on Friday via conference call to decide whether to provisionally suspend Russia in light of the Pound report.

Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko has called the report´s conclusions 'baseless' and 'really fictional.' He said 'There is the report of the commission and there is the opinion of Mr. Pound, who actually overstepped and exceeded the competence of this commission, and gave his personal assessment, rather a general assessment of the entire anti-doping activities in Russia.' According to Vitaly Mutko, WADA´s conclusions sound like, 'We don´t have confirmation today that the government interferes, but we believe it does. We don´t have proof, but we still believe that they are guilty.' (RT)

'There are dozens of publications alleging the use of doping,' Vitaly Mutko said. 'I won´t name the specific countries or athletes, and no one established special commissions to investigate that.'...Russia, according to the Minister, is 'very committed' to punishing those who have used the illegal substances to climb to the zenith of sport glory. Mutko reminded that the Russian athletics authorities are already investigating claims of mass doping, after August revelations by German broadcaster ARD of a huge cover-up in the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). (RT)

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