(ATR) The World Anti-Doping Agency says there will be more Russian doping cases forthcoming in the wake of the raw data retrieved from a Moscow laboratory earlier this year.
WADA Director of Intelligence and Investigations Gunter Younger told the organization’s Foundation Board on Thursday "we are now currently in the process of building strong cases that we will present to International Federations.
"Indeed, we have already delivered some of those evidentiary packages and more will follow in the coming weeks and months."
Younger expects that part of the process will be completed by the end of this year.
WADA says the IFs will assess the evidence with the view to taking the cases forward as Anti-Doping Rule Violations.Should the IFs choose not to take action on a particular case, the Agency will review the facts, discuss with the relevant IF and if necessary, bypass the IF and bring specific cases forward to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Two separate WADA delegations have visited the Moscow lab this year. The first extracted 24 million documents of analytical data in January. Last month, a second team secured 2,262 urine and blood samples that were "securely taken to a WADA-accredited laboratory outside of Russia".
Allowing access to the Moscow lab data by the end of 2018 was a key condition to the controversial decision by WADA in September 2018 to provisionally reinstate the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA). In January, WADA was criticized for allowing RUSADA to remain compliant, despite missing the Dec. 31 deadline to grant access to the lab.
It was revealed at the Foundation Board meeting in Montreal that "a very high percentage" of the data collected in the Moscow Laboratory is authentic and matching with the copy of the Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) that WADA acquired through a whistleblower.
While the authentication process is still ongoing for some data, Younger says "WADA continues to make real progress on this long-running and complex case" that is now in its fourth year.
Written by Gerard Farek
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