Russia is still suspended by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), almost eleven months after the end of its two-year sanction, but it is sparing no effort to regain its place. Her national anti-doping agency, RUSADA, has just published its latest figures. They set new records. In October 2023 alone, it collected 1,416 samples from Russian athletes. According to a spokeswoman for the agency, quoted by TASS, this is the highest number of tests since 2019. In the first ten months of the year, RUSADA recorded almost 10,000 samples (9,482 samples). It is closing in on its result for 2022, when it exceeded its targets with a total of 11,053 samples. Under an agreement signed in March 2022, RUSADA subcontracts part of its anti-doping program to the WADA-accredited Turkish anti-doping laboratory. The cooperation agreement has enabled the Russian agency to carry out and continue its testing and analysis program, as well as monitoring athletes’ biological passports.
