The soap opera continues, but the end seems near. The World Anti-Doping Agency announced Monday January 7 via a press release: a team of its experts will once again travel to Russia this week to try to recover the data from the Moscow laboratory controls.
The visit is scheduled to begin this Wednesday, January 9. It will be conducted by a trio of specialists commissioned by the anti-doping institution based in Montreal.
The last chance visit? Likely. The most recent one, organized at the end of December, ended in a resounding failure. WADA experts were certainly able to open the door to the Moscow laboratory, where thousands of data relating to very suspicious tests carried out on Russian athletes between 2011 and 2015 are stored. But, their material not having been validated by the Russian authorities, they left empty-handed.
Since then, the international sports movement has cried wolf again, once again calling on WADA and its president, Craig Reedie, to strike at Russian sport without holding back.
But Craig Reedie wants to insist. The Scottish leader explained this in his press release on Monday: it is important to “ give RUSADA every chance”. There is no question, therefore, of listening to all the voices calling for immediate sanctions. But Craig Reedie specifies: “ We continue to act on the basis of failure to meet the December 31 deadline, with all the consequences that this failure could have. »
The visit of WADA experts was confirmed by the Russian sports authorities. Pavel Kolobkov, the Minister of Sports, explained: “ Over the past three months, a lot of organizational work has been done to provide data from the Moscow laboratory. This required agreement on a large number of procedural issues, including the list of equipment used. For the moment, all technical questions have been resolved. » The light would therefore finally have turned green. It was time.
The rest is already known, at least in its unfolding. In Moscow, WADA envoys will need a lot of patience and inventiveness to find their way through a maze of data and samples. They will have to authenticate the elements to be extracted, recover them, then do the same with the samples taken at the time. They will then have to take everything on board and leave Russia. Not easy.
Barely back, the three experts will have to quickly produce a report on their mission and its initial conclusions. It will be presented early next week, January 14 and 15, before the WADA Compliance Review Committee. Its members will then be invited to suggest a scenario to the institution's executive committee.
Craig Reedie wants to be confident in the rest of the process. “ If the mission succeeds in obtaining the data, it will break a long deadlock.", he said on Monday January 7 in the WADA press release.
At the same time, the Russian authorities will have to ensure that the new analyzes of samples required by WADA, after examination of laboratory data, are carried out no later than June 30, 2019.
The timetable is accelerating and the doors are opening. Good news for everyone. But recent history has shown that the worst can never be ruled out when it comes to Russian sport and the doping issue.
