Russia continues to play the doping transparency card. Its national anti-doping agency (RUSADA) announced that it had recorded seven alleged anti-doping rule violations by Russian athletes in August 2024 alone. With this latest result, its counter shows 59 possible doping cases since the beginning of the year, with peaks in June (14), April (13), March and August (7). Last year, RUSADA said it had identified 150 potential anti-doping rule violations by Russian athletes. In 2022, the total had reached 135 cases. For the year 2023, a quarter of the anti-doping rule violations concerned the same product, meldonium, banned by WADA since January 2016. It is sold freely in pharmacies in Russia without a prescription. As a reminder, RUSADA is still declared non-compliant by the World Anti-Doping Agency, despite the end of its two-year suspension in December 2022.
