The All-Russian Swimming Federation, on the basis of and pursuant to the decision of the RAA “RUSADA”, disqualified the athlete Moiseev Olesya for 4 years for violating clause 2.1 of the All-Russian anti-doping rules, starting April 12, 2019, the Federation announced.
Russia has been under scrutiny for its lab in Moscow, which has been under investigation by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) for several years.
Earlier Tuesday, WADA confirmed that a five-person team has successfully retrieved 2,262 samples from the laboratory, which had been split into A and B samples and contained within 4,524 collection bottles. The samples have now been taken out of Moscow and are on their way to a WADA-accredited laboratory outside of Russia. Importantly, all samples targeted by I&I in advance of the mission were successfully located and extracted.
WADA Director of I&I Gunter Younger, who is leading the process, said: “WADA Intelligence and Investigations is pleased to be continuing to make progress in this complex and difficult case. Extracting the required samples from the laboratory is another step forward. These samples will be used to strengthen cases against those who may have cheated and may exonerate athletes who have not committed an anti-doping rule violation.”
In parallel, the authentication process of the Moscow data is close to completion. In early May, a progress report from that process will be sent to the independent Compliance Review Committee – which has received updates from WADA I&I every two weeks since the data was extracted in January – and an update will be presented at the next meetings of WADA’s Executive Committee and Foundation Board on 15 and 16 May, respectively.
Meanwhile, the process continues as I&I investigators identify all available evidence for each case, including ordering further sample analysis, where appropriate. In due course, the relevant IFs will be presented with evidentiary packages, which they will assess with the view to taking the cases forward as ADRVs. In cases where IFs choose not to take action, WADA will review the facts, discuss with the relevant IF and reserves the right to bring them forward to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.