Russia has been handed a four-year ban from all global sports by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), meaning that they will miss the 2022 Qatar World Cup.
The ban was announced on Monday, December 9, after the anti-doping agency declared Russia’s Anti Doping Agency (Rusada) guilty of non-compliance and manipulation of laboratory data.
While they will miss the football World Cup in Qatar in three years and the Olympic Games in Tokyo next summer, Russia will still compete at Euro 2020 which it has qualified for and is a tournament host with games due to be played at St Petersburg.
WADA said the decision was unanimous, but Russia’s Anti Doping Agency (RUSADA) has 21 days to appeal against the ban. If it does so, the appeal will be referred to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
The CRC made its recommendations based on evidence presented to it by WADA’s intelligence and investigations (I&I) team.
The I&I team found there were inconsistencies in data handed over to WADA in January 2019 by Russia under the terms of its reinstatement to compliance in September 2018.
The data provided was inconsistent with a copy of the database supplied to WADA by a whistleblower in 2017, in that positive findings present in 2017 were missing from the 2019 data.
The I&I team found that some of the manipulation and deletion had occurred as recently as December 2018 and January 2019 – after reinstatement.
Russia has been banned from competing as a nation in athletics since 2015 when it was first declared non-compliant.
