Athletics: Russian anti-doping body challenges ruling on bribe attempt

RUSADA had appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Switzerland [Courtesy]

Russia’s anti-doping agency (RUSADA) is challenging its own disciplinary committee in an international court after it decided not to punish an athletics coach for trying to bribe a doping control officer, director Yuri Ganus said on Tuesday.

Ganus told a news conference that RUSADA had appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Switzerland after the disciplinary panel’s decision.

“We do not agree with this decision,” Ganus said, without disclosing the coach’s identity nor when the incident had taken place. “We will go through with this case until the end.”

The role of the disciplinary anti-doping committee, established as an independent entity by RUSADA, is to determine whether anti-doping rule violations have taken place.

CAS did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Russia’s athletics federation would not comment.

Both RUSADA and Russia’s athletics federation were suspended after a 2015 report commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) found evidence of state-sponsored doping in Russian athletics.

RUSADA was reinstated last year by WADA, angering sports bodies and athletes around the world. Russia’s athletics federation remains suspended by global athletics body the IAAF.

Despite the federation’s suspension, some Russian athletes — including two-time world champion high jumper Maria Lasitskene and 2015 world champion hurdler Sergey Shubenkov — have been cleared to compete internationally after demonstrating they are training in a doping-free environment.