Director General of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Olivier Niggli assessed the possibility of a repetition of the doping scandal of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi at the Beijing Games. His words convey RIA News.
“We have learned the lesson of Sochi and are monitoring the situation. We are not afraid of a repetition of the situation,” Niggli said. According to him, you should not compare the Olympics in Beijing and Sochi. Despite the holding of the 2022 Games in a “bubble”, laboratories with international experts are involved in the process of testing athletes.
On December 17, 2020, Russian athletes were deprived of the opportunity to compete under the national flag at the World Championships and the Olympics until December 16, 2022. The Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) was stripped of compliance status. In the dispute between WADA and RUSADA, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) sided with the international organization.
The doping scandal in Russian sports erupted in 2015, when domestic athletes were accused of massive anti-doping rule violations. WADA conducted an investigation, during which it turned out that RUSADA concealed the facts of doping by Russian athletes, including at the 2014 Games in Sochi. The scandal affected many sports, some athletes lost their medals in major competitions. As a result of the investigation, some of the domestic athletes did not get to the 2016 Olympics, and the team of “Olympic Athletes from Russia” went to Pyeongchang 2018 without a flag and an anthem.
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