A penalty reduced by half. Accused for ten years of a cascade of cheating covered by institutionalized doping, Russia is ousted for two years from major international competitions, including two editions of the Olympic Games (Tokyo 2021, and those of Beijing 2022 winter), according to a verdict delivered by CAS. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) originally called for a four-year suspension.
The consequences of this large-scale rigging of the computer data of the Moscow anti-doping laboratory, “Are not as important as what WADA wanted”, recognize in their decision the arbitrators of this independent jurisdiction, often called upon to rule on procedures related to doping. To justify their clemency, they say they have “Taken into account questions of proportionality of sanctions, and in particular, the need to promote a culture change and encourage the next generation of Russian athletes to participate in clean international sport”.
When WADA announced its already resounding decision a year ago, the sanction was to include the Beijing 2022 Winter Games and an edition of the Summer Games: either Tokyo 2020 or Paris 2024, depending on the weather Rusada and possibly the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) would respond. But by postponing the Japanese Olympics for a year, the Covid has changed the situation. Summer sports athletes would now have been deprived of two Olympic appointments instead of one.
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This unforeseen increase in sanctions may have made the CAS falter, even though WADA had limited them to major international events. That is, those who award a title of world or Olympic champion, letting Russia participate in continental competitions. Just as the resignation last August of the three heads of the Rusada laboratory may have weighed in the balance. Either way, Russia has succeeded in demonstrating that the sanctions planned by the world policeman were exaggerated in relation to the facts.
“For the CAS, it is about giving Russia one last chance to fall into line, analysis Guillaume Darrioumerle, doctor of law specializing in doping, who has just completed a thesis on Globalization in doping, contacted by Release. The CAS has surely reduced the sanction to allow Russia to comply with the requirements of the World Anti-Doping Agency within a year, and meet the conditions requested by the agency. But that will not prevent WADA from taking the same decision in this direction if Russia does not fulfill its obligations which are clear enough. “
Falsification of computer files
In its recommendation which justified the four-year exclusion, WADA relied on a text: (the ISCCS). In force since April 2018, it allows sanctions to be imposed in the event of “non-compliance” by a signatory of the World Anti-Doping Code. WADA considered that this was the case with Rusada, the Russian anti-doping agency, already implicated in 2016 for having masked a number of positive tests via the Moscow laboratory, and exchanged urine samples from doped Russian athletes during the 2014 Olympics in Sochi. This time, WADA accused Rusada of having falsified the computer files of the Moscow laboratory for the period 2011-2015, required at the end of 2018 by WADA.
In their report, investigators from the Montreal office established two types of manipulation: the removal of traces of positive doping controls, and the introduction of false exchanges aimed at compromising Grigory Rodchenkov, former director of the refugee laboratory in the United States and became WADA’s main informant, along with two of his deputies.
And if this computer fraud has so exasperated WADA, it is because the Russian litigation has been going on since 2010, involves the secret services and the Russian Ministry of Sports, and has fueled tensions between Moscow and sports bodies perceived as instruments. of Western domination. “We prevent, by means that are not very sporty, our athletes from achieving the success they deserve”, launched Vladimir Poutine again in October.
The world policeman has deployed unprecedented investigative efforts for the CAS to validate its range of sanctions proposed in December 2019. The Swiss-based court has also ordered Rusada, the Russian anti-doping agency, to pay 1.27 million dollars (about one million euros) to WADA to reimburse the expertises carried out since January 2019 on the rigging of data from the Moscow laboratory.
Blur on the World Cup in Qatar
Now what about Russian athletes? Only those who demonstrate their absence of recourse to doping will be able to compete, under a neutral banner, like the system implemented during the Pyeongchang Winter Games in 2018. The athletes in question must also have not involved in state doping until 2015.
The case of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar remains to be clarified. If the suspension applies until December 16, 2022, its effects on the competition – which will end two days later – are not yet clear. Russian athletes can certainly compete under a neutral banner, but the CAS press release does not specify how this tolerance can apply to team sports.
On the other hand, the CAS directives have the merit of being clear for the IOC and the federations concerning the Tokyo Games which will take place in seven months, and thus avoiding repeating the chaos of recent years in the Russian file. Just before the Rio Games in 2016, WADA recommended an exclusion of Russian athletes refused by the IOC, while a few days before the opening of the Pyeongchang Games in 2018, the CAS had cleared twenty-eight Russian athletes. suspended for life by the IOC.
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WADA reacted shortly after the CAS announcement through its chairman Witold Banka. “WADA is pleased to have won this landmark case. (The CAS) clearly confirmed our findings, that the Russian authorities brazenly and illegally manipulated data from the Moscow laboratory in an attempt to cover up an institutionalized doping program.»
The verdict is not, however, likely to strengthen the influence and prestige of the World Anti-Doping Agency, which has been criticized many times in recent times for lack of reforms and sufficient action, in particular by the United States, which threatens to cut its funds and have just passed a law allowing them to lead their own global anti-doping crusade. “For WADA, it’s a half-penalty. But confirmation by CAS shows that she did well to make a decision, tempers Guillaume Darrioumerle. It remains a very fragile system, which suffers from a fairly recurrent lack of funding, but which nevertheless manages to impose its views. ”
Romain Métairie
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