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Russian Anti-Doping Agency Avoids New Punishment Over Missing Deadline


The Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) remains compliant and will face no new penalties for delaying access to data from its Moscow laboratory, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) says.

"Very significant progress" had been made, WADA President Sir Craig Reedie said on January 22.

"There's no doubt that the executive committee was pleased to hear the very significant progress that's been made to resolve doping matters in Russia," he added.

WADA's inspectors had been denied access after RUSADA was set a December 31 deadline to comply, but eventually gained access on January 10.

The visit was a condition of WADA's controversial decision in September to provisionally reinstate RUSADA.

WADA is now due to analyze the data retrieved from the Moscow lab.

If the data were found not to be authentic or to have been tampered with, WADA would "propose serious consequences," said Jonathan Taylor, the head of the agency's compliance review committee.

A WADA-commissioned report that outlined evidence of systematic, state-backed doping in Russian track and field led to RUSADA being suspended in 2015.

Another report a year later documented more than 1,000 doping cases across dozens of sports, most notably at the Winter Olympics that Russia hosted in Sochi in 2014.

Based on reporting by the BBC, Reuters, and AFP

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