Stanislav Pozdnyakov: “The situation is very serious”

The President of the Russian Olympic Committee issued a statement on the situation with RUSADA.

Stanislav Pozdnyakov:

– Judging by the fact that, based on the report of the Compliance Commission, the WADA Executive Committee has already initiated reviewing RUSADA’s status under accelerated proceedings, the situation is very serious. Given a short period of 3 weeks, our organizations responsible for transferring the testing database must either conclusively refute suspicions of any manipulations on the part of Russia, or take comprehensive measures to identify the persons involved in this unpleasant situation.

Otherwise, along with the problem associated with RUSADA’s status and the ensuing consequences for our sports community, the potential participation of Team Russia at the Olympic Games in Tokyo next year will be in jeopardy.

Numerous diplomatic efforts have been made to regain the trust of the international sports community so as to ensure that Russian athletes have the right to compete at Olympic events without any restrictions. But now again we run the risk of facing possible sanctions based on reasons and developments we have nothing to do with.

I hope that our colleagues who are authorized to deal with this problem can quickly sort out the issues on the basis of which questions were raised by WADA and give convincing answers.