Nearly 1,500 Russian athletes took doping tests in 2016: Report

More than 1,500 Russian athletes, competing in 32 sports, passed doping tests in 2016, Russia’s anti-doping agency, RUSADA, said in its annual report.

Less than two years ago, the WADA Independent Commission carried out an investigation into the activities of RUSADA and other Russian sports organisations. The commission accused certain athletes and sports officials of doping and involvement in other activities related to violations of international regulations on performance enhancing substances, Russian News Agency, TASS, said citing the report.

Starting last January, control over anti-doping regulations in Russian sports has been exercised by RUSADA strictly under the supervision of the British anti-doping agency, UKAD.

In total, as part of RUSADA’s 2016 doping testing programme, UKAD organised 2,731 missions to take samples from the athletes, and 84 percent of them cleared it. During those missions, a total of 3,112 samples were taken, most of them by Swedish company IDTM (about 75 percent) and Germany’s PWC (about 18 percent). In addition, samples were also taken by anti-doping agencies from other states (seven percent).

According to the report, the bulk of the samples were taken outside competitions (80 percent) and the remaining 20 percent were taken during competitions.

Doping samples were taken in various sports disciplines with 447 in track and field, 224 in sports for people with mobility impairments, 222 in cycling, 216 in skiing, 186 in canoeing, 176 in rowing, 168 in swimming, 156 in biathlon, 140 in wrestling and 131 in boxing.

The samples were analysed by 13 WADA-accredited laboratories, including Seibersdorf (Austria), Lausanne (Switzerland), Barcelona (Spain), Warsaw (Poland), Cologne (Germany) and Stockholm.

According to the report, a total of 210 violations regarding an athlete’s accessibility for a test were recorded. In 95 cases, an athlete missed the test and in 115 he or she failed to present all the required information.

In addition, a total of 100 suspected violations of anti-doping rules were detected in 2016, and in 79 cases the samples contained banned substance meldonium. In line with WADA recommendations, all individuals involved in meldonium cases were cleared of any guilt or negligence.

There were also 10 cases of discovery of a banned substance in a test, 3 cases of use of a banned substance or technology, 3 cases of refusal to take the test, and 4 cases of failure to report whereabouts in due order.

In all, the number of doping violations has been on the decline last year with 181 positive doping tests in 2015, 148 in 2014, 194 in 2013 and 124 in 2012.