JRL NEWSWATCH: “Russians allowed to compete as neutral athletes at the 2024 Paralympics in Paris” – AP

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“Russians will be allowed … as neutral athletes at next year’s Paralympics in Paris … following the invasion of Ukraine. The International Paralympic Committee voted 74-65 … on Friday against suspending Russia’s membership entirely — which would have meant a full ban … then voted 90-65 in favor of ‘partially’ suspending the country through 2025. … because of ‘breaches of […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Olympic sports have a Russia dilemma. ‘Neutrality’ is a cop-out.” – Washington Post

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“… The World Aquatics Bureau announced … athletes from Russia and Belarus would be allowed to compete in international events … as ‘neutrals’ …. the cop-out … most athletic governing bodies have taken since Russia invaded Ukraine …. At least Wimbledon — in 2022 — actually banned Russian and Belarusian players …. [T]he men’s and women’s governing bodies of tennis […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Olympic sports leaders meet amid uncertainty over Russians competing at 2024 Paris Games” – AP

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“Complex questions about if — and how — Russian athletes could return to … competition[] ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics looked far from being resolved when sports governing bodies met Wednesday. Different sports have varying sporting, political and logistical pressures, and there’s a lack of clarity about how to define neutral status for Russian and Belarusian athletes that is […]

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RUSSIALINK: “Why Russia Can’t Compete in the Tokyo Olympics, But Its Athletes Can” – Moscow Times

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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – July 29, 2021) Russian athletes have won a total of 25 medals in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics under the neutral Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) flag. Here’s our guide to team ROC: Why can’t Russian athletes compete under the Russian flag? In 2015, the Russian government was accused of doping — administering performance-enhancing drugs to athletes […]

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RUSSIALINK: “IOC considering replacement of Russian anthem with Katyusha song at world championships, Olympic Games – ROC head” – Interfax

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MOSCOW. Feb 8 (Interfax) – The Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) is awaiting the International Olympic Committee (IOC)’s permission to play the song Katyusha instead of the Russian anthem at world championships and the Olympic Games, ROC President Stanislav Pozdnyakov said. “We’ve made the proposal and are awaiting a response from the IOC. There’s no rush. There’s still enough time to […]

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How Russian Media Reacted to 4-Year Olympics Ban

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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Dec. 10, 2019) The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) on Monday hit Russia with a four-year ban from competing or hosting major world sporting events, including the Olympic Games and World Championships. The move comes after WADA’s executive committee unanimously ruled that Moscow had tampered with doping laboratory data. Russian athletes will only be able to […]

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WADA to Inspect Moscow Lab for Doping Violations

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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – January 8, 2019) With the clock ticking towards new sanctions, Russian authorities said on Monday they would allow a World Anti-Doping Agency inspection team to return to a Moscow laboratory to retrieve data it had earlier been denied. Russia’s Sport Minister Pavel Kolobkov said WADA officials would return to Moscow on Wednesday. WADA also confirmed […]

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WADA ‘Bitterly Disappointed’ At Russian Failure To Meet Anti-Doping Deadline

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(Article ©2019 RFE/RL, Inc., Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – rferl.org – Jan. 1, 2019 – also appeared at rferl.org/a/wada-bitterly-disappointed-at-russian-failure-to-meet-anti-doping-deadline/29687033.html) Russia faces the possibility of renewed sporting sanctions after the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) confirmed that Russian officials failed to hand over data from its anti-doping laboratory by December 31. WADA President Craig Reedie said on January 1 that he was “bitterly […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “World Anti-Doping Agency Reinstates Russia” – AP

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“[WADA] reinstated Russia on Thursday despite a wave of protests, ending the nearly three-year suspension of the country’s drug-testing program because of a state-sponsored doping scheme. WADA’s decision after a vote of its 12-member executive committee was called ‘the greatest treachery against clean athletes in Olympic history’ by the lawyer of the whistleblower who helped uncover Russia’s cheating. WADA decided […]

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NEWSLINK: “Russia’s performance in World Cup – and the country’s history – are raising doping suspicions” – Los Angeles Times/Kevin Baxter

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“Russia will meet Croatia in the quarterfinals Saturday in Sochi, where it will play in a stadium built to stage the opening and closing ceremonies of those now-discredited Winter Olympics. And though there is no evidence of any wrongdoing with the soccer team, its performance here — including a round of 16 win over Spain, the World Cup champion eight […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Can we believe what we see at Putin’s World Cup?” – San Diego Union Tribune/Mark Zeigler

Men Sitting Around Long Oval Boardroom Table, File Photo of FIFA Officials Meeting with Vladmir Putin

“… [when] FIFA’s 22-person executive committee awarded both the 2018 and 2022 World Cups … victories by Russia and Qatar … risky bids, were met with immediate speculation of vote bartering and outright bribery. … rumors of a Russian scheme to bribe referees on Spain’s behalf in the 2010 World Cup …. FIFA sent investigators to look into it … […]

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Russian sports minister suggests putting WADA in charge of national anti-doping organizations

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MOSCOW. April 2 (Interfax) – Russian anti-doping organizations could become branches of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which in that case would be responsible for their work, Russian Sports Minister Pavel Kolobkov said. “WADA is monitoring the work of all national anti-doping organizations and laboratories, and responsibility is borne by the states where these structures are located. The consequences of […]

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Interfax: Russians expect athletes’ success in Olympic Games – poll

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MOSCOW. Feb 12 (Interfax) – Most Russians believe that Russian athletes will be successful in the Olympic Games 2018, and 22% expect the athletes to lead in the final medal count, the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) said. In a nationwide phone interview of 2,000 respondents on February 2 and 3, 34% said that they think that Russian athletes […]

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Interfax: Global anti-doping system reform needed, IOC president resignation not on agenda – Duma committee head

Russian State Duma Building file photo

MOSCOW. Feb 9 (Interfax) – There needs to be a reform of the global anti-doping system after the Olympic Games, but Russia has no direct influence on the composition of the leadership of international sports organizations, and the issue of International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach’s resignation is not being raised now, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on […]

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Russian Olympians’ Last Ditch Appeals to Compete in the Winter Games, Explained

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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – February 8, 2018) Although Russia has long been a powerhouse in the Winter Olympics, its flag, anthem and tricolor will be absent from the games kicking off tomorrow in South Korea. After a blanket ban of the Russian Olympic team in December by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) over doping allegations, individual athletes have still […]

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Interfax: Putin warns against further politicization of global sports

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NOVO-OGARYOVO. Jan 31 (Interfax) – Russia hopes that international sports organizations will not turn into government departments in certain countries however powerful these might seem sometimes, President Vladimir Putin said. “Of course, we very much feel for our athletes who could not go to the Olympic Games. We will do everything to support them,” Putin said at a meeting with […]

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Russia’s Channel One Will Broadcast Olympics, Despite Team’s Ban

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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – December 12, 2017) Russia’s state-run Channel One television channel has announced that it will broadcast the 2018 Winter Game’s despite the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) decision last week to bar Russia’s team from competing. The IOC decision said that individual Russian athletes could participate in the Olympics in February if they proved to a panel […]

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What do Regular Russians Think of the IOC’s Olympic Doping Ban?

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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – December 6, 2017) “This is undoubtedly a political decision,” says Igor, 40. In Moscow, news that Russia’s entire Olympic team had been barred from next year’s Winter Games was still sinking in on Wednesday afternoon. In the latest chapter of the Russian doping scandal, the International Olympic Committee’s President Thomas Bach on Tuesday evening announced […]

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Interfax: Tragic events associated with informers in Russia, this institution must not migrate from sports to other spheres – Putin

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KRASNODAR. May 23 (Interfax) – Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for treating the idea of introducing an institution of informers into Russian sports with extreme caution, recalling that tragic events are associated with this phenomenon in the Russian history. Speaking at the presidential council on physical training and sports on Tuesday, Putin warned against this institution the creation which […]

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NEWSWATCH: “Russia Hopes for Swift End to Track and Field Doping Exile” – AP

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“… Russian track and field exists in limbo, banned since November 2015 as a series of investigations revealed widespread doping and alleged government officials helped to cover it up. … On Monday, track’s world governing body, the IAAF, will hold a council meeting with the stated aim of drawing up a road map for Russia’s return though, in some ways, […]

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RBTH: Over 1,000 Russian athletes involved in doping scandal – McLaren report

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In a more detailed version of the report released in July, the head of the independent WADA commission has announced that the international doping scandal implicates over 1,000 Russian athletes, and has repeated accusations of state involvement. (Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – ALEXEY MOSKO, RBTH – December 12, 2016) The publication of the long-awaited second part of the […]

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A Long Jump: Russia Claims Moral Victory From Rio Olympics

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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Tom Balmforth – MOSCOW, August 22, 2016) Russia’s medal haul at the Summer Olympics in Rio was the country’s smallest since the 1912 games in Stockholm, but that did not deter various officials and pundits from spinning the result as a victory for Moscow — or a moral one, at the least. With much of its […]

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NEWSWATCH: “Why Russia’s Olympic scandals could benefit Vladimir Putin” – Yahoo

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If you think the Russian doping scandal has brought shame and humiliation to Vladimir Putin’s nation, perhaps you need to think again. Experts on Putin and Russia tell Yahoo Sports it may be the opposite: that the doping allegations and the Paralympic ban actually has confirmed suspicions widely held – the rest of the world is unfairly biased against Russia. […]

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Will Putin Again Use the Olympics as Cover for New Aggression, This Time in Ukraine?

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(Paul Goble – Staunton, August 8, 2016) Eight years ago today, when the world was focusing on the Olympics in Beijing, Vladimir Putin used this distraction as the occasion to launch his invasion of Georgia. Now, there are both indications and fears that he may use the world’s focus on the Olympiad in Rio to reignite Russian aggression in Ukraine. […]

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NEWSWATCH: “Ban Russia From the Rio Olympics” – New York Times

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The latest and most comprehensive report on Russia’s cheating at the 2014 Winter Olympics gives the International Olympic Committee all the evidence it needs to ban every Russian team from the forthcoming Rio Games. The report, commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency to investigate a fast-growing body of evidence against Russia, is damning and unequivocal. … it affirms ‘beyond a […]

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NEWSWATCH: “Bar Russia from the Rio Olympics” – Washington Post

File Photo of Sochi Olympics Banner Near Highway in Warm Weather with Vehicle and Cyclicsts Nearby

At the Winter Olympics in Sochi … no Russian athletes tested positive for doping, and to much celebration they took home 33 medals, more than any other nation. … behind the scenes, a system was in place that concealed the use of performance-enhancing drugs by … Russian athletes. … doping and coverups have been carried out by Russia across a range […]

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TRANSCRIPT: [Putin] Statement in response to the report by the World Anti-Doping Agency

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(Kremlin.ru – July 18, 2016) President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Recent events and the tense atmosphere that has formed around international sport and the Olympic movement involuntarily recall the situation in the early 1980s. Back then, many Western countries, citing the deployment of Soviet troops in Afghanistan, boycotted the Moscow Olympics. Four years later, the Soviet Union retaliated by boycotting […]

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NEWSWATCH: “Russia’s Doping Scandal. A new report finds that Olympic cheating was state policy.” – Wall Street Journal editorial

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Less than three weeks before the Summer Olympics in Rio … an independent probe … produced the most damning evidence to date of a vast, state-sponsored #doping program run by #Russia’s sports officials that included corrupting the testing lab at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. … the report sets up a choice as delicate as it is momentous: whether to ban […]

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Kremlin: Russia Will Not Boycott Rio Olympics

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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – July 11, 2016) Russia will not boycott the upcoming Olympic Games in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday, Russian media reported. Peskov said that “Russia has always looked down on [Olympic] boycotts,” the Gazeta news website reported Monday. He promised to use “all possible mechanisms” to ensure the participation of Russian […]

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All Russians Are Tainted by Putin’s Regime

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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Leonid Bershidsky – June 21, 2016) The International Olympic Committee’s decision to let Russian athletes compete in the Rio Olympics if they can prove that they haven’t used performance-enhancing drugs won’t be popular with other countries. Nonetheless, it was the right call. But it also carries some unpleasant undertones: It formally requires Russians to prove that […]

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NEWSWATCH: “Olympic Ban Adds to Russia’s Culture of Grievances” – New York Times

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When a global governing body for sports barred Russia’s track and field team from the 2016 Summer Olympics on Friday over a wide-ranging doping scandal, it was greeted in Russia, as is so often the case here these days, with a deep sense of victimhood. …Putin …called the decision ‘unjust, of course.’ …. Click here for New York Times: Olympic […]

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Interfax: Putin promises fight against doping at state level

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ST. PETERSBURG. June 17 (Interfax) – Russia will fight against doping in sports at the state level, Russian President Vladimir Putin said. “As for the official Russian authorities, I can say with full responsibility, that we are firmly against any doping,” Putin said at a plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). He said if it emerges […]

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Banned Russian Runners Struggle to Keep Their Careers Afloat

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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Daria Litvinova – June 11, 2016) His first international race, the Kanazawa marathon was a special occasion for Viktor Ugarov, 30. Thousands of amateur Japanese runners took part, but none, in the end, provided serious competition for the runner from Irkutsk. Ugarov, who a year earlier had finished fifth in the Russian Championship, ended up […]

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Anti-doping rule breakers will be harshly punished – Mutko

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MOSCOW. June 9 (Interfax) – The harshest measures will be taken against those who were caught violating anti-doping rules, Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko said. “If this is established, naturally, we will take the harshest measures against every person. All our correspondence will be examined, and even if anyone participated in this scheme with him [Grigory Rodchenkov, former head of […]

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Interfax: Russia won’t put up with unsubstantiated slander against it on issue of doping in sports – Peskov

Dmitry Peskov file photo adapted from image at kremlin.ru/wikimedia commons

MOSCOW. June 8 (Interfax) – Russia is against the use of doping in sports, but that does not mean that it is ready to put up with unsubstantiated slander against it on this issue, Russian presidential press officer Dmitry Peskov said. “We all remember that the Russian president has given an absolutely clear signal that the use of any types […]

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NEWSWATCH: “Russia’s reported doping is a subversion of the Olympic ideal” – Washington Post

… The latest evidence is a detailed report in the New York Times that Russian officials clandestinely carried out a doping program at the Sochi Games by giving athletes performance-enhancing drugs and then tampering with their urine samples to cover it up. The … account comes from the director of the Russian anti-doping agency at the time, who played a […]

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Interfax: Mutko believes in rebirth of Russian track and field athletics

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MOSCOW. May 20 (Interfax) – After the restoration of its rights, Russian track and field athletics should start with “a clean slate,” Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko told Interfax. “The majority of the disqualifications happened in track and field athletics and we will immediately set everything right and, I believe, start with a clean slate. At this stage, if everything […]

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RBTH: Olympic doping scandal: Whistleblower Rodchenkov may face court in Russia

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Grigory Rodchenkov’s exposure of Russian Olympic champions’ use of doping contains many unsubstantiated accusations and few facts, say Russian officials and experts. (Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – ALEXEY MOSKO, RBTH – May 16, 2016) Criminal proceedings may be launched against former head of the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory Grigory Rodchenkov, the man who revealed to The New York Times […]

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NEWSWATCH: “Revelations of State-Backed Doping Should Bar Russia From Rio Olympics” – New York Times/JULIET MACUR

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Accusations of Russian doping and reported claims of systematic distribution of performance-enhancing drugs and of bribes paid to cover up positive tests would be enough to scare off officials of any event worried about safeguarding its credibility. … you have to wonder what officials from the World Anti-Doping Agency and the International Olympic Committee are thinking now, in light of […]

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WADA banned meldonium without studying period of its withdrawal from athletes’ blood – Mutko

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MOSCOW. March 22 (Interfax) – Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko has said that the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) did not publish the results of research on meldonium before banning this substance. “It is necessary to thoroughly examine the problems of this substance’s [meldonium] withdrawal and retention in blood. We have received a reply from WADA that they did not do […]

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Interfax: Putin requests not to promote ‘conspiracy theory’ regarding doping scandal

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(Interfax – March 16, 2016) Russian President Vladimir Putin has called on the chiefs of the Russian sports to refrain from politicizing the situation related to the meldonium use and from framing a ‘conspiracy theory’ with regard to Russian athletes. “Firstly, nothing should be politicized and no conspiracy theory should be promoted,” Putin said at his meeting with government members, […]

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Who’s to blame for the meldonium: Russia’s athletes, doctors or officials?

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The drug that has been banned since January 2016 may lead to the disqualification of several leading Russian athletes in the wake of the Maria Sharapova scandal. However, Russian officials and athletics insiders disagree on who should take responsibility for the latest doping debacle to engulf Russian sports. (Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – TIMUR GANEEV, SPECIAL TO RBTH […]

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Interfax: Moscow expects explanations from WADA on meldonium ban – Lavrov

Sergei Lavrov file photo

MOSCOW. March 10 (Interfax) – Russia expects explanations from the World Anti-Doping Agency, or WADA, following the inclusion of meldonium drugs in the list of banned medicines, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said. “I don’t want to gibe, I only want to say in all seriousness: those professional opinions about the justifiability of this step of the WADA that […]

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