President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Moscow was complying with all of the World Anti-Doping Agency’s demands, as Russia faces another possible ban in the build-up to the Tokyo Olympics.
“We are actively cooperating with WADA. The requirements presented by this organisation are being fully complied with,” Putin told a sports conference in the city of Nizhny Novgorod.
“Our athletes are, above all, concerned with ensuring that any shortcomings relating to anti-doping issues remain in the past and that Russian athletes can compete on an equal footing,” he said.
Russia stands to be declared non-compliant by WADA if it fails to explain why evidence of some positive tests handed over by a whistleblower does not show up in data provided by Moscow’s anti-doping laboratory in January.
In September, WADA gave Moscow three weeks to respond to what it said were “inconsistencies” in the data.
This week the agency said it had received a response.
Russian sports minister Pavel Kolobkov said the response addressed “all requirements.”
On Wednesday, Russia’s anti-doping agency chief Yuri Ganus told German media he believed data handed over from Moscow to WADA had been intentionally manipulated.
Russia’s Athletics Federation has been banned from international competition since 2015 over a vast state-run doping conspiracy, and the International Association of Athletics Federations last month extended the ban.
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