Observers of the Council of Europe on doping will come to Russia on September 21 – 23. The date was revealed by RIA Novosti with reference to the statement of the organization’s press service.
The evaluation visit was approved at the 53rd meeting of the Monitoring Committee. The group will consist of four people. The team of the Council of Europe will accompany the speaker “with relevant experience in the field of international anti-doping policy”, as well as a representative of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and members of the Council of Europe Secretariat.
Chairman of the Observation Group on the Implementation of the 1991 Anti-Doping Convention invited the Ministry of Sports of Russia. This should allow to restore the status of compliance with the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSA) World Anti-Doping Code.
RIA Novosti notes that now the Council of Europe and Russia are consulting to determine the format and program of the visit.
Doping scandal in Russian sport occurred in 2015, when domestic athletes were accused of massive violations of anti-doping rules. WADA conducted an investigation during which it turned out that Rusada hid the facts of applying doping by Russian athletes. Later scandal also affected other sports, as a result, part of domestic athletes did not hit the 2016 Olympics, and the 2018 team went to the game “Olympic athletes from Russia”, the flag and anthem of the country were banned.