Non-approved agency doping tests Russians. Olympic athletes feel unsafe – NRK Sport – Sports news, results and broadcast schedule

Less than a hundred days remain until the Games in Paris. Under the Spanish sun, Amund Vold is in training to sharpen his form for the summer. The paddler hopes to qualify for the Olympics in May.

If he achieves his dream of competing in Paris this summer, he could in theory meet a competitor from Russia, who has made it through IOCs eye of a needle and participates as a neutral practitioner.

– When they are not through the same approved program as other athletes, then you absolutely cannot feel safe, says Vold to NRK.

For athletes who have stayed in Russia in recent years have been tested for doping by the Russian anti-doping agency Rusada.

– Can quickly become very suspicious

After the Olympics in Sochi in 2014, it was revealed that the Russians had manipulated and cheated with doping tests. Rusada was suspended and the World Anti-Doping Agency Wada has yet to approve them.

Because of the war, Wada and other independent actors have had little access to Russian athletes.

And because most of them no longer participate in international competitions, it makes athletes like Vold insecure.

– When they take part in international competitions, they can often be tested there if they do well. But now that they are not there, one thinks that they have a free pass to do exactly what they want, by not taking part in any competitions until they suddenly appear in the Olympics. If they do it very well, it can quickly become very suspicious, says Vold.

Swimmer Henrik Christiansen would prefer to think as little as possible about whether the competitors might be doped, but shares Vold’s concern about whether the neutral athletes have been tested well enough.

– I would of course wish that there are approved actors who carry out the testing, of course, but nothing positive will come of worrying about my performance in the Olympics, says Christiansen to NRK.

He nevertheless adds:

– Given the history that the Russians have had and that Netflix documentary as everyone has seen, you ask yourself a small question.

Make up over 90 percent of the tests

In the period from 1 January 2023 to 27 February 2024, Rusada took 12,873 tests in Russia.

For comparison, the international testing agency ITA and international federations collected 1,232 tests in the same period. All of these are sent for analysis at Wada-approved laboratories in other countries.

The president of Wada, Witold Banka understands well the concern of the athletes. He says that so far they have no evidence that Rusada is carrying out the testing in a way that is not in line with the guidelines.

Banka meets NRK during a visit to Norway. He assures that Wada is watching closely.

– We are very vigilant when it comes to procedures and standards in their testing, he says to NRK.

– But when we know what happened in Sochi, and Rusada is still not approved, how can we be sure that these samples have not been manipulated?

– We have tools to check this. For example, through the athletes’ biological passports. All these tests that are taken are sent to Wada-approved laboratories, says Banka.

NRK has contacted Rusada in connection with this case, but has so far not received a reply.

Sent letter of concern

But this does not reassure practitioners around the world.

In November, athletes’ committees in Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany and the USA wrote a letter to Wada in which they expressed concern about the doping control of Russian and Belarusian athletes before the Paris Olympics.

Magnus Nedregotten was one of those who signed the letter. He is the leader of the Norwegian athletes’ committee. He emphasizes that there is a reason why Rusada has been suspended as an anti-doping agency.

– A lot happened after Sochi and what we know happened in the laboratories there. That samples were changed, etc. It’s still there. It is natural that you have a stamp on Russia for a long time to come. It is not baseless. It is only natural that you have that concern, says Nedregotten to NRK.

Nedregotten would like to know exactly what is being done to be completely sure that the samples are not tampered with:

– But the question is also what degree of monitoring is there actually? Is it the case that they are involved in testing? And do they somehow have a role? From testing to deployment? Or have they not? There are also questions that I have not been able to figure out.

NRK has tried to get an answer from Wada to Nedregotten’s question, but has so far been unsuccessful.

– I hope that Norwegian athletes can go to Paris and feel that they have cover from Wada and the IOC, and do this as safely as possible, concludes Nedregotten.