Jurij Ganus at a press conference in January 2019
Photo: Shamil Zhumatov / REUTERSRussia hassacked the head of his national anti-doping agency (Rusada) Jurij Ganus. That was decided by the national Olympic and Paralympic committees, joint founders of the Rusada, in a meeting on Friday. The reason, therefore, are considerable irregularities in financial and economic activities. Ganus denies the allegations.
This move could add further strain to the country's relations on the global sports scene.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) has banned Russia from major international competitions such as the Olympic Games and World Championships for four years. Only athletes who submit to independent controls should be admitted as neutral athletes. Russia appealed the ruling to the Cas International Sports Court. The hearing on this is still pending.
Here you can find a chronology of the Russian doping scandal.
Ganus has been the director of Rusada since 2017. Since then, he has repeatedly caused displeasure among his own officials and politicians: Sometimes he turned directly to President Vladimir Putin via video to request access to a doping control laboratory in Moscow for the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada), and sometimes demanded he publicly announced the resignation of the entire Russian athletics coaching staff.
Ganus told SPIEGEL in October that Russia may have manipulated data from doping control tests from the Moscow laboratory before the handover, to which Wada experts were initially denied access - even though this was the condition for provisionally allowing Rusada again. Russia's sports minister denied the allegations, instead blaming technical problems. In January, Wada provisionally revoked approval from the Moscow anti-doping laboratory.
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