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Another probe launched against Grigory Rodchenkov

The Russian Investigative Committee continues criminal proceedings against former acting director of the Anti-Doping Center, a federal state unitary enterprise, Grigory Rodchenkov charged with abuse of power and destroying samples of athletes.

Investigators have enough evidence that Rodchenkov destroyed doping samples of athletes which violated requirements of the International Standard for laboratories of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the letter sent by the Agency specifying conditions for storing such samples.

Rodchenkov, who is hiding abroad and is internationally wanted, is now the accused and a court has ruled to place him in custody pending trial. The investigators are intended to demand that Rodchenkov be extradited from the USA.

Claims of independent WADA expert McLaren that tainted urine samples of Russian athletes were swapped to clean ones during the Winter Olympics in Sochi and that there was some kind of a state-sponsored doping program were overturned.

The investigators questioned more than 700 athletes, coaches, medical workers of Russian national teams, employees of the All-Russian Sports Federation, Federal Training Sport Center of the representative teams of Russia, Russian Anti-Doping Agency RUSADA and Anti-Doping Center. None of them confirmed the existence of such a program. If there ever have been any anti-doping violations, they were of a purely individual nature.

A number of coaches and athletes testified that Rodchenkov had dealt out substances true properties of which they were not aware about, and which later were revealed as doping.

Unlike McLaren, the Russian investigators have searched the building used as the anti-doping laboratory during the Sochi winter Olympics.

The investigators also questioned construction workers, security and maintenance staff who worked during the Sochi Winter Olympics. The visual examination and statements of many witnesses overturned any allegations that there could have been a hole in the laboratory through which samples of Russian athletes could have been taken out.

Experts have also disproved claims that tainted samples of Russian athletes were switched to clean ones during the Sochi Winter Olympics by adding salt or distilled water in them, indicated according to Maclaren by physiologically impossible readings of samples.

Complex and long examinations have established that those “physiologically impossible readings” have to do with features of metabolism in kidneys after training, as well as the amount and composition of liquids taken.

McLaren’s allegation about possible opening of BEREG-KIT tamper-proof drug-testing bottles made by Swiss company Berlinger was also overturned. As early as in March 2017, experts concluded that the bottles could not be tampered with without breaking their caps.  

At present, the experts are studying the arguable conclusion made by the Institute of Forensic Science of the University of Lausanne that the bottles can be tampered with if their caps are not completely closed.

The investigation also has data that WADA lacks any evidence of Russia’s guilt in the mass use of doping by athletes.

The investigators have discovered that hiding in the USA and cooperating with McLaren, Rodchenkov and former head of doping control department Timofey Sobolevsky called several times to director of the Anti-Doping Center Marina Dikunets and offered money on behalf of McLaren and WADA, asylum in Canada or the USA and citizenship of one of the countries, in exchange for the databases of initial tests of Russian athletes.

The said databases contained at hard drives had been confiscated in accordance with criminal procedure laws and are now at the disposal of the investigators.

I believe, this circumstance speaks not in favor of hasty and dubious conclusions made by WADA and McLaren.

As Dikunets informed the investigators on the offer of her own accord, all further communication between her, Rodchenkov and Sobolevsky was listened in and the investigation now has the recordings.

The actions of Rodchenkov, Sobolevsky and other people suggest attempts obstructing all-round, thorough and impartial investigation, which is a felony under both Russian and international laws, therefore Rodchenkov, Sobolevsky and other as yet unidentified persons are now under investigation in obstruction of investigation under Part 2 of Article 294 of the RF Criminal Code

 

Spokesperson for the Investigative Committee                                                                                     Svetlana Petrenko