The Executive Committee of FISA, the World Rowing Federation, convened by telephone conference call yesterday evening, after the release of the WADA Executive Committee’s recommendations on the McLaren report issued Monday evening [click here] and the IOC Executive Board’s Statement following their meeting of Tuesday [click here].
The subject of the call was the next steps for FISA. The report states “the surprise result of the Sochi investigation was the revelation of the extent of State oversight and directed control of the Moscow Laboratory in processing, and covering up urine samples of Russian athletes from virtually all sports before and after the Sochi Games.”
FISA Executive Committee has noted:
WADA: the recommendation by the WADA Executive Committee that the IOC and the IPC consider declining all entries submitted by the Russian Olympic Committee and the Russian Paralympic Committee for Rio2016. It also recommended that IFs from sports implicated in the McLaren report consider their responsibilities under the World Anti-Doping Code with regard to their Russian National Federations.
IOC: the IOC will start disciplinary actions related to Russian Ministry of Sport officials, explore legal options with regard to a collective ban of all Russian athletes, take steps to limit involvement in sports events in Russia, exclude Russian politicians from accreditations in Rio, reanalyze samples from Sochi, among several other steps. The FISA EC carefully noted that the IOC asks all IFs for a full inquiry and, in case of implication in infringements of the World Anti-Doping Code, sanctions against Russian National Federations. In addition, the IOC Executive Board supported the announcement of the Olympic Summit on 21 June 2016 to reverse the “presumption of innocence” of athletes from Russia with regard to doping. “This means that the eligibility of each Russian athlete will have to be decided by his or her International Federation (IF) based on an individual analysis of his or her international anti-doping record.”
The FISA Executive Committee, at this point, has initiated the following actions:
The fight against doping and protecting the integrity of rowing and its athletes are top priorities for FISA which has spearheaded the implementation of doping controls as well as other important anti-doping measures. FISA continuously monitors all testing of rowers in the world, in accordance with its rules and, as outlined in its Anti-Doping Bye Laws, FISA follows World Anti-Doping Code’s procedure for testing, notification and the hearing of all doping cases. The FISA Anti-Doping Bye-Laws can be found here