Moscow: The Kremlin dismissed claims by Tuesday Russian whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov that President Vladimir Putin ordered a state-sponsored doping programme, calling them baseless ‘slander’.
“This is yet more slander which doesn’t have a single piece of evidence to support it,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists following allegations made by Rodchenkov to German public broadcaster ‘ARD’.
The ARD report Monday quoted Rodchenkov, the source of revelations on Moscow’s state-sponsored doping, who said that orders came from the Russian leader who was kept informed through former sports minister Vitaly Mutko.
“Of course it came all the way from the top, from the President,” Rodchenkov claimed. “Only the President can deploy the domestic secret service FSB for such a special task.”
Rodchenkov is the former head of Moscow’s anti-doping laboratory who fled to the United States in 2016 following the sudden death of two senior officials from Russia’s anti-doping agency. He is now wanted in Russia and Peskov painted him as an ‘odious’ criminal.
“Mr Rodchenkov is a wanted man, he is under investigation,” Peskov asserted. “He is an odious individual who has problems with the law… he clearly cannot be treated as a source with any credibility.
“There is lack of readiness and willingness to use any other sources to confirm this information,” Peskov added while talking about the German report.
Russia has been banned from taking part at the 2018 Winter Olympics and Paralympics although individual athletes who prove themselves to be clean can compete under strict conditions and under a neutral flag.
Neither WADA nor the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have linked Putin to the conspiracy, only pointing to the sports ministry and slapping lifetime Olympic bans on Yuri Nagornykh and Mutko.
Graf declines IOC invitation
Moscow: Russian speed skater Olga Graf announced Tuesday that she will be refusing to compete in the upcoming Pyeongchang Olympics, because a ban on her country meant there wouldn’t be enough athletes to form a team for the pursuit race. The IOC last week decided to allow only 169 of Russia’s athletes to take part in the Games under a neutral flag. “I’m happy that the IOC commission considered me to be a clean athlete,” Graf wrote on Instagram. “But it’s deplorable that more than the half of the country’s team, including my pursuit race teammates, have not been approved to compete. That makes it impossible for Russia’s athletes to participate in the event.” Graf, had won two bronze medals in Sochi in the 3,000 metres and in the team event.
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