Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1171146
maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 25 SEPTEMBER 2019 21 SPORTS TENNIS RUSSIA has been given three weeks to explain alleged "in- consistencies" in data handed over to World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) investigators and could face another ban. WADA said it would fast- track a "formal compliance procedure" to look into the al- legations. If substantiated, the results could trigger a fresh ban on Russian athletes for next year's Tokyo Olympics. And if the matter leads to a case in the Court of Arbitra- tion for Sport and there is a negative ruling for Russia, it may trigger a suspension which could not only see the country miss out on the Olym- pics next summer but also put at risk its football team's par- ticipation in 2022 World Cup qualifiers. WADA said it was not pre- pared to speculate on what the outcome of a hypothetical CAS ruling might be. CAS was unavailable for comment. But the chairman of WADA's compliance panel, Jonathan Taylor, told BBC Sport that Russia faced the prospect of being banned from a range of sporting competitions were its anti-doping agency declared non-compliant with the WA- DA code. "In a case with a 'critical non-compliance', there is now a starting point for the sanc- tions that can go up and down, and they do include sanctions against RUSADA (the Russian anti-doping agency) and op- tions include no events hosted in Russia, and they do include no participation of Russian athletes in world champion- ships and up to the Olympics," he said. Data was retrieved by WA- DA investigators in January from the Moscow laboratory used by RUSADA. The data in question comes from a period between January 1, 2012 up to the end of August 2015. In November 2015 RUSADA was declared non-compliant after a report highlighted sys- tematic doping in Russian ath- letics. Being able to access the data was one of the key conditions imposed as part of RUSADA being reinstated as compliant in September 2018. RUSADA has been given three weeks to provide its comments on the "inconsist- encies" and to provide answers to a list of specific questions. WADA said that, once a re- sponse had been received and analysed, its intelligence and investigations department and independent forensic experts would report back to WADA's compliance review committee, to decide whether further ac- tion was required. Anti-doping Russia facing another Olympic ban over drug scandal Russian athletes at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio