The United States passed an anti-doping law named after a Russian informant

Earlier, the document was approved by the House of Representatives and sent to President Trump for signature, writes "Voice of America".

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The US Senate has approved a bill allowing US justice officials to prosecute doping violations at international events involving American athletes, sponsors and broadcasters.

The Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Law, previously unanimously approved by the House of Representatives, was passed without objection by the Senate and sent to the President for signature.

“This act provides the tools needed to protect clean athletes and hold accountable those involved in international doping conspiracies that defraud the sport, defraud sponsors and harm athletes,” said US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) Commissioner Travis Tygart.

International, according to the document, is a competition in which at least one American and three foreign athletes participate, and which are held in accordance with the rules of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Thus, the law will not apply to competitions in North American professional leagues such as the NBA and NHL, adds Air force.

Violators of the law face imprisonment for up to 10 years, and a fine of up to 250 thousand dollars for an individual and up to a million dollars in other cases. The statute of limitations under the Rodchenkov Act is 10 years.

“This act criminalizes systems that carry out fraudulent doping schemes that rob athletes, citizens and businesses,” he said. "It also protects whistleblowers from retaliation and provides redress to athletes who are defrauded by doping plots."

“This is a very important day in the fight for clean sports around the world, and we look forward to this act becoming law and changing the rules of the game for clean athletes forever,” Tygart concluded.

Rodchenkov's law is named for Grigory Rodchenkov, who helped identify the state-backed doping system in Russia.

In Russia, the news of the adoption of the law was met with disapproval. Russian Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow is “extremely critical of any US attempts to extend its jurisdiction to other countries.”

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What Rodchenkov is known for

Grigory Rodchenkov became WADA's chief informant in the doping violations in Russian sport... Rodchenkov, who has been in charge of the Moscow anti-doping laboratory since 2005, left office in 2015 after the WADA independent commission accused him of deliberately destroying thousands of athletes' urine samples. Air force.

After a few months, he fled to the USA, where he fell under the witness protection program. Rodchenkov, in particular, said that in Russia there was a state system of doping, and also described how he himself participated in the substitution of samples in Sochi and developed a “cocktail” of prohibited substances for athletes.

To investigate Rodchenkov's allegations, a commission was formed under the leadership of Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren. In 2016, she released a report on a large-scale system of doping in Russian sport, which said that the cover-up of positive doping tests high-ranking officials and the FSB were involved.

This led to the fact that the Russian team was not allowed to participate in the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korean Pyeongchang.

From the very beginning of the doping scandal, the Russian authorities denied that the system of using prohibited substances was supported at the state level and that the security forces could organize the process of substitution and falsification. positive samples of athletes in Sochi.

Russia places the main blame for violations of anti-doping rules on Rodchenkov - the Investigative Committee opened several criminal cases against him, and President Vladimir Putin called him a “moron.”

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What is happening with Russian sports now

Now the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) has been stripped of accreditation, and the Russian national team is prohibited from playing at the largest sports competitions under the national flag.

The scandal with the database of the Moscow laboratory, where sealed samples of Russian athletes, including Sochi ones, are stored, led to the next sanctions. In the winter of 2019, the base was transferred to WADA experts, but in the fall the organization's executive committee announced that changes were being made to it.

At the end of August 2020, Yuri Ganus was dismissed from the post of CEO of RUSADA due to violations identified during the audit. The official, known for his harsh remarks against the sports ministry and the heads of sports federations, called the decision “a mistake that will have far-reaching consequences.”

From November 2 to 5, the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne considered the Russian appeal against exclusion from international competitions. The verdict of the board is not yet known; it is expected to be announced before the end of the year.

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