Margarita Pakhnotskaya (Маргарита Пахноцкая), Deputy Director General of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA), told Deutsche Welle that data retrieved by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) from the Moscow Laboratory may have been manipulated to protect athletes promoted to senior positions within Russian sport. The suggestion was also made by Yuriy Ganus, Director General of RUSADA, in an interview with The Sports Integrity Initiative at the Play The Game conference in Colorado Springs. Ganus insisted that it would have been impossible for RUSADA to manipulate the data.

“Just because you are a great athlete doesn’t mean you can lead a sporting federation”, said Pakhnotskaya in the interview (below). “RUSADA can no longer be put under pressure. In the past, the creation of a utopian agency seemed like a utopian idea. But today, it is a reality”.

At Play The Game, questions were raised about whether the independence of RUSADA is a reality, as Pakhnotskaya and Ganus assert. Ganus previously worked as an independent anti-corruption expert for Russia’s Ministry of Justice, according to a CV supplied to a Greek conference.

At the time of his appointment, the RUSADA Supervisory Board was headed by Alexander Zhukov, former President of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) and a member of the Russian State Duma (Parliament) from 1994 until 2004. Today, the Supervisory Board is headed by businessman Alexander Ivlev (Александр Ивлев). However, the Supervisory Board still features Andrew Minyaev (Андрей Миняев), the Director of the Legal Department at Russia’s Ministry of Sports. 

This led to criticism of WADA for not insisting on the independence of the Supervisory Board before reinstating RUSADA in September last year. Its Roadmap to Code Compliance only instead that the Chair and Vice Chair of the Supervisory Board were independent. Others argued that the two independent members balance out the interests of the ROC and Russia’s Ministry of Sports on the Supervisory Board.

“It doesn’t matter whether I trust Yuriy or not”, said Michael Ask, the Chair of the Institute of National Anti-Doping Organisations (iNADO) and CEO of Anti-Doping Denmark at Play The Game. “What matters is evidence. And I haven’t seen any evidence that RUSADA is manipulating the data.”