OREANDA-NEWS. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has officially expressed its position regarding the recommendations of the Compliance Review Committee of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

According to the IOC, clean Russian sportsmen should be allowed to participate in international competitions, and tough sanctions must be introduced against those responsible for manipulating the data of the Moscow anti-doping laboratory. The IOC considers that the responsibility for violations lies with the Russian authorities.

“The International Olympic Committee… condemns in the strongest terms the actions of those responsible for the manipulation of the Moscow laboratory data before it was transferred to the World Anti-Doping Agency… in January 2019. This flagrant manipulation is an attack on the credibility of sport itself and is an insult to the sporting movement worldwide. The IOC will support the toughest sanctions against all those responsible for this manipulation,” the IOC report says.

The Committee also encouraged WADA to submit all manipulation data to the Council of Europe and to UNESCO.

At the same time, the IOC considers the involvement of the Russian Olympic Committee and individual representatives of sports in doping test manipulations to be unproven.

According to the Committee, the “report proves” that this “is the sole responsibility of the Russian authorities.” So, the IOC “once again requests that the Russian authorities deliver the raw data on which this case is based.” “This is still a matter of huge importance, since the delivery of any fully authenticated raw data will ensure that full justice can finally be done, and that the guilty can be properly punished and the innocent fully protected. In this way, the shadow of suspicion over the new generation of clean Russian athletes can be removed,” the representatives of the IOC resume.