A key meeting of a group of World Anti-Doping Agency investigators that could have led to significant new punishments for Russia was canceled Wednesday after Russia’s voluminous response overwhelmed investigators. WADA, the global antidoping regulator, and Russia’s top antidoping official contend Russia manipulated a database of doping test results before turning it over to WADA as a condition for the lifting of an earlier doping ban. The Russian official, Yuri Ganus, said this month that “thousands” of drug test results were changed before the data was submitted to WADA for review. WADA, which had compared the Russian results that were submitted to investigators with a separate data set supplied by a whistle-blower, had seemingly reached the same conclusion. The meeting scheduled for Wednesday between the WADA investigators and Russian officials was to have been one of the last opportunities for Russia to explain the discrepancies.

Source: International New York Times October 23, 2019 18:22 UTC