Russia Set to Sign 4-Year Anti-Doping Agreement with IOC

The Russian Olympic Committee plans to sign an agreement with the International Olympic Committee stipulating measures to implement anti-doping regulations over the next four years, Russian news site TASS reported last Friday.

“I am heading for Lausanne next Tuesday and we have an agreement, which will be signed later,” newly-minted ROC President Stanislav Pozdnyakov said. “The agreement will be signed by the head of the Olympic Solidarity Commission on behalf of the IOC.”

He added that the agreement will include “international cooperation measures, including measures against anti-doping rules violations,” in an attempt to reform his nation.

In 2016, a World Anti-Doping Agency report on Russian athletes at the 2014 winter Olympics led by law professor Richard McLaren confirmed state-sponsored doping in Russian sports. That report was spurred in 2015 by the confession of Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, the former head of Moscow’s anti-doping laboratory, who indicated his part in a state-sponsored doping ring in a tell-all of the doping procedure from the 2014 Olympic Games.

As a result of the MacLaren report, Russia was partially banned from the 2016 Olympics (a ban that wound up with very little tooth to it), and banned outright from the 2016 Paralympics.

For the 2018 winter Olympics, the Russian Olympic Committee as a whole was banned, but individual Russian athletes could apply for eligibility through the IOC and compete not for Russia but under a banner called “Olympic Athletes from Russia.”

Pozdnyakov, a four-time Olympic gold medalist and 10-time world champion himself in fencing, was elected president of the ROC on May 29th. He assumed the position after former head Alexander Zhukov withdrew himself from the running for another presidential term. Pozdnyakov ran against swimmer decorated Russian Alexander Popov.