Russians suspected of doping kept from Tokyo

The team of 335 Russian athletes accredited for Tokyo is competing without a national flag and anthem as punishment for state tampering with the Moscow labs database. Niggli says we cross-checked what we had from this long list to ensure athletes were not selected for Tokyo.

The World Anti-Doping Agency says several Russian athletes have been kept away from the Tokyo Olympics because of doping suspicions based on evidence from a Moscow testing laboratory that was shut down in 2015.

WADA director general Olivier Niggli says it intervened with sports bodies to ensure those athletes — "not many, but there was a handful" — were not selected. The team of 335 Russian athletes accredited for Tokyo is competing without a national flag and anthem as punishment for state tampering with the Moscow lab's database. The team name is ROC, the acronym for Russian Olympic Committee, without the word "Russia." The identity ban for the Tokyo Olympics and 2022 Beijing Winter Games was imposed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport last December.

Giving WADA the database and samples from the lab was key to getting closure for the long-running Russian state-backed doping scandal.

WADA had a list of around 300 athletes under suspicion and gave evidence to Olympic sports bodies for possible disciplinary cases. Niggli says "we cross-checked what we had from this long list" to ensure athletes were not selected for Tokyo.

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