Russia ‘sure’ will participate in next Olympics

MOSCOW: Russia is “sure” it will be allowed to participate in the next Olympic Games thanks to its efforts in fighting doping, the president of the Russian Olympic Committee said Wednesday.

“We constantly work on improving anti-doping culture in Russia, on anti-doping education,” Russia’s Olympic chief Stanislav Pozdnyakov told a press conference in Moscow. “I am sure that all our initiatives concerning this subject will allow our Olympic athletes to participate in the next Olympics.”

Tokyo is due to host the next Olympics in 2020. Pozdnyakov also presented a training programme for Russian athletes to take part in the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.

Russia was banned from participating in the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics earlier this year over what international authorities believed to be a state-sponsored cheating programme. A team of World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) was in Moscow this week to conduct an audit of the Russian anti-doping agency RUSADA. Pozdnyakov was elected as the head of the Russian Olympic Committee in May this year and pledged to “restore trust” in doping-tainted Russian sport.