MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The Kremlin welcomes the reported decision of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) independent commission's head Richard McLaren to withdraw charges of Russian state's participation in the alleged use of doping in sport if the information is true, spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday.
"If this is true, one can only welcome it. You know, from the very beginning we ultimately denied even a hypothetical possibility of it, and, of course, we can only express satisfaction here, I reiterate once again, if this is really so," Peskov said.
Earlier in the day, the Russian Independent Anti-Doping Commission chief, Vitaly Smirnov, said McLaren had allegedly dropped his charges of the Russian state's alleged participation in the doping.
A year later, McLaren presented a two-part report on alleged doping violations in Russia, which claimed the existence of a state-supported doping system. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Sports Minister Pavel Kolobkov strongly denied these accusations, while admitting that Russian sports did have some doping-related issues. A description in McLaren's July 2016 interim report of "state-dictated failsafe system" was changed to "institutionalized conspiracy" in the final report published in December.
WADA is expected to discuss status of RUSADA and its "roadmap for compliance" at the Executive Committee Meeting on September 24 in Paris.
