A blood sample collected for dope testing. PHOTO/File
MOSCOW, December 18- The leadership of Russian anti-doping agency RUSADA has resigned following allegations of state-sponsored doping in Russian athletics, an agency spokeswoman said Thursday.
“All four leaders of RUSADA, including (acting director) Nikita Kamayev, have resigned,” a RUSADA spokeswoman told AFP. “Anna Antseliovich has been named interim general director.”
RUSADA came under fire in a report published in November by a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) independent commission that alleged evidence of widespread doping and mass corruption in Russian athletics.
WADA’s report accused RUSADA of “routinely” violating international testing standards and allowing athletes banned for doping to compete despite having been suspended from competition, among other damning accusations.
RUSADA’s general director, Ramil Khabriev, had resigned earlier this month as a team of experts from WADA began work in Moscow to help Russia clean up its act.
The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) provisionally suspended Russia in November, and both RUSADA and its anti-doping laboratory were suspended over the bombshell WADA report.
The IAAF said earlier this month the Russian athletics federation could only be reinstated if it “cleaned house” by demonstrating that none of its directors, officers and staff “has any past involvement in doping”, among other strict reinstatement terms.
New interim director Anna Antseliovich has headed the agency’s result management and investigation department, according to RUSADA’s website.
Kamayev, who had served as the agency’s acting director since 2011, could not be reached for comment.
