© Copyright – 2020 – Athletics Illustrated
In a fantastical and sort of dystopian effort to deflect from their very own hideous mess to do with systematic doping, bribery, cover-ups, data-tampering and extortion, Russian Anti-Doping general director Margarita Pakhnotskaya suggested that if United Kingdom Anti-Doping (UKAD) withholds the transfer of Mo Farah’s blood samples to the World Anti-Doping Agency for reanalysis, the move will create suspicion. Unfortunately, her words are akin to putting lipstick on a pig; it’s still a pig.
The world thanks Ms. Captain Obvious for her snippet of wisdom.
In bold and stoic seriousness, she told news agency TASS, “The World Anti-Doping Code and WADA standards are the same for everyone.”
That is some profound and worldly awareness that perhaps the Russians should apply to their Machiavellian culture.
UKAD played a lead role in assisting the anti-doping system rebuild in Russia following their first global suspension. The second global suspension is under appeal as we speak. They apparently manipulated data from the Moscow Laboratory that they were required to hand over to WADA, they did so only after several delays, which gave them time to redact some of the information located on the lab’s server.
Russia has requested that Britain be treated the same as everyone else.
All national governing bodies and anti-doping agencies should absolutely hand over any blood samples to WADA upon request. However, not all countries are held to the same standard for storing samples in terms of length of time. Similarly, North Americans and Europeans are tested out-of-competition more than other regions, take for example Ethiopia or Morocco; scorched earth. Additionally, not all nations pay the same amount to fund WADA. Canada, for example, pays the most per capita, while America pays the most in total.
Perhaps Pakhnotskaya, should look in her own backyard and clean it up first before pointing fingers – Russia is a glorified hobby farm with lipstick-adorned bovine wallowing in their own sty.
