Russia Faces 2020 Olympics Ban Over Alleged Forged Docs – The Times

Russia could be banned from competing in the second consecutive Olympics over allegedly forged medical documents, Britain’s The Sunday Times reported.

High jumper Danil Lysenko, 22, had been one of the Russians cleared to compete internationally for having demonstrated he was training in a doping free-environment. However, he lost his status and was provisionally suspended in August 2018 for having failed to provide his whereabouts.

Russia could now be barred from the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo after The Sunday Times reported that paperwork showing that Lysenko was too ill to give his location to drug-testing officials was allegedly forged.

“The clinic [listed on the paperwork] was false from top to bottom, from registration numbers through to false doctors’ names through to falsified documentation,” an unnamed source with knowledge of the investigation was quoted as saying. “There is no clinic.”

Russia’s athletics federation is cooperating with global athletics officials in a probe into allegations that some of its representatives forged documents, president Dmitry Shlyakhtin said in a statement.

Shlyakhtin was questioned about the forgery by the international athletics federation IAAF’s integrity unit in Monaco in April, The Sunday Times reported.

The Russian athletics federation has been suspended since a 2015 report commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) report that found evidence of widespread doping in the sport. Russia’s Olympic team was barred from competing in the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea over the allegations, with Russian athletes cleared of doping permitted to compete under a neutral flag.

Russian authorities have denied their doping program was state-sponsored but have accepted that senior officials were involved in providing banned substances to athletes, interfering with anti-doping procedures or covering up positive tests.

The IAAF will consider whether to lift the ban against Russia at its Council meeting in Monaco next week.

Reuters contributed reporting to this article.