Russia Claims To Reach Understanding With WADA

The Kremlin said that it "reached an understanding" with the World Anti-Doping Agency about "the transfer of crucial data" from its Moscow anti-doping lab under a "contentious agreement" to reinstate Russia, according to Max Seddon of the FINANCIAL TIMES. Russian President Vladimir Putin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said that Russia’s failure to meet a Dec. 31 deadline to hand over data from RUSADA was down to "specific working disagreements about which storage devices to hand it over on and how." WADA's experts are due to visit Russia for a third time on Thursday to retrieve the data, "which could be used to file doping charges against Russian athletes." Peskov said that "as such the data was ready for transfer last time" WADA visited Moscow, when the officials left empty-handed after Russia claimed their equipment was not certified under Russian law, according to Peskov. He added, "So I would say these aren’t substantive issues but ones of logistics concerning relevant investigations taking place here" (FT, 1/9).