After allegations were raised about the Russian men’s volleyball team doping in the 2012 Olympics, where the team won the gold medal, tests came back negative for any banned performance enhancing drugs.
“All doping samples were provided at that time and no questions were raised,” said Igor Kazikov, the head of a department with the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC), to TASS (a Russian state-run news agency). “Why would we start recalling it now? Does it really matter who is accusing whom and must we react to everything like this?” Kazikov was also a deputy head of the Russian Olympic team’s delegation at the 2012 Olympic Games in London.
The allegations were raised from renowned Brazilian volleyball player Gilberto Amauri de Godoy Filho, also known as “Giba”. Giba is in charge of the FIVB Athletics Commission and announced on Monday to the media that he believes that players from the Russian men’s volleyball team were under the influence of doping during the 2012 Olympics in London. Giba, a one-time Olympic and three-time World Champion winner, said he would do whatever it took to see that the Russian squad be stripped of the 2012 Olympic gold, which they won over Brazil. If the team were to be stripped of their medal, Brazil would be named the 2012 Olympic champions. Giba’s report to the media comes in the wake of the infamous McLaren Report.
Richard McLaren, a Canadian sports law professor and chairman of the WADA Independent Commission, made a report early last month in London by the WADA, more than 1,000 Russian athletes competing in summer, winter and Paralympic sports could have been involved in an alleged manipulation scheme to conceal their positive doping tests. In addition to this claim, McLaren reported that the doping samples of 12 Russian medalists from the 2014 Sochi Winter Games has been tampered with. Additionally, that the doping tests of two more Russian athletes, who gathers a total of four gold medals at the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games, has been falsified.
No names were mentioned in the report, as McLaren’s decision to not identify the allegedly guilty of doping abuse, was made in respect to their private life and that it should be a statement coming from the international sports federations, and not him personally.
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