Anti-doping system in Russian sports established, attacks on athletes politicized - Mutko
MOSCOW. Dec 25 (Interfax) - All recent attacks on Russian sports have been politicized, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Mutko said with confidence.
"Attacks on Russian sports have been recently undertaken, we assume that a lot is politicized, successes and prestige of our athletes are discredited, though there are no grounds for this. One needs to believe that the entire anti-doping system in Russian sports is established," Mutko said.
"These were abuses [perpetrated] by some individuals, investigative bodies have proved this. We do not know with whom he [the former head of the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory Grigory Rodchenkov] has made friends and how he earned money, but today he decided to turn everybody in. It is wrong to substantiate accusations on the [evidentiary] base of such a person. But the Oswald Commission was held, and 46 athletes were charged on the basis of the information from this person and additional conclusions. Not a single breach by our athletes in Sochi was established, no one has ever showed these facts," Mutko said.
"We will support our athletes. A number of criteria [which the IOC has set forth] are illegal, we will challenge them, and, for instance, that someone has violated the rules somewhere. We will contest all this," the deputy prime minister said.