|
Two Russian winter sportsmen named as cheats by Grigory
Rodchenkov, the former lab chief who has since fled to the
United States, also denied wrongdoing, saying the charges were
part of a campaign to besmirch the name of Russian sport.
Russia, already battling to overturn a ban on its athletes
taking part in this year's Rio summer Olympics, has been thrown
on the defensive after a New York Times report cited Rodchenkov,
the ex-head of Russia's anti-doping laboratory, as saying he ran
a doping program at the 2014 Sochi winter Olympics which
included at least 15 medal winners.
The allegations complicate Russia's efforts to distance itself
from previous accusations of state-sponsored doping made by an
independent World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) commission, pile
pressure on Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko, and are likely to make
it harder for Moscow to overturn the Rio athletics ban.
"These allegations look absolutely groundless," Dmitry Peskov, a
Kremlin spokesman, told reporters in a conference call on
Friday. "They are not substantiated by any trustworthy data,
they are not backed by any sort of documents. All this simply
looks like slander by a turncoat."
The Kremlin had not changed its view of Mutko in light of the
new accusations, Peskov said when asked. Mutko, who has been in
his position since 2008, has called the allegations "nonsense".
Asked about the prospects of Russian track and field athletes
being allowed to compete in Rio, Peskov said: "We hope
everything will be fine."
Two of the sportsmen named in the New York Times report,
cross-country skier Alexander Legkov and bobsledder Alexander
Zubkov, on Friday rejected the allegations against them as
"nonsense and slanderous."
"We need to take legal action against these people," Legkov told
Russia's Match TV. "All of it (the allegations) is not serious,
it is complete rubbish and we need to stop it.
"I performed honestly. My Olympic victory was not accidental,"
said the sportsman, who won a gold and silver medal in the Sochi
games.
Zubkov was equally dismissive of the allegations in comments to
the same channel.
"It is all nonsense and slander directed at Russian sportsmen,
who took part in the Olympics. It is unacceptable."
(Additonal reporting by Katya Golubkova; Writing by Andrew
Osborn; Editing by Anna Willard)
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
|
