Russia 2018 CEO disputes WADA, says no state-backed doping

In this file photo, then-World Anti-Doping Agency president Dick Pound gives a speech during the closing ceremony of a three-day international summit on doping, in Madrid, Spain. A whistleblower who uncovered Russia’s doping scourge says most of the changes in the country’s track and anti-doping programs are, in his words, “just fake,” and not extensive enough to allow the team into this summer’s Olympics. Vitaly Stepanov, who along with his wife, Yulia, blew the lid off systemic doping in Russia, tells The Associated Press that about 80 percent of coaches in Russian track used doping to prepare athletes for London’s Olympics. AP

MEXICO CITY — The head of the 2018 World Cup in Russia says there hasn’t been state-sponsored doping in the country, disputing a key finding of a World Anti-Doping Agency investigation.

WADA commission head Dick Pound said last year that Russia seemed to have been sporting a “state-supported” doping program in track and field.

But 2018 World Cup organizing committee chief executive Alexey Sorokin says “it’s not like it’s claimed occasionally — that it’s part of a national policy. On the contrary, it’s been said publicly that our policy is no tolerance against doping.”

As Russia prepares to host the Confederations Cup next year as the World Cup warm-up event, Russia’s anti-doping agency has been suspended by WADA.

Sorokin was speaking ahead of the FIFA Congress in Mexico City.