As a pillar of the Olympic movement, FINA, as world governing body for Aquatics, undertakes a strong and robust policy in order to optimise the efficacy of our anti-doping strategies; to preserve the validity and integrity of FINA competitions; and to protect the clean athletes in the five continents.
Moreover, all of FINA’s unannounced out-of-competition doping control programme in Russia is conducted by IDTM, an independent Swedish company. In the 2014 season the majority of out-of-competition doping control tests had been analysed by the WADA-accredited laboratory in Moscow, which had been judged fully compliant with the WADA code at the time. However, following the announcement of the official investigation, FINA made the decision to move the overwhelming majority of the analysis of Russian athletes’ samples out of Russia. In 2015, over 80% of the samples collected in Russia were analysed in the WADA-accredited laboratories in Barcelona (ESP) and Köln (GER). The samples of Russian athletes living or training outside Europe were analysed in the WADA-accredited laboratories in Montreal (CAN) and Salt Lake City (USA).
FINA President Dr. Julio C. Maglione said: “Of course this is a difficult time for sport, and as sports people we at FINA are shocked and saddened by WADA’s Independent Commission report. FINA upholds a strong and unequivocal stance on the practice of doping as we aim to eradicate doping from Aquatics. FINA is committed to do everything necessary to become the world’s cleanest sport.”