On March 4, the All-Russian Swimming Federation announced the suspension of 20-year old swimmer Sergey Isaev in violation of anti-doping rules.
The suspension is effective retroactively to November 18, 2020 and lasts two years until November 17, 2022. Isaev’s results from the Russian Championships [long course] held in October 2020 in Kazan have been voided and he has been stripped of his medals.
In Kazan Isaev swam the 50 backstroke, 100 breaststroke, 50 butterfly, 200 IM, and 400 IM. His highest finishes were in the two IM events where he placed second in the 400 IM in 4:19.82 and third in the 200 IM in 2:01.03.
Both of those swims were under the Olympic “B” standard and would have been personal best times for Isaev. Prior to 2020, his best 200 IM time was 2:02.07 from July 2019. In October 2020, three weeks prior to the Russian Championships, he dropped down to 2:01.70. His best 400 IM time prior to Kazan was a 4:23.96 swum in April 2019.
His 50 back (27.85), 100 breast (1:04.76), and 50 butterfly (26.54) swum in Kazan would have been personal bests for him as well.
While the official statement from the All-Russian Swimming Federation does not specify what Isaev violated, TeleSport reports that there was a “presence of a prohibited substance or its metabolites, or markers in a sample taken from an athlete”
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) imposed an initial four-year sanction on Russia in 2019 by declaring the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) as non-compliant. The ban came after a lengthy doping scandal for Russia in which the McLaren Reports detailed a large, state-sponsored doping program to help shield Russian athletes from bans. RUSADA fell out of compliance around the time of the McLaren Reports in 2016. One major condition of RUSADA‘s reinstatement was that Russia turn over full lab data from its Moscow anti-doping lab. But Russia missed the deadline to turn over the data, and when it did, WADA said the data had been doctored when compared to data leaked by a whistleblower in 2017.
In December the CAS reduced that period from four years to two years.
Not an outright-ban, instead it prevents Russia’s team name and national anthem for Olympics and world championship sporting events through 2022. Russian athletes will compete as “ROC” or the “Russian Olympic Committee” at the upcoming Tokyo Olympics. They will use a flag of the ROC emblem above the Olympic rings in place of the Russian flag.
lol he’s probably the cleanest guy in russia and because of it they’re throwing him under the bus
Joke, its always the ones who would not make the team who are caught, again money talks in that corrupt Mafia infested place!
Every few years, they ban some inconsequential swimmer, to make a pretense of doing their job. I recall they made a big show of banning a woman 4:30 400 freestyler a couple of years ago.
Sacrificial lamb. Probably didn’t pay the bribe.
He must practically glow in the dark if RUSADA banned him…