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Russian gold medalists are seen on stage as the flag is raised next to the Olympic flag during the closing ceremony for the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games. (Photo: James Lang-USA TODAY Sports)

Russia has been reinstated by the World Anti-Doping Agency, a controversial decision given the magnitude of the country’s doping offenses.

WADA’s executive committee voted to reinstate Russia's Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) at a meeting Thursday in the Seychelles. The decision was expected after WADA’s compliance review committee made its recommendation for reinstatement last week.

WADA president Craig Reedie announced on Twitter the "great majority" of the executive committee decided to reinstate RUSADA as compliant.

"This decision provides a clear timeline by which WADA must be given access to the former Moscow laboratory data and samples with a clear commitment by the (executive committee) that should this timeline not be met, it would support the (compliance review committee's) recommendation to reinstate non-compliance," Reedie said in a tweet.

Russia was suspended in November 2015 when a WADA report found a state-sponsored doping scheme in athletics. The report detailed how track and field athletes were doped and coaches and officials covered up the cheating by manipulating doping reports and testing procedures.

In July 2016, a report by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren found a system of sample tampering during the 2014 Sochi Olympics that included passing urine samples through a hole in the wall. The report said there was evidence that 28 Russian athletes who competed in Sochi had samples that had been tampered with.

More than 1,000 athletes were caught up in the state-sponsored doping system, according to McLaren.

In recent days dozens of athletes, anti-doping leaders and sports officials from around the world have spoken out against WADA lifting the suspension of RUSADA. They’ve pointed to two key conditions that were set as part of a roadmap for Russia to regain compliance, demanding that Russian officials publicly accept McLaren’s report and release electronic data and samples from the Moscow laboratory.

More: There's much more at stake for Olympics if Russians are reinstated

More: Opinion: Decision to reinstate Russia would be catastrophic

Travis Tygart, CEO of the United States Anti-Doping Agency, called the decision to reinstate Russia despite it not having met the two roadmap conditions "bewildering and inexplicable."

"The world’s athletes want the International Olympic Committee (IOC) – and the conflict that their involvement brings to clean sport – to stay well away from WADA," Tygart said in a statement. "They want a WADA with teeth, authority, sanctioning power and the determination to get the job done of cleaning up sport and restoring the trust of the billions of sports fans and athletes worldwide. Today, that job must start – and it starts by reforming WADA and giving it the power to regulate as any good global watchdog must do."

Your organization is corrupt and virulent beyond repair. You have prostituted yourselves to become feckless tools of a remorseless despot. Dissolve your Whitewashing Institution, resign, atone for your sins. The honest world wants to hear your names no longer. https://t.co/zwpwDzAc86 — Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) September 20, 2018

Athletes from the UK, Canada, USA and other countries have written letters to Reedie this month requesting WADA uphold its suspension of RUSADA.

“By acting on promises, and not proven compliance, WADA’s decision on reinstating RUSADA would weaken the increasingly delicate integrity of international Sport,” a group of more than 30 U.S. athletes wrote in a letter to WADA president Craig Reedie. “Ignoring the established conditions also ignores the athlete’s voice that has been begging for a fair and even playing field.”

Grigory Rodchenkov, the former Moscow lab director turned whistleblower who exposed Russia's doping system, also has protested RUSADA's reinstatement.

“It has become crystal clear that to succeed in the fight against doping, we must target cheating countries and international sports federations by challenging their denial and their reckless behavior,” Rodchenkov wrote in an opinion piece for USA TODAY Sports that was published Tuesday.

Rodchenkov added that any decision by WADA to reinstate RUSADA “would be a catastrophe for Olympic sport ideals, the fight against doping and the protection of clean athletes.”

Contributing: Rachel Axon</s>Most members of the World Anti-Doping Agency voted to reinstate Russia’s anti-doping agency RUSADA, Russian news agency RIA reported, citing a source.

WADA earlier said that its compliance review committee had recommended the reinstatement of RUSADA, which has been suspended since 2015 over alleged state-backed doping.</s>VICTORIA, Seychelles (AP) - The World Anti-Doping Agency has reinstated Russia, ending a nearly three-year suspension caused by state-sponsored doping.

WADA says its 12-member executive committee voted to reinstate the Russian Anti-Doping Agency "subject to strict conditions."

WADA's move came despite a wave of fierce criticism from anti-doping figures - some within WADA itself - and from athletes around the world opposed to Russia being reinstated without taking full responsibility for what has been labeled systematic doping.

FILE -The May 24, 2016 file photo shows a RUSADA sign reading "Russian National Anti-doping Agency" on a building in Moscow, Russia. The World Anti-Doping Agency is due to vote Thursday Sept. 20, 2018, on possible reinstatement of Russia's anti-doping agency, RUSADA, but opponents feel Russia can't be trusted to reform without first accepting more of the blame. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, FILE)

Russia still hasn't admitted state involvement or given access to evidence at its discredited Moscow laboratory - two key conditions for reinstatement set by WADA but eased in recent months.

The Russian Anti-Doping Agency was suspended in November 2015 after it was revealed there was a government-backed scheme of doping and cover-ups that helped Russian athletes win Olympic medals.

FILE - In this May 24, 2016 file photo employees work in Russia's national drug-testing laboratory in Moscow. Russian doping whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov, the whistleblower who exposed Russia's doping corruption at the Sochi Olympics added to a chorus of protest over the possible reinstatement of the country's anti-doping agency. In a statement provided to The Associated Press, Grigory Rodchenkov portrayed the World Anti-Doping Agency's shifting of its requirements to end RUSADA's suspension as a result of Russia's unwillingness to accept findings from investigator Richard McLaren, who detailed a government-sponsored doping program designed to win medals. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks to the media during a joint news conference with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban after their talks in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2018. Putin says "a chain of tragic circumstances" is to be blamed for a Russian military aircraft shot down by a Syrian missile. He vowed to boost security for Russian troops there. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, Pool)

FILE - In this file photo dated Thursday, Nov. 16, 2017, Russian National Anti-doping Agency RUSADA head Yuri Ganus speaks during a news conference in Moscow, Russia. The World Anti-Doping Agency is due to vote Thursday Sept. 20, 2018, on possible reinstatement of Russia's anti-doping agency, RUSADA, but opponents feel Russia can't be trusted to reform without first accepting more of the blame. Speaking earlier this month, Ganus said just about the only burdens from Russia's "non-compliant" status were extra monitoring of the agency's work and problems asking for assistance from foreign agencies. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin, FILE)</s>VICTORIA, Seychelles — The World Anti-Doping Agency has reinstated Russia, ending a nearly three-year suspension caused by state-sponsored doping.

WADA says its 12-member executive committee voted to reinstate the Russian Anti-Doping Agency “subject to strict conditions.”

WADA’s move came despite a wave of fierce criticism from anti-doping figures — some within WADA itself — and from athletes around the world opposed to Russia being reinstated without taking full responsibility for what has been labeled systematic doping.

Russia still hasn’t admitted state involvement or given access to evidence at its discredited Moscow laboratory — two key conditions for reinstatement set by WADA but eased in recent months.

The Russian Anti-Doping Agency was suspended in November 2015 after it was revealed there was a government-backed scheme of doping and coverups that helped Russian athletes win Olympic medals.</s>The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) executive committee has voted to lift the ban on the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA).

WADA president Craig Reedie revealed that a "great majority" of votes were in favor of Russia being reinstated.

RUSADA was suspended by WADA in November 2015 in the wake of accusations of state-sponsored doping.

Despite widespread opposition to the prospect of the nation being deemed compliant once again, it was confirmed by WADA following a meeting on Thursday.

"Today, the great majority of WADA's ExCo decided to reinstate RUSADA as compliant with the code [of conduct] subject to strict conditions, upon recommendation by the agency's independent CRC [Compliance Review Committee] and in accordance with an agreed process," Reedle said in a statement.

"This decision provides a clear timeline by which WADA must be given access to the former Moscow laboratory data and samples with a clear commitment by the ExCo that should this timeline not be met, it would support the CRC's recommendation to reinstate non-compliance."

WADA and RUSADA agreed to a detailed "Roadmap to Compliance" in January 2017 with the aim of getting Russia readmitted.

It was announced by WADA last week that the CRC had recommended Russia's anti-doping agency be reinstated, stating that the Russian authorities and partners "have worked hard to rebuild a credible, and sustainable, anti-doping program in Russia; and that, there have been significant developments across their anti-doping system."

Russia continuously denied accusations of state-sponsored doping which were made in the McLaren report.

Travis Tygart, head of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, released a statement Thursday blasting WADA's decision.

“Today marked the biggest decision in the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)’s history, and it delivered a devastating blow to the world’s clean athletes," it read in part. "By ripping up the very ‘Roadmap’ it created, WADA’s decision to reinstate Russia despite the nation not having met the two remaining Roadmap conditions is bewildering and inexplicable. In its landmark meeting today, WADA sent one clear message to the world: we put the wishes of a small handful of sports administrators above the rights of millions of clean athletes and the dreams of billions of sports fans."</s>VICTORIA, Seychelles (AP) — World Anti-Doping Agency reinstates Russia to end nearly 3-year suspension for doping scheme.</s>There was no mention of Russia publicly accepting a state-sponsored conspiracy to help its athletes win Olympic medals by doping.

The World Anti-Doping Agency reinstated Russia on Thursday despite a wave of protests, ending the nearly three-year suspension of the country’s drug-testing program because of a state-sponsored doping scheme.

WADA’s decision after a vote of its 12-member executive committee was called “the greatest treachery against clean athletes in Olympic history” by the lawyer of the whistleblower who helped uncover Russia’s cheating.

WADA decided to reinstate Russia after backtracking on two key conditions it had set for reinstatement: That Russia accept a report that concluded state involvement in the doping and coverups, and that Russia give access to evidence stored in its discredited Moscow laboratory.

In announcing its decision to find the Russian Anti-Doping Agency compliant, WADA said it would be “subject to strict conditions.” There is now a “clear timeline” for Russia to grant WADA access to samples stored in its Moscow lab, WADA president Craig Reedie said, but no date was announced.

There was no mention of Russia publicly accepting a state-sponsored conspiracy to help its athletes win Olympic medals by doping.

Reedie said a majority of the executive committee voted to reinstate Russia but didn’t say what the vote count was.

Signs that WADA had suddenly softened its stance on Russia came last week when one of its key committees suddenly changed direction and surprisingly recommended Russia be reinstated. That led to fierce criticism from anti-doping figures — some from within WADA itself — and athletes from around the world opposed to Russia’s reinstatement.

Reedie’s vice-president at WADA, Norwegian politician Linda Helleland, said she would not be voting for reinstatement.

The Russian Anti-Doping Agency was suspended in November 2015 after the doping scandal, which centred on helping Russian athletes win medals at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, was revealed.

As recently as May this year, WADA and Russia appeared to be still in a stalemate with the country not accepting those two key conditions.

The move to suddenly reinstate was portrayed by some as WADA, and tacitly the International Olympic Committee, appeasing a sporting superpower unwilling to admit wrongdoing. The WADA executive board that decided on Russia’s reinstatement is made up of six members from the Olympic movement and six from government authorities.

“The United States is wasting its money by continuing to fund WADA, which is obviously impotent to address Russia’s state-sponsored doping,” said Jim Walden, the lawyer for whistleblower and former Moscow lab director Grigory Rodchenkov.

Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.</s>MOSCOW, Russian Federation, Sep 20 – The Russian government said on Thursday the decision by the world anti-doping body to lift sanctions on Russia’s anti-doping agency was the result of “enormous work” by Moscow to improve testing.

“We welcome WADA’s decision,” Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying after the World Anti-Doping Agency’s executive committee voted to reinstate the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA).

“Russia confirms its adherence to the principles of clean sports competition,” she said.

“Over the past years Russia has done enormous work to create transparent and understandable measures to prevent doping,” she said, adding that these included criminal prosecution for those who force someone to take banned substances.

RUSADA chief Yury Ganus said that the reinstatement “opens the path to competitions for our athletes, our federations, moreover it creates an opportunity” to organise sports events in Russia.

Speaking in televised remarks, he added however that this was just the “first step” towards “rebuilding trust” in the Russian sports system.

WADA suspended RUSADA in 2015 after declaring it to be non-compliant following revelations of a vast Russian-backed scheme to avoid drug testers.

The decision to lift the suspension was announced at a WADA meeting in Seychelles on Thursday.

For several months, WADA believed that Russia had made progress in their anti-doping procedures since their suspension.

As well as changes in the leadership which were at the centre of the scandal when it broke, the authorities claimed they had toughened up the anti-doping policy, introducing criminal responsibility for doping.

In June 2017, WADA authorised RUSADA to conduct doping control programs again but under the supervision of Britain’s anti-doping agency.

Another key factor in Russia’s potential rehabilitation came in May when deputy Prime Minister and sports minister Vitali Mutko, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, was ousted.

Mutko had been one of the chief targets of the bombshell McLaren report which lifted the lid on state-sponsored doping.

He was replaced by Golodets in a government reshuffle following the re-election of Putin.

When Ganus was appointed in August 2017, there were early indications of a shifting in the sands.

Russia’s anti-doping credit “is exhausted”, he said shortly after his election to RUSADA.

On Thursday, he reiterated that Russia can no longer afford “such scandals”, saying that “sportsmen must play by the rules”.

Russian officials also believe that the public apology for the scandal made by Russian Athletic Federation (Rusaf) president Dmitry Shlyakhtin was another positive sign.

Russian athletes have been banned from international competition by the IAAF and reinstatement is not guaranteed after WADA’s decision.

But Shlyakhtin, quoted by Interfax, said Thursday: “(I) look with optimism on the next steps to accelerate the reintegration process of the Rusaf.”

Russian sports minister Pavel Kolobkov said Moscow “will do its utmost to ensure that all Russia’s obligations are fulfilled”.</s>The Ministry of Youth and Sports (MOYS) has inaugurated a nine-member National Anti-Doping Committee (NADC) tasked with producing a legal framework that will lead to the establishment of an independent national anti-doping commission.

According to the Minister of Youth and Sports (MOYS), Isaac Kwame Asiamah, the committee is to ensure that Ghanaian athletes complete fairly locally and internationally by policing the use of banned substances.

He said as one of the 43 signatories to UNESCO's International Convention against Doping in Sport, Ghana was committed to the fight against doping in sport.

"Upon taking office in 2017, there was the need for the establishment of a national anti-doping commission which is a requirement of countries that have ratified the UNESCO convention. My Ministry has been regular in the payments of it's anti World Doping Agency contributions and of course that of our regional anti-doping contributions," Mr Asiamah said shortly before swearing-in the committee.

"The committee is made of capable Ghanaians that have distinguished themselves in their area of expertise. Their job is to ensure that we have a sound legislative framework, a sound legal framework that can stand the test of time in fighting doping in sports. I am happy that as chairman we have a Member of Parliament who understands and appreciates the legal framework so would help us in shaping a law that can fight doping in sports.

"Cheating must not be allowed to go on and that can only happen when we have a sound legal framework that can fight doping in sports, today it's good news for Ghana sports as we take a giant step in ensuring that we have an anti-doping."

Mr Asiamah said the committee was only the third of it's kind in Africa with only South Africa and Kenya having independent anti-doping bodies.

The National Anti-Doping Committee is chaired by the Member of Parliament of Effiduase/Asokore, Dr Nana Ayew Afriyie with the President of the Ghana Olympic Committee, Ben Nunoo Mensah serving as the Vice Chairman.

Other members of the NADC are Mr Emmanuel Domenyah (Ghana Education Service), Mrs Olivia Agyekumwaa Boateng (Food and Drugs Authority), Mr Mark Harrison Amankwa (National Pharmacy Council), Dr Prince David Pambo (Medical and Dental Council, Mrs Sefakor Batse (Attorney Generals Department), Dr Aryetey and Paul Atchoe (Vice President of the GOC).

The Chairman of the NADC who revealed that he was off to Seychelles for the World Anti-Doping Agency Executive Committee Meeting said the committee will in the interim develop programmes to enhance operations of anti-doping officials in Ghana.

He said: "The committee definitely will look towards developing programmes, we have doping officers conducting random tests on players all the time. So, it's not as if work has not been on we have been working hard and we will develop a policy that will make efforts against anti-doping very effective."</s>The World Anti-Doping Agency declared Russia's scandal-ridden drug-testing operation back in business Thursday, a decision designed to bring a close to one of sports' most notorious doping scandals but one bitterly disputed by hundreds of athletes and described as 'treachery' by the lawyer for the man who exposed the corruption.

On a 9-2 vote, the executive committee took the advice of the agency's compliance review panel and declared RUSADA as having satisfied conditions of reinstatement that were gradually softened over the summer.

In most tangible ways, the decision doesn't change much: RUSADA has been up and running for a while, bringing one of the world's largest testing programs back on line with the help of officials from Britain and elsewhere. And Russia's Olympic committee was brought back into the fold after the Pyeongchang Olympics, where athletes who could prove they were clean were able to compete as 'Olympic Athletes from Russia.'

But RUSADA's reinstatement now clears the country to again bid for major international events - although soccer's World Cup was held there this summer despite that restriction.

It also clears a major hurdle for Russia's track team to be declared compliant by that sport's international governing body, one of the few to take a strong, consistent stand against doping.

Perhaps most importantly, hundreds of athletes and dozens of world anti-doping leaders see it as a stinging rebuke to the ideal of fair play.

'WADA's decision to reinstate Russia represents the greatest treachery against clean athletes in Olympic history,' said Jim Walden, the attorney for Grigory Rodchenkov, the former Moscow lab director who exposed much of the Russian scheme.

WADA had been telegraphing the move since September 14, when it released the recommendation of its compliance review committee. Olympic champion Beckie Scott resigned from that committee afterward.

'I'm profoundly disappointed,' Scott said to Canadian broadcaster CBC after the decision. 'I feel this was an opportunity for WADA, and they have dealt a devastating blow to clean sport. I'm quite dismayed.'

Even in Russia, where the news was welcomed, it came with a sense that there's still work to be done.

'These questions will always follow us,' said RUSADA CEO Yuri Ganus, whose appointment to the job was part of the housecleaning at the agency that WADA demanded. 'These aren't the kind of skeletons which can lie unnoticed in the closet. These are the skeletons which will be banging on the closet door all the time.'

The two biggest roadblocks to RUSADA's reinstatement involved the country accepting findings from a report by investigator Richard McLaren that concluded the government had engineered the doping scandal to win medals at the Sochi Olympics. It also involved Russia agreeing to hand over a trove of data and samples that could be used to corroborate potential doping violations that stemmed from the cheating.

Over a summer's worth of correspondence between WADA leaders and Russia's sports minister about how to bridge the gap, a pattern emerged of WADA backing down from its initial requirements and, at one point, essentially asking Russia what it would be willing to say in a letter designed to satisfy the WADA review committee.

'We think that a small addition to the letter, if acceptable to you, could ensure that the letter is well received ... and that a positive recommendation is provided,' WADA CEO Olivier Niggli wrote to sports minister Pavel Kolobkov in May in a letter obtained by BBC Sport.

Russian President Vladimir Putin had accused the United States of being involved in orchestrating the scandal.

In the end, Russia agreed to accept findings of an IOC-commissioned report that put less onus on the Russian government for the scheme, a move that Rodchenkov said earlier this week was done 'for the pure purpose of protecting their top-level apparatchiks who destroyed the Olympic Games in Sochi.'

Russia also agreed to hand over the samples and data by December 31. If it does not, RUSADA will again be declared noncompliant.

'Without this pragmatic approach, we would continue with the impasse and the laboratory data could have remained out of our reach indefinitely,' WADA president Craig Reedie said after Thursday's executive committee meeting in Seychelles.

Critics said reinstating RUSADA before obtaining the data only amounts to accepting another promise from a country that hasn't kept many over the five-year course of the scandal.

Travis Tygart, the CEO for the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, called the decision 'bewildering and inexplicable,' and urged a full revamping of WADA; Reedie also serves as a member of the IOC, which is one of the many conflicts of interest that bother critics of the agency.

'Let's be clear: Absolutely nothing will be off the table for how we, the anti-doping community, begin the work of reforming WADA,' Tygart said.

Reedie said 'WADA understands that this decision will not please everybody.'

'Clean athletes were denied places at the Olympic and Paralympic Games, as well as other major events, and others were cheated of medals,' he said. 'It is entirely understandable that they should be wary about the supposed rehabilitation of offenders.'

After exposing the doping program, Rodchenkov was sued for defamation by three biathletes with the help and financial support of Russian oligarch and Brooklyn Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov.

The lawsuit claims that Rodchenkov defamed Russian biathletes Olga Zaytseva, Yana Romanova and Olga Vilukhina when he linked them to Russian doping, leading to the trio being stripped of their silver medals from the 2014 Sochi Games. The women are seeking $10 million in damages.

The New York Times originally reported Prokhorov's involvement with the lawsuit.

A former Russian antidoping laboratory chief, Rodchenkov now lives in hiding in the U.S. and told 60 Minutes that has feared for his life since revealing his country's doping operation in 2016. He apologized for his part in the program, which involved swapping urine samples by tampering with sample bottles at the World Anti-Doping Agency lab.

In May Rodchenkov accused Prokhorov of trying to learn his whereabouts.
The World Anti-Doping Agency votes to reinstate its affiliation with the Russian Anti-Doping Agency, which had previously been suspended in November 2015.