Moscow anti-doping lab’s files were remotely altered by its former director, Grigory Rodchenkov, and his unidentified associates from US and German IP addresses, Russian investigators confirmed.

Ex-boss of Moscow lab fled to US in November 2015 becoming a star witness and main source of information for World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in its case against Moscow.

Earlier in December, WADA introduced harsh sanctions against Russia over the alleged manipulations with the data handed over to it by Russian doping watchdog, RUSADA, as part of its reinstatement process.

But the laboratory information management system (LIMS) was accessed between 2015 and 2016 “from the IP-addresses registered and located in the USA and Germany,” Russia’s Investigative Committee said revealing their findings in the probe into the fugitive doctor.

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“All the evidence obtained by the investigation indicate that Rodchenkov and unidentified persons intentionally made changes to the electronic database in order to distort parameters and indicators of Russian athletes’ doping tests,” the statement read.

The government body said that according to its information Rodchenkov had provided WADA with “a sort of an alternative archive of the Moscow anti-doping laboratory,” the origin and the content of which remain unknown.

The Russian investigators lamented that despite their readiness to cooperate with WADA and providing all available data, they were denied access to the files that Rodchenkov gave to WADA and prevented form questioning the man even via a video-link.

The Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) is planning to file an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to overturn a four-year ban for hosting and participating in sports competition. Moscow officials and many sportsmen repeatedly protested “the collective punishment” that affected clean athletes, calling the decision “political.”

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