Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday pledged to establish an “independent” system to tackle doping in the country, but insisted again that the state had never run a drug cheating programme.
“We are creating a new system of fighting against doping,” Putin was quoted as saying by TASS news agency in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk.
“We will transfer this system from the sports ministry to an independent organisation, as has been done in many countries in the world,” he said, adding a new laboratory would be built in the grounds of the famed Moscow State University.
