International Testing Agency drops doping charges against North Ossetian Olympic champion

Russia’s Wrestling Federation has announced that the International Testing Agency (ITA) dropped doping charges against North Ossetian Olympic freestyle wrestling champion Khadzhimurat Gatsalov.

The announcement was made by the president of Russia’s Wrestling Federation, Mikhail Mamiashvili, on Tuesday.

The statement, published on the Wrestling Federation’s website, cites Mamiashvili as saying that ‘yet another unfounded accusation […] has been fully lifted from Khadzhimurat Gatsalov’. He also noted that the International Testing Agency had not issued an apology to the athlete in connection with his provisional suspension from the post of head coach of the Russian national team.

‘We did not doubt his innocence for a single second’, Mamiashvili emphasised.

In May 2025, the ITA announced the provisional suspension of Gatsalov, who at the time held the position of head coach of Russia’s national freestyle wrestling team, on the basis of data from the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory (LIMS). The agency stated that the case concerned an alleged anti-doping rule violation in May 2015. It specified that the grounds were information contained in the laboratory database.

Following the announcement of the provisional suspension, the Russian Wrestling Federation also relieved Gatsalov of his duties as head coach. A statement published on the federation’s website said that during the investigation, he was deprived of the opportunity to perform his official duties and to receive the payments he is due.

Gatsalov’s lawyer, Aleksei Panich, told the state news agency TASS that the accusations were based on ‘highly questionable materials’ from Grigory Rodchenkov, including electronic spreadsheets from the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory (LIMS) database, correspondence between laboratory staff, and chromatograms.

‘It is noteworthy that the accusations against our client were brought just a few days before the expiry of the 10-year statute of limitations for holding him liable for the alleged anti-doping violations’, Panich said.

Panich added that evidence of Gatsalov’s innocence was gathered at an early stage of the proceedings.

‘Already at the first stage, we were able to collect convincing evidence of the athlete’s innocence, which demonstrated to the ITA the futility of continuing to pursue the charges and the undesirability of potential proceedings at the CAS. As a result, the charges against Khadzhimurat Gatsalov were dropped. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) agreed with this’, Panich said.

According to previously published information from the ITA, Gatsalov’s case was linked to the alleged use of the prohibited substance ipamorelin in 2015. The decision on the provisional suspension was taken by the agency in a pre-trial procedure.

The deadline for the WADA to appeal the ITA’s decision to fully clear Gatsalov of doping charges has expired.

‘I would like to thank everyone who stood by me and provided professional support. I have never used prohibited substances and was confident that we would be able to prove the truth. After my suspension, I was removed from all lists, my employment contract was not extended, and I was deprived of the presidential scholarship that I received as the 2004 Olympic champion. For more than six months I had no right to coach or take part in sporting activities in any capacity. Fortunately, we managed to get through this ordeal and achieve justice’, Gatsalov told TASS.

The LIMS database contains the results of athletes’ doping tests from 2012–2015. In 2019, the World Anti-Doping Agency obtained the original database of the Moscow laboratory and passed the information it contained to international sports federations and other bodies for consideration of possible disciplinary measures. On the basis of this data, investigations were launched against 10,000 Russian athletes, around 300 of whom were sanctioned following the review of information from the Moscow laboratory database.

Khadzhimurat Gatsalov, 42, won gold at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, became a five-time world champion, and a three-time European champion in freestyle wrestling. He was appointed as head coach of Russia’s national freestyle wrestling team in 2022.