MOSCOW, Oct 18, Andrey Senchenko. President of the Russian Hockey Federation (RHF) Vladislav Tretiak said he was very pleased with the verdict of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) regarding the forward of the Colorado Avalanche Valery Nichushkin regarding a possible violation of anti-doping rules. The IIHF was investigating Nichushkin. It was reported that he could be banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) for four years based on the data of the former head of the Moscow anti-doping laboratory, Grigory Rodchenkov. On Tuesday, the press service of the FHR announced that the IIHF dropped the charges against Nichushkin. «I want to emphasize that absolutely all the successes and victories of our teams have always been clean. We will never allow illegal drugs to be used to achieve a result. This is the principled position of the Russian Hockey Federation «We have never fed, do not feed and will not feed the hockey players of the Russian national teams with doping. The FHR has created a clean and honest system in which national teams get titles and medals exclusively by sports methods. Russians win in hockey without pharmacology,» Tretyak said. «And I am very glad that the purity and honesty of Russian hockey was recognized, including by the competent international bodies. The IIHF made an absolutely fair decision. And thereby confirmed that there are no reasons to suspect the Russian team of doping games. We will continue to work, which allows us to achieve high-profile international victories by legal methods and, of course, we will always be glad to see Valery Nichushkin in the jersey of the national team. This is a great player who is able to strengthen the national team at any of the most prestigious and status international tournaments,» the FHR president added.
