Meanwhile, in a crackdown on drug cheats, as Rio approaches and the level of faith in the fair-play spirit of Olympism hits an all-time low, the International Olympic Committee announced that 454 samples from Beijing have been retested and suspicious results discovered involving 31 athletes from 12 countries, in six sports.
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Also, the International Olympic Committee ordered 250 samples from the 2012 Games in London to be tested with the new methods.
Adding to the drugs mess, dozens of athletes could be banned from August’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro following the use of newer methods to retest samples from the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
The allegations against the Sochi laboratory are “very detailed and therefore very worrying”, he said.
Bach said he had no knowledge of a reported investigation by US federal prosecutors into allegations of state-sponsored doping of Russian athletes.
Bach said Russian athletes would in any event possibly need to prove they are clean to compete in Rio.
He says if the allegations are found to be true, sanctions could include lifetime Olympic bans, tough financial penalties and “suspension or exclusion of entire national federations” like the one already imposed by the IAAF on Russia’s track and field program.
He says “I don’t know where these athletes come from”.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, meanwhile, downplayed reports that the U.S. Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation into doping allegations, saying Moscow doesn’t recognize U.S. jurisdiction over criminal matters.
Grigory Rodchenkov, the former head of the Russian anti-doping laboratory, told the New York Times last week that he gave Russian athletes a cocktail of drugs before the Olympics and switched tainted urine samples for clean ones during the games.
Russian Federation was suspended from global competition in November after a damning report on doping by the WADA.
The IOC said it would ask the Lausanne anti-doping lab and WADA to proceed with analyzing Sochi samples “in the most sophisticated and efficient way possible”.
Bach also warned that a World Anti-Doping Authority (Wada) inquiry into Russia’s actions in Sochi could “strongly influence” whether its athletes are allowed to return for Rio.
“If these allegations are true, we will hold everybody responsible who is implicated”, Bach said in a conference call with reporters.
Fresh from its triumphs at London 2012, Britain set itself the aim of doing even better in Brazil, which would require the accumulation of 66 Olympic medals by its enviably well-resourced, National Lottery-funded athletes.
The Russian sports ministry said Wednesday it supports banning drug cheats but claimed it would be unfair to keep a blanket ban on all track athletes for the games.
The US investigation is reportedly being conducted by the office of the US attorney for New York’s Eastern District, the same prosecutors who a year ago indicted top officials from football governing body FIFA on corruption charges.
National sports and athletes globally are on notice, with the International Olympic Committee set to announce later this month any adverse findings from 250 samples taken from the 2012 London Olympics and tested retrospectively using improved technology.
“Whatever the result will be”, Bach said, “we’ll do everything to provide a level playing field”.
“We are puzzled that U.S. justice system is investigating Russian Federation specifically”, Mutko was quoted as saying.
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The account holder, Ian Tan Tong Han, has been closely tied to the son of former IAAF President Lamine Diack.
