WADA and other anti-doping officials urged the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to consider the unprecedented step of excluding the entire Russian Federation team from the Rio de Janeiro Games.
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First, the International Olympic Committee said, it will “carefully evaluate” the report issued on Monday by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren, who listed 20 summer sports as being part of systematic cheating in Russia, and confirmed the manipulation of Russian doping samples at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi.
“[The IOC] will explore the legal options with regard to a collective ban of all Russian athletes for the Olympic Games 2016 versus the right to individual justice”, a statement said.
The International Olympic Committee has not banned Russian Federation from the Rio Olympics as many have called for, but it left that option on the table after a meeting of its executive board on Tuesday.
The IOC also said it would have to study the bombshell report by Canadian law professor Richard McLaren which detailed the Russian cheating, organised by the Sports Ministry and using the FSB intelligence service.
But the International Olympic Committee added in its statement that it would “not grant any accreditation to any official of the Russian Ministry of Sport or any person implicated in the [independent] report for the Games of the XXXI Olympiad Rio 2016”.
The IOC also revealed that it will “explore the legal options with regard to a collective ban of all Russian athletes for the Olympic Games 2016 versus the right to individual justice” while reiterating its hope that worldwide sports federations determine the eligibility of athletes “based on an individual analysis of his or her global anti-doping record”.
The IOC said it will still have to take into account a verdict coming this Thursday by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
The committee has also put a hold on organizing or “giving patronage” to any sports events or meetings in Russian Federation, including the 2019 European Games.
The board has started disciplinary procedures against those mentioned in the report including Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko, his deputy Yury Nagornykh and Natalia Zhelanova, the anti-doping advisor to Mutko among others.
Mutko told Russian agency R-Sport the accusations against him are “absolutely unreal, and impossible”.
“In addition to testing operated by the IAAF and national federations, the Abbott World Marathon Majors has set up one of the largest private testing pool of athletes in sport, with 150 competitors being tested out of competition a minimum of six times a year for their unique athlete biological passport”.
In a statement he added that the officials named in the report would be temporarily suspended.
– will launch retesting, including forensic analysis, of doping samples from the Sochi Games. Let’s ban these hundreds of athletes, retest them all and not allow them to go to Rio or any future Olympics.
The IOC did not say when it might rule on Russian athletes scheduled to compete in the Rio Games.
McLaren’s report uncovered a state-run doping scheme that ensnared 28 sports, both summer and winter, and ran from 2011 to 2015.
London Marathon organizers say a British court has ordered Russian marathon runner Liliya Shobukhova to repay prize and appearance money after being banned for doping.
“It is important to focus on the need for individual justice in all these cases”, it said.
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That would cover the doping ban on the Russian athletics team which was upheld by the International Association of Athletics Federations last month, or bans on several weightlifting teams, including Russia’s. International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach has said they would compete under the Russian flag.
