“Not only does the evidence implicate the Russian Ministry of Sport in running a doping system that’s sole aim was to subvert the doping control process, it also states that there was active participation and assistance of the Federal Security Service and the Center of Sports Preparation of National Teams of Russia.” he said.
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McLaren said allegations made by Moscow’s former anti-doping lab director about sample switching at the Sochi Olympics went much as described in a “60 Minutes” report in May. International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach said the Russians’ actions were an “unprecedented attack on the integrity of sport and on the Olympic Games”.
“The Sochi Laboratory operated a unique sample swapping methodology to enable doped Russian athletes to compete at the Winter Olympic Games”, he added. “If all the operational precautions to promote and permit doping by Russian athletes proved to have been ineffective for whatever reason, the laboratory provided a failsafe mechanism”.
Coaches and trainers say they’ve seen first-hand the negative impact doping’s had on athletes who try to win without cheating.
“Yes, formats of interference have changed but its essence is the same – to make sports an instrument of geopolitical pressure. The Olympic movement which is playing a colossal uniting role for the humankind may once again be driven to the brink of a split”, the statement said. It included the 2013 track world championships in Moscow and was in place as recently as the 2015 swimming world championships in Kazan – when everyone in Russian sports knew they were under the doping microscope. With doping officials from other countries also working in the Sochi lab, Russian Federation involved its security service, the replacement of the Soviet KGB.
It revealed a system where every positive doping sample flagged up at the Moscow laboratory would be sent to the deputy sports minister, Yuri Nagornykh, to determine whether it should be hidden.
Rodchenkov, now living in the United States, had told how Russian secret service agents helped the operation to get Russian samples away from worldwide inspectors at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.
The World Anti-Doping Agency has recommended that Russia’s entire team is banned from this summer’s Olympic Games. FSB officials proceeded to swap dirty urine for clean.
Rodchenkov told the New York Times in May that he covered up the use of performance-enhancing drugs by Russian athletes at the behest of the minister of sports.
McLaren said he was “unwaveringly confident” in his report, and insisted there was no leak, as several sports organizations suggested over the weekend, when draft letters calling for Russia’s ban were leaked to the media. More than 250 of the 312 “Saves” came from track and field and weightlifting, but other sports involved included swimming, rowing, snowboarding – even table tennis.
“Russia in the world of drugs in sport is only the tip of the iceberg”.
The Kremlin rubbished a report for WADA that laid bare Russian state-run doping in sport, saying the findings were based exclusively on the testimony of a former official wanted in Moscow.
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