“All athletes have a right to clean sport and a right to compete clean”, the committee said.
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The report backed up the findings of reports from the New York Times and CBS news in the past year on government-aided doping in Russian Federation, based mainly on interviews with the former head of the Moscow lab Grigory Rodchenkov, who is now living in the U.S.
The 2016 Summer Olympics start on August 5, and many are concerned that Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, won’t be ready.
The investigation released Monday confirmed a scheme run out of the anti-doping lab in Moscow that ensnared 28 summer and winter sports, from track to snowboarding to table tennis.
A new report claims Russia’s Sports Ministry directed, controlled and oversaw the manipulation of urine samples provided by its athletes.
WADA’s investigation allegedly found evidence that Rodchenkov discovered a way to open and reseal supposedly tamper-proof bottles that were used for storing urine samples so the contents could be replaced with “clean” urine.
U.S. Olympic Committee CEO Scott Blackmun said in a statement that the report “confirms what we have stated previously: the current anti-doping system is broken and urgently requires the attention of everyone interested in protecting clean athletes”.
And the reports last November of 1,400 stored samples in Moscow destroyed to deny them to WADA investigators? Well, it was more like 8,000, McLaren now says.
Putin since said the officials accused in a WADA report of enabling widespread abuse of performance-enhancing drugs will be suspended for the duration of an investigation. But 68 Russian track-and-field athletes are appealing this week to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to compete in Rio, with a decision due Thursday.
That urgent verdict is scheduled for Thursday but could be rendered meaningless by an International Olympic Committee blanket ban.
The anti-doping watchdog also called on the world governing bodies of sports implicated in the report to consider action against Russian national bodies.
In his report released Monday, Richard McLaren outlined steps Russian authorities took to falsify positive doping tests among the country’s athletes.
Putin gave no names, but his statement appears to apply to Mutko and his deputy, Yuri Nagornykh, who are both discussed in the report.
The ministry could then order which to report as negative to the global WADA system.
Hence, bottle tampering by the secret service.
The New York Times said Monday that during the 57-day probe, McLaren examined forensic evidence, emails and metadata, and met criminal-law standards.
Bach and the International Olympic Committee are on the clock.
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WADA president Craig Reedie, who is also an IOC member, said WADA is working to establish guidelines that will help the IOC and worldwide sports federations identify exceptions to a potential Russian ban – notably, athletes who trained in other countries that had robust, clean anti-doping systems.
