After the meeting, the International Olympic Committee said it is seeking legal advice on the matter before deciding that whether to impose a collective ban on all Russian athletes for the Summer Games, starting from August 5.
Advertisement
IOC President Thomas Bach said in a statement: “The findings of the report show a shocking and unprecedented attack on the integrity of sports and on the Olympic Games”.
In the interim, the IOC released a statement saying that it would “explore their legal options with regard to a collective ban of all Russian athletes … versus the right to individual justice” and that it had “started disciplinary actions related to the involvement of officials within the Russian ministry of sports and other persons mentioned in the report because of violations of the Olympic Charter and the World Anti-Doping Code”.
McLaren presented evidence he said showed Russian Federation hid hundreds of positive drugs tests among its athletes in the run-up to the London 2012 Olympics, the World Athletics Championships in Moscow in 2013 and the Winter Olympics in Sochi a year later. That is already the case with the IAAF, which barred Russia’s track and field athletes from the Games following previous WADA reports.
This video includes clips from RT, NBC Sports and WADA and images from Getty Images.
WADA president Sir Craig Reedie reacted to McLaren’s findings with horror, such is the scale of a doping conspiracy that helped Russian athletes from more than 30 sports dope with impunity for years.
Hansen says “profound cultural, organizational, and procedural changes (are) required before all sports can confidently welcome clean sportsmen and sportswomen from Russian Federation to future worldwide events”.
That means, rather than applying a total ban, federations could suspend individual Russian sports.
Russia’s athletes face a nervous wait to see if a blanket ban will be imposed with the International Olympic Committee announcing it will retest all of its athletes which competed at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has delayed its decision on putting a possible blanket ban on the Russian athletes from the next month’s Rio Olympics, stating that it is seeking legal advice before making any decision.
In a statement, Hansen added that athletics officials have a duty to work with Russian Federation on the “rehabilitation process however long and hard it proves”, calling it “absolutely essential for the future credibility of athletics and all sport”.
Will Russia compete at the Olympics?
On Tuesday the International Olympic Committee revealed a whole list of steps it was taking against Russian Federation including whether it can issue a collective ban of all the nation’s athletes.
Putin said on Monday that officials named in the McLaren Report into Russian doping cover-ups would be suspended.
The letter, obtained by The Associated Press, was circulated by US and Canadian anti-doping authorities before the release on Monday of a World Anti-Doping Agency report which accused top Russian officials of covering up hundreds of doping cases.
The IAAF appealed for a four-year ban from the Court of Arbitration for Sport. That decimates a Russian team anyway.
The anti-doping agency’s report was a 103-page document from Canadian professor Richard McLaren.
Advertisement
The report is full of such details, painting a picture of a sporting culture unable or unwilling to believe athletes can compete clean, and officials completely shameless in their lip service to agreed anti-doping rules.
