Share

Sponsored doping casts doubt over Russian Olympic

McLaren did not make any recommendations for the future of the Russian team at the upcoming Games, saying it was up to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and others to “absorb and act upon” the content of the report.

Advertisement

The president spoke after the independent report commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency concluded that the Russian Sports Ministry oversaw a vast programme to manipulate doping test results from 2011 to 2015.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has released the McLaren Report overnight, an investigative document which proves that Russian Federation was complicit in organising and allowing their elite athletes to dope and the subsequent cover up of positive doping tests.

Several national anti-doping agencies have called for a blanket ban on Russians attending the Rio Games ahead of the publication later on Monday of a report into allegations of state-backed doping at the Sochi Winter Olympics.

The Australian Olympic Committee says it won’t comment on the issue until after the International Olympic Committee meets on Tuesday, European time.

The report, produced by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren, arrives less than three weeks before the Olympics are set to begin in Rio, with the entire Russian track and field team banned and a groundswell of other nations pushing for the suspension of the Russian Olympic team.

The cheaters created an intricate system using clean, frozen urine, a secret “mouse hole” in the testing laboratory to pass it through, and special agents disguised as sewer workers to collect it.

In responses to inquiries about the new report, Federation Internationale de Football Association stood by Russia as host of the next World Cup and said it will ensure that anti-doping measures will be up to standard.

Russia’s track team has already been banned from worldwide competition following an earlier WADA report that found cheating in that program.

“For its part, FIFA will request from WADA all details concerning the individual cases of doping in Russian football that are referenced in the McLaren report”.

Moscow’s track and field team has already been effectively barred from Rio following another WADA report late past year that there was widespread doping within that particular sport.

Rodchenkov is now in hiding in the United States and wanted by Russian authorities.

Those positive tests marked “Save”, McLaren said, were then replaced with negative samples and reported as negative by Russia’s deputy minister of sport, Yuri Nagornhyk.

In Victoria, where so many Canadian Olympic athletes and elite train, officials say the IOC needs to send a strong message.

Advertisement

“The Sochi laboratory operated a unique sample-swapping methodology to enable doped Rusian athletes to compete at the Winter Games”. The IAAF Doping Review Board found Ms. Klishina, who trains at a Florida sports academy, “meets the exceptional eligibility criteria” because she proved she was not involved in the scandal, and was subjected to drug tests outside of Russian Federation.

An Olympic Games flag and a Russian flag waving during the closing ceremony of the winter Olympics in Sochi in 2014