The World Anti-Doping Agency endorsed barring Russian athletes from global competitions-including next month’s Rio Olympics-on Monday in response to a damning independent investigation that confirmed the operation of a widespread, state-sanctioned doping program during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and beyond.
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An independent report commissioned by WADA confirmed extraordinary systematic abuse of the anti-doping process across many sports by Russian authorities before and during the Winter Olympics in the Russian city of Sochi in 2014.
“The Ministry of Sport directed, controlled and oversaw the manipulation of athlete’s analytical results or sample swapping, with the active participation and assistance of the [Federal Security Service and others]”, Canadian law professor and anti-doping commission leader Richard McLaren said at a press conference on Monday, Bloomberg reported.
Russian President Vladimir Putin took a defiant stand on Monday by saying the Kremlin wanted more substantial proof of wrongdoing, but that all officials involved would be suspended.
The World Anti-Doping Agency had McLaren investigate allegations made by former Russian anti-doping laboratory director Grigory Rodchenkov in a May article in The New York Times.
“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”.
That punishment could come as early as Tuesday when members of the International Olympic Committee reconvene in an emergency meeting to address the report.
The original allegations involved the 2014 Sochi Olympics, but the McLaren Report also alleged cheating at the 2013 track world championships in Moscow and the 2015 swimming world championships in Kazan.
The International Olympic Committee immediately scheduled a Tuesday teleconference for its executive board to discuss the matter.
An investigation by the World Anti-Doping Agency [WADA] claimed that the Russian secret service (FSB) had worked out how to open and re-seal supposedly tamper-proof urine samples bottles so that the contents could be replaced with “clean” samples.
Swimming’s world body FINA said: “FINA is also concerned that there has been a drive behind the scenes.to get a global coalition.to support the call for the total ban on Russian Federation”.
Now, with less than three weeks until the start of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, officials must decide whether to let Russian athletes participate.
Federation Internationale de Football Association made no mention of Mutko in its own statement about the McLaren report and said it will ask WADA to share information about alleged cover-ups of doping in Russian soccer. WADA also wants Russian government officials to be denied access to worldwide competitions, including the upcoming Olympics.
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Those letters were written in anticipation of the sort of results McLaren delivered Monday – results that were previewed in a mostly overlooked section of the IAAF report, released in June, that called for the Russian track team’s ouster.
