The World Anti-Doping Agency swiftly called for the International Olympic Committee to consider a full ban of the Russian team from the Summer Olympics, which start August 5 in Rio de Janiero.
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WADA, which hired arbitrator Richard McLaren to lead the investigation, called on the International Olympic Committee to decline entries of all Russian athletes to this summer’s Olympics.
That finding has the World Anti-Doping Agency calling on the International Olympic Committee to ban Russian Federation from the Rio games – something Canada supports.
“The findings of the report show a shocking and unprecedented attack on the integrity of sport and on the Olympic Games”, IOC President Thomas Bach says.
Russia’s track and field team have already been suspended from global competition, including the Olympics and the IOC’s executive board will meet today to discuss these WADA findings.
The new report from McLaren, however, claims that Russia’s state-sponsored doping covers “virtually all sports”, which hangs a question mark over Russia’s involvement in the Summer Games.
It puts the International Olympic Committee in the position of ruling against against one of its biggest supporters, a nation that spent more than $50 billion hosting the Winter Games in Sochi just two years ago.
In proposing a total ban on Russian athletes from both the Olympics and Paralympics, WADA is going a step further than the ban on Russian track and field athletes that was issued last month by the International Association of Athletics Federations.
“I’m supremely confident in our findings”, McLaren said.
Rodchenkov, who was sacked after the first WADA-funded investigation into doping in Russian athletics previous year, has been in hiding in the United States ever since and has been branded a “criminal” and a “traitor” by senior Russian figures.
“Since WADA’s Independent Commission report, senior Russian politicians have started to publicly acknowledge the existence of long-standing doping practices in Russia and have conceded that a significant culture change is required”, WADA Director General Olivier Niggli said in a news release.
The investigation, chaired Richard McLaren, says that the Russian sports ministry “directed, controlled and oversaw” manipulation and tampering of urine samples provided by athletes.
But it did not hide its distain for the findings or the Russian former doping official whose allegations sparked the probe.
The report also found that high-ranking officials had hundreds of positive tests recorded as negatives.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) is expected to rule on Thursday on the eligibility of 68 Russian athletes who have appealed to compete in Rio.
“It reveals that the Russian Ministry of Sport manipulated the doping control process of the 2014 Sochi Games; the 2013 IAAF World Championships in Moscow; the 2013 World University Games in Kazan; and, put measures in place to circumvent anti-doping processes before the 2012 London Games”.
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“For the 2018 FIFA World Cup and the FIFA Confederations Cup 2017, as for all FIFA competitions, FIFA will be in charge of the anti-doping program, ensuring the highest standards, including the latest science and recommendations by WADA”, FIFA said in a statement.
