“It seems very likely that the Report will confirm what will be one of the biggest doping scandals in history, implicating the Russian Government in a massive conspiracy against the clean athletes of the world”, wrote Joseph de Pencier, the chief executive of the national antidoping trade association.
Advertisement
The executive board of the International Olympic Committee is scheduled to hold a conference call tomorrow to discuss potential sanctions.
“The IOC will not hesitate to take the toughest sanctions available against any individual or organization implicated”, Bach said.
Athletics and weightlifting were the sports most affected by the cover-ups, with around 140 and 120 positive tests lost respectively.
McLaren called the Rodchenkov “a credible and truthful person” despite admitting to concoting doping cocktails for Russian athletes.
He did not include a recommendation for punishment in the report and urged the International Olympic Committee and others to absorb the information and act upon it as they wish.
“The State implemented a simple failsafe strategy”, the report said.
The World Anti-Doping Agency commissioned McLaren in May to investigate allegations made by the former Director of the Moscow Laboratory, Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov. He claimed that 15 Russian medal winners were part of a program that switched tainted samples with clean ones.
Mutko personally intervened to cover up a doping case of “at least one foreign (soccer player) in the Russian League”, according to email evidence obtained by the inquiry, led by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren.
The methods were developed after Russian athletes won just three gold medals at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and finished in 11th place in the medal table, the country’s worst performance since the collapse of the Soviet Union. With doping officials from other countries also working in the Sochi lab, Russian Federation involved its security service, the replacement of the Soviet KGB.
He said the 312 results that were held back represented only a “small slice” of the data that could have been examined.
Time was of the essence because the Olympics begin August 5, and decisions about Russia’s participation in Rio must be made.
McLaren says he believes the report’s findings have been proven “beyond reasonable doubt”.
He insisted there was no leak of his report, as several sports organizations suggested over the weekend, when draft letters calling for Russia’s ban were leaked to the media.
U.S. Olympic Committee CEO Scott Blackmun said the report proved a point he’d made earlier this summer.
There will no be mounting pressure for that to be extended even though Bach and some worldwide federations have said there has to be a way for athletes proved to be clean to compete in Rio.
Advertisement
“VL is the first name and patronymic name initials of the Minister of Sport, Vitaly Leontiyevich Mutko, who is also the President of the Russian Football Federation”.
