The report, produced by Canadian law professor Richard McLaren, revealed extensive doping and cover-ups across a series of summer and winter Olympic sports, in particular at the Sochi Winter Olympics hosted by Russian Federation in 2014.
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And on July 22nd, Russia was banned from competing in the Paralympics after 35 doping violations were found among Russian Paralympians; these violations had been hidden by the Russian sports ministry, the Times reported. “In this way we protect these clean athletes”, Bach said.
Russian track and field athletes have already been banned from competing by their global federation in a move backed last week by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
“A truly strong message for clean sport would have been to ban all those who have been caught cheating”.
The subject of “neutral” athletes was also addressed by the IOC, however, and it released a statement regarding Stepanova, who had been deemed by the IAAF as eligible for worldwide competition and recently competed at the European Championships in Amsterdam. “We are grateful to the International Olympic Committee for such a decision”, said Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko.
IOC President Thomas Bach and the other 14 executive board members met on Sunday to further study the question of the participation of Russian athletes in the Rio 2016, which is set to officially open on August 5.
It’s why the International Olympic Committee ended up with a handful of actions that, frankly, do not live up to the standards of what world anti-doping rules are trying to achieve.
A statement from the IOC after Sunday’s meeting said: “Entry (to the Rio Olympics) will be accepted by the IOC only if an athlete is able to provide evidence to the full satisfaction of his or her worldwide federation”.
The United States Anti-Doping Agency (Usada) claimed the International Olympic Committee had “refused to take decisive leadership”.
What’s emerged over the months and years is that there has to be a wholesale form over the way anti-doping is administered. The IAAF confirmed that the ban remained in place Sunday.
According to McLaren’s investigation, Russian athletes submitted clean urine samples prior to the Sochi games when the performance-enhancing drugs were not in their system.
Russian Federation faces a possible ban from the Paralympic Games.
The WADA-commissioned report concluded “beyond a reasonable doubt” that Russian Federation ran a state-sanctioned doping program.
The FSB is Russia’s federal security service, while the CSP is involved in the training of Russian athletes.
It comes after the IOC held showdown talks on whether to ban Russian Federation from the Rio Games over rampant doping that sparked the Olympic movement’s worst crisis in decades.
It also recommended Russian officials be denied access to worldwide competitions, including Rio 2016.
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“The Russian athlete who blew the whistle (Stepanova), faced extortion from authorities”.
