With the start of the 2016 Olympic Games just a month away, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) released further evidence today of Russia’s widespread, state-sponsored doping as a potential call to action for sport governing bodies to ban Russian Federation entirely from competing in Rio.
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He documented a corrupt system developed for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics in which urine taken at the games, revealing athletes’ use of banned performance-enhancing substances, was secretly switched with clean samples.
IOC Athletes Commission member Adam Pengilly, a British skeleton racer, urged Bach to follow the recommendation of the WADA report and ban all Russian competitors from the Rio Olympics.
The Kremlin rubbished a report for WADA that laid bare Russian state-run doping in sport, saying the findings were based exclusively on the testimony of a former official wanted in Moscow.
WADA appointed Professor Richard McLaren to lead an independent investigation into allegations of Russian state manipulation of the doping control process, following comments from Dr Grigory Rodchenkov, the former director of the WADA-accredited laboratory in Moscow.
Russian track and field athletes are now already banned from global competition following the suspension of the Russian Athletics Federation (RusAF) as an worldwide Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) Member.
McLaren described the deceptions to Reuters as “beautiful in it’s simplicity”.
The Centre of Sports Preparation of National Teams of Russia (CSP) was also involved.
Only the Russian track and field team, so far, is banned from the Summer Games starting August 5.
Though the report focuses exclusively on the Olympics and does not make any conclusions about the 2018 World Cup, the report does say that the doping case of “at least” one soccer player in Russia’s Premier League was covered up and 11 positive tests for Russian soccer players “were made to disappear”.
But McLaren said the cheating in Sochi was a one-shot deal. The withheld positives spanned 28 sports, including track and field, wrestling, swimming, snowboarding, and even table tennis. That decision will be made tomorrow.
” Russian officials knew that Russian athletes competing at Sochi used doping substances”.
McLaren said that the report’s key findings proves have been proven “beyond reasonable doubt” and insisted he had “unwavering confidence” in the report.
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Putin also asked in a statement sent from the Kremlin that the WADA provide “more complete, objective, evidence-based information” about the report’s findings, according to AP. Russian track and field athletes are already subject to a suspension from the IAAF that prevents them from participating in Rio.
