The International Olympic Committee said on Wednesday it would decide “within seven days” on whether to ban Russian Federation from the Rio Games over rampant state-run doping.
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That was before Richard McLaren’s 103-page report revealed a doping programme of staggering proportions – something Bach himself described as “a shocking and unprecedented attack on the integrity of sports and the Olympic Games”.
The IOC executive board held a meeting by teleconference on Tuesday to consider its steps in the wake of the McLaren report, which found that 28 summer and winter Olympic sports were affected by state-operated cheating in Russian Federation.
The 15-member International Olympic Committee executive board met by teleconference Tuesday to consider its moves following McLaren’s report. And then consider this: The WADA report found that Mutko personally issued a SAVE order – a decision made by Russian athletic officials about which athletes would benefit from a doping cover-up – for at least one foreign soccer player in the Russian professional league.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that Russian Federation was not considering a boycott of the Olympics, which start on 5 August. It included the 2013 World Athletics Championships in Moscow and 2013 World University Games in Kazan.
That ban was imposed in November by the IAAF and upheld last month.
“There may or may not be clean Russian athletes, but if you look at the McLaren report it is pretty clear it was endemic”, Pound said.
“The IOC will not hesitate to take the toughest sanctions available against any individual or organization implicated”, Bach said in a statement announcing the IOC conference today to consider provisional sanctions. It said the ministry had help from Russia’s intelligence service, the FSB.
The head of Russia’s Olympic Committee, Alexander Zhukov, said on Wednesday Russia had no intention of boycotting the Rio Games to protest against the way a doping scandal was being handled, saying politics had no place in sport.
The IOC also started disciplinary action against Russian sports ministry officials and others implicated in McLaren’s report, and said they would be denied accreditation for the Rio Games.
The Kremlin said officials named in the report would be suspended, but also denounced the “dangerous” interference of politics in sport.
McLaren, who produced a report for the World Anti-Doping Agency, said there was a “state-dictated failsafe system” of drug cheating.
There was also a reference to the idea of reversing the “presumption of innocence” in doping matters for Russian athletes.
“I realise there are other aspects of his life that are not appropriate”, McLaren said. “I need to understand now that if this [ban] concerns me as well, I will accept it”.
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“We interpreted this as definite pressure on the International Olympic Committee with the aim of excluding the Russian team”, he said.
