According to the Wada’s independent commission report, which was led by Canadian law professor and sports lawyer Richard McLaren and unveiled at a Toronto news conference, a Moscow laboratory protected Russian athletes during the 2014 Sochi Winter Games.
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Less than a month before the start of the Olympic Games in Rio, WADA have recommended that the International Olympic Committee [IOC] and International Paralympic Committee consider banning all athletes entered by the Russian Olympic Committee.
The US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) is one of several sport organisations that said it would call for a full ban of the Russian team if the report showed evidence of a widespread, state-sponsored doping conspiracy.
IOC president Thomas Bach said the committee wouldn’t hesitate to apply the toughest sanctions available.
The Kremlin also criticised a call by the United States anti-doping agency USADA for a blanket ban on Russian participation in Rio that was made ahead of the release of McLaren’s report.
“Can you imagine if CSIS was involved in trying to win a water polo tournament, how ridiculous it would seem in Canada?” said the Olympic gold medallist.
“Whilst FIG fully supports the IOC’s policy of “Zero Tolerance in Doping”, it strongly feels that not all Russian athletes of all sports should be banned and found guilty for actions in other sports and federations”.
WADA had McLaren investigate allegations made by former Russian anti-doping laboratory director Grigory Rodchenkov in a May article in The New York Times.
He believes the greater sport community isn’t necessarily surprised by the results of the report, but he’s confident the organizations that work to prevent doping mostly work the way they should.
Meanwhile, he described tactics he labeled “disappearing positive methodology” that began in 2011, shortly after Russia’s disappointing performance at the Vancouver Olympics.
The WADA investigation into state-backed doping of Russian athletes centred on cheating at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
Those positive tests marked “Save”, McLaren said, were then replaced with negative samples and reported as negative by Russia’s deputy minister of sport, Yuri Nagornhyk.
“The WADA athlete committee stands with all the clean athletes of the world, and especially at this time with those clean athletes that have suffered as a result of the doping and subversion outlined in this report”. The majority of those cases occurred in track and field and wrestling, but involved a total of 28 sports Olympic sports – from snowboarding to table tennis.
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In a statement Monday, the International Olympic Committee said it would “carefully study the complex and detailed allegations in particular with regard to the Russian Ministry of Sport”.
