Anti-doping agency report accuses Russia of state-sponsored doping cover-up

A devastating and damning report by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) into Russian sport has found that the country’s government, security services and sporting authorities colluded to hide widespread doping across “a vast majority” of winter and summer sports, with the International Olympic Committee promising it will not hesitate to take “toughest sanctions available” against those implicated.

The review, led by the highly respected Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren, found widespread state action to hide cheating amongst Russian athletes in the run-up to the London 2012 Olympics, as well a comprehensive cover-up of doping during the World Championships in Moscow and the World University Games in Kazan in 2013 and the Winter Olympics in Sochi a year later.

IOC president Thomas Bach called the McLaren report “a shocking and unprecedented attack on the integrity of sports and on the Olympic Games”.

The IOC executive board will meet via conference call Tuesday to make initial decisions on possible sanctions for the Rio Games.

McLaren also confirmed the staggering allegations made by Dr Grigor Rodchenkov, the head of the Moscow laboratory between 2005 and 2015, that steroid-tainted urine samples were substituted with clean ones during in Sochi with the help of Russia’s intelligence and anti-doping officials to enable athletes passed doping tests.

However McLaren refused to say whether his findings should lead to Russia being banned from the Olympics in Rio which begin next month.

Wada does not have the authority to directly ban a country

“My mandate was to establish facts not to make recommendations,” he said. “It is for others to take and absorb and act upon my report.”

Wada does not have the authority to directly ban a country from the Olympics, but they can recommend sanctions to the International Olympic Committee.

The central findings of McLaren’s investigation was that Russian athletes “from the vast majority of summer and winter Olympic sports” had benefited from what he called “the Disappearing Positive Methodology” which had become state policy after the country’s poor medal count during the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver.

All organs of the state were involved, including Russian Sports Ministry, the Russian Security Service the FSB, and the Centre of Sports Preparation of National Teams of Russia (CSP).

According to McLaren a key figure was the deputy minister of sport, Yuri Nagornykh, who was appointed in 2010 by executive order of then prime minister, Vladimir Putin.

Nagornykh, a member of the Russian Olympic Committee, was advised of every positive analytical finding arising in the Moscow Laboratory from 2011 onwards – and “decided who would benefit from a cover up and who would not be protected”.

As McLaren put it: “This is a slice of what is going on, not the total picture. But this included most of the winter and summer sports. And we do know that every single positive was sent up the chain of command and sent back down again.”

The investigation also backed up Rodchenko’s claims that FSB agents had tampered with samples during the Sochi Olympics to replace samples that would have otherwise tested positive for steroids.

As McLaren explained, he had sent stored samples from Sochi to a London lab to see if bottles had been opened, and “all the bottles had scratches and marks on them”.

McLaren confirms laboratory operated as part of a state sponsored program - calls it the "disappearing positive" method.

— WADA (@wada_ama) July 18, 2016

On Saturday the New York Times revealed that anti-doping officials from at least 10 nations - including the United States, Germany, Spain, Japan, Switzerland and Canada – and 20 athlete groups, were calling for the entire Russian delegation be barred from Rio.

According to the newspaper, a draft letter drawn up by the group was expected to be published within hours of the McLaren report in a bid to put pressure on the IOC to take a firm line against Russia. However most experts expect the IOC to resist such pressure.

Russian state media called into doubt the results shortly before they were published.

Russian deputy PM and Olympic committee head Dmitry Kozak has written to Olympic Committee head Thomas Bach and Wada to complain that Wada is trying to “create an international coalition of athletes and organisations supporting a ban on Russian athletes at the Olympic games.

He said Wada athlete commission head Becky Scott, who should be protecting clean athletes, was instead supporting the US and Canada in an attempt to “place collective responsibility on all clean Russian athletes and punish them for the actions of a few.”

Last month Russia’s track and field stars were banned from the Rio Olympic Games by the IAAF, the governing body of athletics. The results of an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne will be revealed on Thursday.