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World Anti-doping Agency Urges Olympic Ban on Russian Athletes

by Daniel Schearf July 18, 2016

The World Anti-Doping Agency is urging the International Olympic Committee to ban all Russian teams from the upcoming Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

The WADA also wants the IOC to ban all Russian officials from access to international competitions next month in Rio.

The doping agency's recommendations accompany the release of a damning independent report citing widespread state-sponsored doping by Russian athletes at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

Lead WADA investigator Richard McLaren told reporters Monday that evidence shows a Moscow laboratory "operated, for the protection of doped Russian athletes, within a state-dictated failsafe system."

He said findings showed that efforts to mask the doping were coordinated by Russia's state-run Center of Sports Preparation, and said athletes were instructed in how to manipulate results of routine urine testing designed to detect such abuses in international competition.

In a statement Monday, the IOC said it would "carefully study the complex and detailed allegations, in particular with regard to the Russian Ministry of Sport.

Russian President Vladimir Putin voiced earlier support for the probe, which was launched after Moscow's former Anti-doping chief Grigory Rodchenkov told The New York Times that Russian athletes used performance enhancing drugs in Sochi with approval of national sports authorities.

He said Monday that officials named in the WADA report would be suspended.

But in a statement, Putin also warned against what he said was "a dangerous recurrence of political interference in sport," built on what he said was "the testimony of one man – a man with a scandalous reputation."

Putin noted a 2012 criminal case against one of Rodchenkov's "close relatives who worked under his auspices." He said the unidentified relative had been found guilty in Russia for trafficking in banned anabolic steroids.

In June, as controversy swirled, the Russian leader also argued publicly against a complete ban on all Russian athletes, saying such a move would also penalize many athletes "who have nothing to do with violations."