Russian doping was ‘systematic’, turned positives into negatives – report

LONDON: Russia has duped international sport “on an unprecedented scale” with more than 1 000 athletes implicated in a programme of state- sponsored doping, independent investigator Richard McLaren claimed.

“For years, international sports competitions have unknowingly been hijacked by the Russians,” McLaren told a news conference in London yesterday after the publication of the second part of his report.

McLaren said the conspiracy dated back to 2011, con- tinued at least until 2015 and covered 30 summer and winter sports, including football.

A total of 15 medallists from the Winter Olympic Games, hosted in Sochi, Russia in 2014, were implicated.

Of the more than 1 000 athletes implicated, the names of 695 of them have been passed on to sports federations who will analyse the evidence and decide on potential sanctions.

Russia’s double Olympic champion pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva, this week elected to a leadership role in Russia’s anti- doping agency Rusada, demanded definitive proof to back up the allegations.

“Of course it’s easy to lump the guilty and the innocent into one mass,” TASS quoted her as saying.

But Canadian lawyer McLaren in his report that an “institutional conspiracy” allowed athletes to benefit from manipulations to conceal positive doping tests, supplied plenty of proof against the system – even while withholding the names of individuals.

Using forensic evidence including DNA testing of samples, investigators concluded that Russian officials tampered with sample bottles, swopping samples for “protected athletes” to ensure they did not test positive.

“It’s impossible to know just how deep and how far back this conspiracy goes,” McLaren said. The Russian Olympic team “corrupted the (2012) London Games on an unprecedented scale,” his report said.

Russia won 72 medals in London, including 21 golds.

In Sochi, the samples of two Russian athletes, who won four gold medals, and another who won a silver medal, were tampered with, the report said, while Moscow ran a “clean urine bank”.

Russian officials from the Ministry of Sport, Rusada, the Centre of Sports Preparation of National Teams of Russia (CSP), the now-suspended Moscow anti-doping laboratory and state-security service FSB were all involved.

“An institutional conspiracy existed across summer and winter sports athletes for the purposes of manipulating doping controls,” the report said.

“The athletes were not acting individually but within an organised infrastructure.”The “systematic and centralised cover- up and manipulation of the doping control process evolved and was refined over the course of its use at the London 2012 Summer Games, Universiade Games 2013, Moscow IAAF World Championships 2013 and the Winter Games in Sochi in 2014,” the report added.

The swopping of Russian athletes’ urine samples at Sochi was confirmed, but the report said it did not stop with those Games.

McLaren’s first report published in July had outlined a state-run system of cheating in which doping samples were tampered with, and positive drugs tests turned into negative results by doping laboratories in Moscow and Sochi.

“Once again, Wada is grateful to Richard McLaren and his team for this long and arduous effort that reconfirms institutionalised manipulation and cover up of the doping control process in Russia,” World Anti Doping Agency president Craig Reedie said.

Russia lashed out at perceived persecution following the first report and former judo Olympic medallist turned federal lawmaker Dmitry Nosov now repeated such claims.

“There were signals that now there should be a political strike (against Russia) because of the situation with Crimea, Ukraine, Syria,” Nosov according to TASS.

“They had this tool in their arsenal.

“They brought it out when they needed it, and now they are using it against us,” said Nosov, a lawmaker in Russia’s lower house of parliament.

But while admitting guilt seems impossible, regardless of the evidence, it is tacitly acknowledged that reform is the only way Russia will be welcomed back onto the sporting world stage.

“We now have a mission to restore trust and convince all of Wada’s leadership that we are not sitting in one place,” Isinbayeva said.

“We are doing everything to restore our agency.”