Russia admits massive doping of athletes

RUSSIAN officials have for the first time admitted the existence of a far-reaching doping operation which took place over several years and has tainted some of the world’s most prestigious competitions.

In interviews with the New York Times, officials did not dispute accounts of the programme which has rocked the Olympic movement, although they denied the scheme was state-sponsored.

“It was an institutional conspiracy,” Anna Antseliovich, the acting director general of Russia’s national anti-doping agency, said.

Leading an inquiry for the World Anti-Doping Agency, Canadian law professor Richard McLaren has found evidence that over 1,000 Russian athletes in more than 30 Olympic and Paralympic sports were involved in a plot which began at least as early as 2011 and ran until 2015.

Professor McLaren’s report confirmed the claims made by Russia’s former anti-doping laboratory chief Dr Grigory Rodchenkov, who said in May that urine samples had been tampered with at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, while athletes were provided with cocktails of performance-enhancing drugs.

Russian sports officials had vehemently denied the existence of any doping operation even as the International Olympic Committee opened disciplinary proceedings against Russian athletes.

Russia’s athletics team remains banned from competition by the International Association of Athletics Federation.

But while officials have now conceded the existence of the operation, Antseliovich said it was “not state-sponsored”.