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Wada calls for Russia to be banned from all international competition, including Rio Olympics
THE WORLD ANTI-DOPING Agency (Wada) has called for Russia to be banned from all international sporting competition, including next month’s Olympic Games in Brazil.
The move comes after the release of a Wada-requested report by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren that says Russia used a complex state-supported doping scheme at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.
“WADA calls on Sport Movement to deny Russian athletes participation at international comp including Rio until ‘culture change’ achieved,” Wada spokesman Ben Nichols tweeted.
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Prof McLaren said Russia’s FSB security and intelligence service had backed the doping cover-ups by anti-doping laboratories in Moscow and Sochi under orders from the country’s Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko.
“The Moscow laboratory operated, for the protection of doped Russian athletes, within a state-dictated fail-safe system,” McLaren said.
“The Sochi Laboratory operated a unique sample swapping methodology to enable doped Russian athletes to compete at the Winter Olympic Games,” he added.
The report didn’t make any recommendations in terms of punishment but Wada has since responded by insisting that there is enough evidence to implement a blanket ban on Russia competing in international competitions.
The International Olympic Committee could take the first sanctions against Russia tomorrow over what IOC president Thomas Bach called “shocking and unprecedented”.
“The findings of the report show a shocking and unprecedented attack on the integrity of sports and on the Olympic Games,” Bach said after the release of the report.
“Therefore, the IOC will not hesitate to take the toughest sanctions available against any individual or organisation implicated,” he added.
The International Olympic Committee said the Wada’s independent report would be “carefully” studied and “provisional measures and sanctions” could be decided when IOC members hold an emergency telephone conference tomorrow.
Russia’s athletics team has already been banned from the Rio Olympics over the state doping saga but it is believed the findings from this report will see the entire team banned from the Games.
Key findings in Monday’s 96-page report:
You can read the full report here.
© AFP 2016
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