Doped Russian athletes should be banned - report

The World Anti-Doping Agency has called for Olympic 800m champion Mariya Savinova-Farnosova to receive a lifetime ban. Photo / Getty Images

Russia's doped athletes "sabotaged" the 2012 Olympics and should be banned from future competitions until the country cleans up its act, a bombshell report has said.

A landmark investigation published this afternoon claims Russian athletes competed in the London games despite the country running a 'state-supported' doping programme.

Amid a string of explosive allegations, the 323-page report recommends Russia - which is due to host the World Cup in 2018 - is declared 'non-compliant' with anti-doping rules, meaning it will be unable to compete in the next Olympic games unless there are significant changes.

The report, commissioned by the Word Anti-Doping Agency, also calls for lifetime bans for five Russian middle-distance runners, including Olympic 800m champion Mariya Savinova-Farnosova and bronze medalist Ekaterina Poistogova.

As co-author Dick Pound warned the report's findings were simply 'the tip of the iceberg', other key revelations include:

• 'Doped' Russian athletes were allowed to compete in London due to a 'collective and inexplicable laissez-fair policy' adopted by the sport's rulers the IAAF, the Russian Athletics Federation and the country's doping body;

• The Moscow testing laboratory director Grigory Rodchenko allegedly ordered 1,417 doping control samples to be destroyed, three days before investigators arrived on site;

• The Russian government was apparently complicit in the corrupt practices and Russian Sports Ministry Vitaly Mutko allegedly issued direct orders to 'manipulate particular samples';

• Agents from Russia's intelligence service, the FSB, were said to have infiltrated anti-doping work at the Sochi Olympics;

• Staff at the Moscow lab thought it was bugged and there were allegedly regular visits from an FSB agent;

• The IAAF, the world athletics governing body, said it will consider sanctions against Russia, including possible suspension of the country's federation;

• Interpol is now coordinating an investigation into widespread doping in track and field;

• Russia has accused the report of being 'political' and says there is no evidence to support the claims.

Today, Lord Coe, the head of world athletics, was forced into an embarrassing U-turn as he called the report 'alarming' and vowed to seek approval from IAAF to bring sanctions against Russia.

He had repeatedly backed the federation's drug-testing system and said allegations "could not be wider of the mark".

Speaking tonight the IAAF President told ITV: "If there are failings in our anti-doping programme, if there have been failing in our internal governances I will fix them. Whatever we need to do to fix this, we will fix.

"There are no tomorrows here. This is my responsibility and we will fix whatever we need to fix.

"These allegations are truly shocking and no, I did not know the basis of these allegations."

He added: "The sport's credibility is on the line. I'm the president of that sport and of course I will be judged in what I and my council colleagues do now."

The report, which has taken 11 months to produce, was commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency after a German expose which claimed Russian officials systematically accepted payment from athletes to supply banned substances and cover up tests.

Although it says the probe has not found written evidence of government involvement, it says it would be 'naive in the extreme' to conclude that events could have taken place "without the explicit or tacit approval of Russian governmental authorities."

The report goes on to single out Russian Sports Ministry Vitaly Mutko - who is also on the executive committee of Fifa - who it says issued direct orders to "manipulate particular samples", a claim he denies.

Crucially, it also says Moscow testing laboratory director Grigory Rodchenko ordered 1,417 doping control samples to be destroyed, three days before the panel arrived on site, leading to fears that the full extent of the allegations will never be known.

The inquiry says this was part of a wider pattern of "direct intimidation and interference by the Russian state with the Moscow laboratory operations" including regular visits from an FSB agent, thought to be Evgeniy Blotkin or Blokhin.

It now wants to strip the accreditation from the Russian anti-doping lab.

The report said that "The Olympic Games in London were, in a sense, sabotaged by the admission of athletes who should have not been competing, and could have been prevented from competing, were it not for the collective and inexplicable laissez-fair policy adopted by the IAAF, ARAF and RUSADA," referring to the sport's governing body, Russia's athletics federation and Russia's anti-doping unit.

The WADA commission suspects Russia has been using an obscure laboratory on the outskirts of Moscow to help cover up widespread doping, possibly by pre-screening athletes' doping samples and ditching those that test positive.

It says whistleblowers and confidential witnesses "corroborated that this second laboratory is involved in the destruction and the cover-up of what would otherwise be positive doping tests."

As a result of the claims, the authors suggest the International Olympic Committee (IOC) does not accept any entries from the Russian federation until the body has been declared compliant with the code.

Speaking at the press conference in Geneva today, Mr Pound said: "The outcome may be that there are no Russian track and field athletes in Rio."

After the report was released, the global police body Interpol said it would be co-ordinating a global investigation into suspected corruption and doping involving athletes and athletics officials.

The body, based in Lyon, France, said in a statement that is was working with member countries potentially linked to the inquiry "to seek assistance in coordinating a global investigative network".

This afternoon, the IAAF said it would consider sanctions against Russia, including possible suspension of the national athletics federation.

Lord Coe said he had taken "the urgent step" of seeking approval from the IAAF council to consider sanctions against the Russian Athletics Federation.

He said in a statement: "Our athletes, partners and fans have my total assurance that where there are failures in our governance or our anti-doping programmes, we will fix them.

"We will do whatever it takes to protect the clean athletes and rebuild trust in our sport."

But the Russian athletics chief hit back and said WADA had no right to suspend its federation.

Reacting to the news, Vadim Zelichenok, the acting head of the Russian Athletics Federation (VFLA), said: "It is only a recommendation."

And Vitaly Mutko added: "There is no need to get confused, the commission does not have the right to suspend anyone."

Artem Patsev, an ARAF lawyer, also said the accusations were a 'political' order and that there was no "real evidence".

"If they had serious reasons for the suspension, it would be already done," he said.

Before its publication, co-author Richard McLaren warned the report would show "a different scale of corruption", even compared with Fifa.

The IOC's ethics commission also said Lamine Diack, the former head of world athletics body the IAAF, should be suspended as an honorary member of the IOC.

Lord Coe, the IAAF president who was vice president for eight of the 16 years Diack was in charge, has recently admitted these are "dark days for the sport".

Last week, French prosecutors launched an investigation against Diack, Lord Coe's predecessor.

He was put under investigation on suspicion of corruption and money laundering amid allegations that his sons were linked to extorting money from athletes who tested positive for doping.

The 82-year-old is suspected of taking more than 1m euros ($1.1m) - which is £713,000 - to cover up positive doping tests in Russia.

Lord Coe - who referred to Diack as the IAAF's "spiritual leader" at the time of his election - has insisted he was not aware of any of the allegations made against the Senegalese until they "first surfaced at the start of the week".

He added: "That was the first that I had heard of them and that is almost certainly the case for everyone in the sport."

The WADA report referred to attempts to blackmail Olympic 1,500-meter champion Asli Cakir Alptekin of Turkey, months after she won the gold medal at the 2012 London Games. She was later banned for blood doping.

It also addressed claims of systematic doping in Russia implicating the national athletics federation, the WADA-accredited testing laboratory in Moscow and national anti-doping agency, known as RUSADA. Those three bodies are funded and overseen by Russia's government.

The three-member panel, chaired by former WADA president Dick Pound, published an interim report at a news conference in Geneva.

WADA formed the independent inquiry after German broadcaster ARD aired a documentary - Top secret doping: How Russia makes its winners? - last December.

The programme implicated top Russian sports officials in acts of bribery to hush up positive doping tests, falsify tests and supply banned drugs.

It cited test results from an International Association of Athletics Federations database that were leaked by a whistleblower.

ARD said former Chicago Marathon winner Liliya Shobukhova paid 450,000 euros (£320,360) to Russian officials linked to then-IAAF treasurer Valentin Balakhnichev, who threatened her with a doping ban before the London Games.

When Shobukhova was banned for two years in 2014, her husband reportedly received a 300,000 euros (£213,551) refund payment linked to Balakhnichev.

The documentary also linked organised doping to Russian officials and athletes in swimming, cycling, biathlon, weightlifting and cross-country skiing.

The Pound report will deliver its findings nine months before the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, where athletics is the marquee sport.

WADA could then theoretically declare Russia non-compliant with its code. The onus would then be back on the IAAF and the International Olympic Committee over what action to take.

Russia has recently become a regular at hosting big sporting events. The 2013 athletics world championships were in Moscow, the 2014 Winter Olympics were in Sochi, and this year's swimming worlds were in Kazan.

The Moscow lab oversaw testing for those events and is scheduled to lead the anti-doping program for FIFA when Russia hosts the 2018 World Cup.

- Daily Mail