More than 1000 Russian athletes in state-sponsored drug cheating

How can Russia be allowed to get away with this and should be banned from all sport until they accept liability and try to address the problem.

Russia has denied it was running any state-sponsored doping schemes, with the sports minister calling for claims of an “institutional conspiracy” voiced Friday to be substantiated.

“If there are facts, they will be investigated. But there should be real substantiation for allegations of conspiracy or a state doping programme,” minister Vitaly Mutko told TASS news agency.

A new report for the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) found more than 1,000 Russian athletes in about 30 sports took part in a plan involving Moscow sports ministry officials to use banned drugs at the Sochi and London Olympics and other global events.

Mutko said it “was impossible to do what we are accused of in Sochi,” adding that the Olympic Games are overseen by international sports bodies and that “everything was under control of WADA and the IOC.”

“The Russian sports ministry with full responsibility states there are no government programmes to support doping in sport,” his ministry said in a separate statement, adding that it “will continue the fight against doping with zero tolerance”.

The ministry said it would “carefully study the information contained in the report with the aim of coming up with a constructive position”.

In an explosive development, more than 1000 Russian athletes in 30 sports and competing at the London 2012 Olympics and Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics were involved in the Kremlin’s state-sponsored drug cheating con*spiracy, World Anti-Doping Agency investigator Richard McLaren has uncovered.

Laboratory experts swapped clean urine for drug-tainted urine and even added salt and coffee granules to it as part of a four-year elaborate cover-up that went to the very top levels of the Russian government.

McLaren’s final report, released in London last night, says there were 503 summer athletes and 92 winter athletes spe*cifically involved in the urine-swapping scandal, including 15 Russian medal winners from the London Olympics.

Ten of those athletes have already had their medals stripped following retesting by the International Olympic Committee.

The report details how 246 athletes were involved in the “washing’’ or swapping of drug-tainted samples with clean ones.

The report detailed how before the London Olympics, top- level national team coaches would buy and resell performance-enhancing drugs to their elite athletes, while the Russian Anti-Doping Agency used corrupt doping officers. The officers would warn athletes in advance or allow others to provide the sample, or allow athletes to provide a previously collected sample known to be clean.

“The Russian Olympic team corrupted the London Olympic Games on an unprecedented scale, the extent of which will probably never be fully established,’’ McLaren said.

Russia won 24 gold, 26 silver and 32 bronze medals at the London Olympics.

McLaren took on the investigation for WADA following allegations made by whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov, the former Moscow laboratory chief, and his latest findings backed up initial claims that there was a state-based conspiracy to man*ipulate doping samples to “save’’ selected Russian athletes.

Investigators also released more than 1100 items of documentary evidence many of which centred on the sophisticated tampering of drug testing sample bottles.

In every case where tampering of the sample bottle was found with scratches and marks there was evidence of levels of salt physiologically impossible for humans to have passed. In some of the bottles there was evidence of DNA from more than one person, in some cases male and female DNA combined. The findings will put pressure on the Russians to revamp their entire drug-testing system.

The IAAF has yet to allow any Russians to compete at international level because it has not been satisfied that the competitors can prove they are clean.

McLaren said “this 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 Olympic Games, the 2013 Univerisade Games, the 2013 IAAF Moscow World Championships and the Sochi Winter Olympics’’.

He added that there was an institutional conspiracy by summer and winter sports athletes who participated with Russian officials within the Ministry of Sport and its infrastructure such as the Russian Anti-Doping Agency, the CSP (Centre of Sports Preparation of National Teams of Russia), the Moscow laboratory and the Russian Federal Security Service.

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