WADA wants Russian athletes banned as huge doping scandal erupts

Russian athletes should be banned from athletics competition due to widespread doping at the top level of the country's sport, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) commission has recommended, with Interpol confirming it will coordinate a global investigation into the allegations.

A report from WADA’s independent commission, which was set up to examine alleged cover-ups and extortion in Russian athletics as well as the use of doping among Russian athletes, found that the London 2012 Olympic Games were “sabotaged” by the “widespread inaction” against Russian athletes.

The report added that the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), where London 2012 bid chief Lord Sebastian Coe has just been elected president, was guilty of “systemic failures” that prevented an “effective” anti-doping programme from being implemented.

A number of Russian athletes suspected of doping should have and could have been banned from competing at the 2012 Olympics, where Russia finished fourth overall in the medal table with 81 medals, had it not been for "the collective and inexplicable laissez-faire policy" adopted by the IAAF and by the Russian athletics federation.

At a press conference on Monday, WADA commission leader Dick Pound spoke of a “state-supported” doping programme, while report co-author Richard McLaren, a US law professor and veteran sport arbitrator, said the extent of the cover-up showed a much bigger scale of corruption than the ongoing FIFA scandal.

According to the findings, Russian athletes paid 5% of their earnings to domestic doping officials to supply banned substances and cover up tests, allegedly with great assistance from IAAF.

The report was commissioned after former Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RADA) official Vitaly Stepanov and his wife Yulia first lifted the lid on doping among Russian athletes in a German TV documentary broadcast in December last year.

Meanwhile, former discus thrower Yevgeniya Pecherina, who is serving the second year of a 10-year doping ban, claimed “most, the majority, 99%" of Russian athletes regularly used banned substances.

WADA added neither the Russian athletics federation, nor the Russian Federation (ARAF) and the Russian anti-doping agency can be considered compliant with anti-doping legislations, after a Russian doctor admitted to voluntarily destroying over 1,400 samples that were held in a Moscow laboratory.

Lord Coe had “taken the urgent step of seeking approval from his fellow IAAF council members to consider sanctions against the ARAF", the IAAF said in a statement. “These sanctions could include provisional and full suspension and the removal of future IAAF events,” said the international body in charge of organizing all major track and field events."

Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko has denied all allegations, while the ARAF has accused WADA of circumventing established protocols for dealing with doping.

“Any suspension should be discussed at the meeting of the IAAF in November,” the acting head of ARAF, Vadim Zelechenok, told RT television. “It should be proven that any violations were the fault of the federation and not individual sportspeople. We should be given a chance to clear our names.”

Russia’s track and field athletes could miss the 2016 Olympics in Rio if the report is followed through.