Athletics doping report calls for Russian Federation to be suspended from competition

The report was issued following a 10-month investigation by an independent commission of the World Anti-Doping Agency, also known as WADA.

In the event that IAAF were to adapt the commission’s recommendation, Russian Federation could be excluded from major competitions including the Olympics and European Championships.

The investigation was prompted when German television station ARD implicated officials in Russia’s athletics federation, anti-doping agency (Rusada) and the Wada-accredited laboratory in Moscow in acts of bribery to hush up positive doping tests, falsify tests and supply banned drugs. WADA recommends Russian Federation be suspended from competition, that the Moscow lab be stripped of its accreditation, and that five athletes and five coaches be banned for life from the sport.

“We were taken unaware too – there were a few nasty surprises”, Pound admitted.

Panel member Richard McLaren, a Canadian lawyer and veteran sports law arbitrator, said the report will be “a real game-changer for sport”.

It detailed payments to hide doping tests and arrangements by which athletes were made aware of when they would be tested, in violation of code which dictates they be spontaneous, and also the destruction of samples.

The report also identified “systemic failures” in the IAAF that prevent an “effective” anti-doping programme.

The London Olympics were “more or less sabotaged” by Russian athletes who should have been banned for doping, a report has found.

“It says, ‘We have unconfirmed information that the state in the form of the ministry interferes in these questions. We don’t think Russian Federation is the only country with a doping problem and athletics is not the only sport with a doping problem”.

Russian athletics has always been dogged by doping charges, with several race walkers sanctioned earlier this year after IAAF found “aggravating circumstances” in their blood tests.

The commission directly accused the Russian government of complicity in the widespread doping and cover-ups, exposed in its damning 323-page report.

Diack and two other people, including the IAAF’s former anti-doping manager, were detained by French authorities last week and charged with corruption involving Russian doping cases.

Interpol will coordinate an investigation into corruption surrounding the alleged doping cover-up, it said in an emailed statement Monday.

Thus far, Russian officials have claimed that the report is unfair and politically motivated.

“Bearing in mind what the report points to, it’s going to be hard if those organisations are sanctioned, to have that cleared up in the next 10 months”, Jones told reporters on Tuesday. That’s our inference from the evidence we had a chance to examine.

Athletics New Zealand has backed the move by the sport’s world governing body to require Russia’s athletics bosses to respond to serious doping allegations by the end of the week.