Coe faces questions from MPs over doping scandal

A spokesman for Russian president Vladimir Putin says accusations of widespread and systemic cheating by the country’s track and field athletes in a report commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency are “groundless”.

“As long as there is no evidence, it is hard to consider the accusations, which appear rather unfounded”, Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday.

The worldwide Olympic Committee (IOC) has provisionally suspended former IAAF president Lamine Diack and urged the ruling body of athletics to open disciplinary procedures against those found to have violated doping rules.

The report said that it was not only the athletes involved but also Russian anti-doping officials, who are accused of taking bribes to hide test results and get rid of incriminating evidence.

The report from WADA’s independent commission addressed the alarming number of Russian athletes who have tested positive in recent years.

WADA has already revoked the Moscow lab’s accreditation.

A man smokes a cigarette at the entrance of National anti-doping agency, RUSADA in Moscow, Russia, Monday, November 9, 2015. Asked for the government’s position about charges against Russian athletes, Peskov reportedly said “it’s none of our business to ponder over the causes of such scandals”.

It said that agents from the FSB intelligence service interfered with the work of a doping laboratory during last year’s Winter Olympics in Sochi.

Sergei Porter / Vedomosti ” Russia’s [doping] problems are no worse than other countries”, but “whatever we do, everything is bad”, Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko said.

The independent commission of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) yesterday recommended banning Russian Federation from the sport as a result of its systematic doping culture that “prevented or diminished the possibility of an effective anti-doping programme”.

“If Russian Federation is not in Rio, I think the reputation of athletics will be enhanced because the public will know every athlete competing is clean and is competing in the true spirit of the Olympic Games”, the 2016 Australian Olympic team’s chef de mission Kitty Chiller said.

Monday’s WADA panel acknowledged that “Russia is not the only country, nor athletics the only sport, facing the problem of orchestrated doping”. In an interview with broadcaster Russian Federation Today, Mutko said that Pound’s allegations were based on “unsubstantiated facts” and “unknown sources” and accused the former WADA chairman of overstepping the mandate of the commission.

Pound said that he hopes that all sports will have to look at their anti-doping systems and help in making global sport better, “I hope all sports will look at their governance and their anti-doping systems because their existence may be at risk”, he told a news conference.