The Russian track and field federation should be suspended and Russian athletes should be prevented from competing in international meets, including the Olympics, an independent commission of the World Anti-Doping Agency recommended on Monday.
The commission said that “there were organized efforts on the part of many senior coaches and officials, inside and outside Russia, to promote doping and make it possible for such efforts to be successful, including the cover-up of certain positive cases of doping.”
The commission also recommended lifetime bans for five Russian athletes, including medalists at the 2012 Olympics, and stripping accreditation from Russia’s drug-testing lab.
The report alleges that inaction by track and field’s governing body and the Russian federation “led to athletes competing in the London 2012 Olympics who should have been prevented from competing (and who were/are later sanctioned).”
The commission, headed by WADA founding president Dick Pound, investigated systematic use of performance-enhancing drugs and whether the federation helped its athletes avoid testing and hid positive drug test results. The commission released a 323-page report on its investigation at a press conference in Geneva on Monday. It builds on allegations made in a German television documentary that aired in December 2014.
RELATED: would be awarded the Olympic bronze medal
Today’s report includes several new allegations, including that Grigory Rodchenkov, the head of the drug-testing lab in Moscow, ordered 1,417 doping control samples destroyed to hinder WADA’s investigation.
The International Association of Athletics Federations is the organization that will rule on whether to suspend the Russian federation. After the WADA report was released, IAAF’s new president, Sebastian Coe, said he was initiating the process of considering sanctions against the Russian federation, including provisional and full suspension. Coe said the Russian federation needed to respond to the IAAF by the end of the week.
The Russian federation’s acting president, Vadim Zelichenok, and whether the federation helped its athletes avoid testing and hid positive drug test results would be awarded the Olympic bronze medal.
Russia’s removal from the Olympics would have a significant impact on competition at the Games. At the 2012 Olympics, Russians won 17 medals in track and field: seven gold, five silver, and five bronze. Among the medals were gold and bronze in the women’s 800 meters, gold in the women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase, and bronze in the women’s marathon. Fifteen of the seventeen Russian medals were won by women.
The two 800-meter medalists at the 2012 Olympics, Mariya Savinova and Ekaterina Poistogova, were among those recommended for lifetime bans in the WADA report. Should their results be eliminated, American Alysia Montaño Foot Locker XC Results.
Montaño said she was overtaken by emotion when she heard the news on Monday morning. During a live Periscope statement, she said “a lot of us have known this was going on in the sport for a very long time.
“It’s not just you being the bronze medalist...but it’s about you putting out an honest effort—honest time and energy and emotion—and being cheated out of it,” Montaño said. “You can’t ever get back those moments. You can’t ever replace those feelings that I would have been able to experience at the time.”
Other of the commission’s recommendations, such as stripping accreditation from Russia’s testing facilities, could be acted upon as early as next week, when WADA’s executive committee and board meets in Colorado Springs, Colorado. WADA’s president, Craig Reedie, welcomed the report.
“While the contents of the report are deeply disturbing, the investigation is hugely positive for the clean athlete as it contains significant recommendations for how WADA and its partners in the anti-doping community can, and must, take swift corrective action to ensure anti-doping programs of the highest order are in place across the board,” Reedie said in a statement. “WADA is fully committed in its role of leading the charge to protect the rights of clean athletes worldwide.”
Today’s report offered recommendations stemming only from alleged official encouragement of doping in Russia. It mentioned but did not go into detail about alleged high-level IAAF corruption and involvement in covering up positive doping tests.
“The [commission] has withheld most of the contents of the chapter on the IAAF in order to not compromise the continuing efforts in respect of information provided to Interpol,” the report states. “The [commission] is in possession of information which has been passed on to Interpol for the purposes of an integrated investigative activity.”
As reported last week, Lamine Diack, the former head of the IAAF, is under investigation for allegedly taking payments in exchange for deferring sanctions against Russian drug cheats before the 2012 Olympics.
Erin Strout contributed to this report.
Scott is a veteran running, fitness, and health journalist who has held senior editorial positions at Runner’s World and Running Times. Much of his writing translates sport science research and elite best practices into practical guidance for everyday athletes. He is the author or coauthor of several running books, including Best Running Shoes 2025, Advanced Marathoning, and Meb for Mortals. A Part of Hearst Digital Media Slate, The Atlantic, the Washington Post, and other members of the sedentary media. His lifetime running odometer is past 110,000 miles, but he’s as much in love as ever.
