The world’s leading anti-doping expert suspects the International Olympic Committee lack the appetite to ban the entire Russian team from Rio and will leave the decision on their participation with individual sports federations — a move many would consider a cop-out.
Dick Pound, a former head of the World Anti-Doping Agency, fears the IOC are ‘very reluctant’ to ban the whole nation despite a report confirming state-sponsored doping across almost every Russian sport.
But Sportsmail has seen documents suggesting at least one international federation cannot be trusted to make a responsible decision on Russian athletes competing at the Games if they are put in that position.
John Leonard, head of the World Swimming Coaches Association, emailed Cornel Marculescu, executive director of swimming’s world governing body FINA, warning of Russian state- sponsored doping in early 2015 but his concerns were dismissed.
FINA went ahead with plans to hold the World Championships in Kazan, a city in western Russia, that summer — with no apparent changes to its drug-testing policy. A report by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren this week revealed that 312 positive drugs samples provided by Russian athletes over a four-year period were covered up — with this scheme lasting until at least after the Kazan meeting.
‘People in Russia told me the system was corrupt,’ said Leonard. ‘One clean coach, who is now scared for his life and in hiding in Europe, was fired because he wouldn’t go along with the doping. He told me all the information which has since come out. I knew the lab was under the control of the secret police and every known way of subverting a test was being employed.
‘I emailed FINA to warn them about holding the championships in Kazan and said it would be putting our swimmers at risk because of the evidence which was already in the domain about their laboratory but Cornel emailed me back to say he had absolutely no concerns about Russian anti-doping.’
McLaren’s report revealed at least 18 swimming positives were covered-up as part of a systematic doping programme which took place in Russia between 2011 and 2015 and involved collusion from the state police agency, the FSB.
FINA — unavailable for comment last night — are already facing criticism for being soft on cheating afterRussian Yuliya Efimova, a former world record holder,was cleared to competein Rio despite a positive doping test earlier this year.
FINA also came out on the front foot this week to condemn ‘premature’ calls for Russia to receive a blanket ban from the Olympics.
Leonard added: ‘Russia should not participate in Rio or anywhere else in the near future but I have strong doubts FINA will do the right thing because they never do, they follow the money and a very large chunk of their money has come from Mr Putin.
‘My best guess is that they will find some way to ignore the findings of the report and allow the Russian team or some portion of them to compete. I think this goes to the highest level of the government, much deeper than the report suggests.’
The IOC are expected to decide on the Russian team’s participation in Rio by this weekend at the latest, less than two weeks before the Olympic opening ceremony. They are delaying until after a ruling from the court of arbitration for sport, which is separately considering whether 67 members of Russia’s already banned track and field team should be allowed to compete in Rio.
Leonard called for a mass protest from athletes if Russians are permitted to compete.
‘If the athletes got together they could solve the problem overnight with an organised protest,’ said Leonard. ‘You introuduce lane four at the Olympics in the 100m freestyle and the gentleman sits back down and all his other compatriots sit back down, too.’ – Daily Mail