Russian Athletes Should Be Suspended Due To "Widespread" Cheating, Says Anti-Doping Agency

A landmark report from the World Anti-Doping Agency said Russia should be banned from international competition and five athletes should face lifetime bans.

Russia should be immediately suspended from competing in international athletics due to evidence of "widespread doping", according to a report from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

Former International Association of Athletics Federations president Lamine Diack (L) shakes hands with Lord Coe, his successor, in August 2015.

Getty / Lintao Zhang

The report, the result of a 11-month commission led by Dick Pound, a former WADA chief, found evidence of "widespread cheating through the use of doping substances and methods to ensure, or enhance the likelihood of, victory for athletes and teams".

The 335-page report said also "it would be naive in the extreme" to say that this could have happened without the involvement or tacit approval of the Russian state.

The report said:

• Russian athletes took part in the London 2012 Olympics when they should have been banned and the games were "sabotaged" as a result.

• A laissez-faire attitude to doping by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and the Russian Anti-Doping Agency was responsible for ineligible runners being entered into competitions.

• Lifetime bans should be handed down to five Russian middle-distance runners and five Russian coaches and administrators. The athletes singled out by the report are: Ekaterina Poistogova; Anastasiya Bazdyreva; Mariya Savinova-Farnosova; Kristina Ugarova and Tatjana Myazina.

• Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko issued orders to "manipulate particular samples".

• 1,400 test results were destroyed by Russia's anti-doping laboratory in Moscow. The report called for the removal of the laboratory's accreditation and for its director to be fired.

The report raises huge questions and challenges for Lord Sebastian Coe, the current head of the IAAF, who has previously described allegations of systematic doping as "a war on my sport".

Getty / Lintao Zhang

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