Russian president Vladimir Putin questions Wada report, threatens Olympic split
By PA Sport
Last Updated: 18/07/16 7:58pm
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that the World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA) report on doping among Russian athletes was based on the testimony of just one man and that the Olympic movement could be on the verge of split.
In a statement published by the Kremlin, Putin said that there was no place for doping in sport as it was a threat to the lives and health of the athletes and discredited fair play.
He said that Russian officials named in the WADA report will be temporarily suspended, but asked the WADA Commission for more detailed and "objective" information.
"The accusations against Russian athletes are based on the testimony of one person. A person with a scandalous reputation," a Kremlin spokesperson said, referring to Grigory Rodchenkov, who was head of Moscow's anti-doping laboratory before fleeing to the United States and is under criminal investigation in Russia.
An independent commission report, led by Canadian law professor and sports lawyer Richard McLaren, published on Monday revealed evidence of widespread state-sponsored doping by Russian athletes at the 2014 Sochi Olympics.
Putin made the Sochi Games a showcase event and spent more than £37billion staging the Games.
McLaren, who was a member of WADA's independent commission which last year exposed widespread doping and corruption in Russian athletics, said the Russian Ministry of Sport oversaw the manipulation of athletes' analytical results and sample swapping.
WADA's executive committee met immediately after McLaren's report was published and has called on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and International Paralympic Committee (IPC) "to consider, under their respective charters, to decline entries for Rio 2016 of all athletes" submitted by the Russian authorities.
