Wada report calls for Russia to be banned from athletics for “deeply rooted culture of cheating”
Russia should be banned from athletics for allowing a “deeply rooted culture of cheating” to fester, according to a bombshell report published today by the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada).
Wada’s independent commission also called for 10 individuals, including five athletes, to be banned from the sport for life, and said Moscow’s anti-doping laboratory should have its accreditation revoked for deliberately destroying more than 1,400 samples.
The report follows a 10-month investigation into claims by German media, aired in December, that corruption was rife in Russian athletics.
It is another devastating blow for the credibility of world athletics’ governing body the IAAF, whose former president Lamine Diack was last week placed under investigation on suspicion of accepting more than €1m in bribes to cover up doping by Russian competitors.
Diack’s successor Lord Coe has called these “dark days” for the sport but insisted he did not know of the allegations against Diack, despite serving as vice-president under him for half of the Senegalese’s 16-year tenure.