"Unprecedented and astonishing" findings, as mentioned by the International Paralympic Committee in their statement, were made on Friday by Dr. Richard McLaren, entrusted by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to look into the widespread state-sponsored doping activities in Russia. The McLaren report has now come out with a revelation that over 1000 athletes from the country benefited from the doping programme, that lasted between 2011 and 2015.
Among those athletes are four medallists from the Sochi 2014 games as well as five medallists from the London 2012 Olympics. "There was a cover up that evolved into an institutional and disciplined medal-wining strategy," mentioned the second McLaren report on Friday, which is way more shocking than the previous one.
On July 18 this year, the first part of the McLaren report mentioned startling revelations of the state-sponsored doping all over Russia during Sochi 2014. This resulted in the blanket ban on Russian track & field athletes from the Rio 2016 Olympics as well as a no-show from the Russian contingent in the Paralympics 2016.
Vitaly Mutko, the former Russian sports minister and currently the deputy prime minister of Russia, has been indirectly hinted to having an involvement in the incidents but there has been no "direct evidence" of it.
"The Russian Olympic team corrupted the London games on an unprecedented scale - the extent of which will probably never be fully established," the McLaren report mentioned.
"The desire to win medals superseded their collective moral and ethical compass and Olympic values of fair play," McLaren wrote. "This process [of state-sponsored doping] evolved and was refined at London 2012, the summer University Games at 2013, the Moscow IAAF World Championships in 2013 and of course Sochi 2014."
Russian State Duma MP and president of the Russian Curling Federation, Dmitry Svishchev, slammed the allegations: "Just what we expected. We didn't hear anything new. Unfounded accusations against us all. If you're Russian, you are demonized," Dmitry was quoted as saying by RT Sport.
"However, I can't grasp what WADA wants to achieve. Either they want Russia to be excluded from the world sports family, or they want to really put things right [everywhere], Russia included. To do that, they should start with themselves," the official said.
"We will defend our rights in all courts, we won't make peace with this defamation. We admit we have our issues, but there is no need to demonize us," he added.
According to the BBC, here are some of the key findings from the report:
In Sochi 2014, two Russian female ice hockey players had male urine samples.
The urine samples of as many as four Russian gold medallists from Sochi 2014, were tampered with.
"Nescafé coffee granules" and salt have been used in the urine samples to to trick testers.
Leaked e-mails have been found where the Russian Sports Ministry are forwarded questions on how to deal with positive samples - save or quarantine.
A database containing the list of athletes whose urine samples have been saved, seems to have been found.
International Paralympic Committee statement:
"The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) would like to place on record our thanks and appreciation to Professor McLaren and his investigation team for completing their mandate.
"The full findings of the report are unprecedented and astonishing. They strike right at the heart of the integrity and ethics of sport. We wholeheartedly agree with Professor McLaren that the best course of action is to work together to fix the broken and compromised anti-doping system in Russia.
"The recently appointed IPC taskforce looks forward to working closely with our member the Russian Paralympic Committee to do just that."
