Published on 12:00 AM, July 19, 2016

Doping state-sponsored: Report

IOC to decide Russia's Rio fate today

International sports federations, aside from the IAAF, have since Sunday been vetting Russian competitors' suitability for Rio after a damning report last week revealed rampant state-run doping across Russian sport. File Photo: Reuters

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) called for Russia to be completely banned from the Rio Olympics and other international sport after an investigation found rampant state-run doping at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics and other events.

An investigation by Canadian law professor Richard McLaren for WADA found the FSB secret service helped "the state-dictated failsafe system" carried out by the sports ministry and covering 30 sports.

"WADA calls on sport movement to deny Russian athletes participation at international competition including Rio until 'culture change' achieved," the international anti-doping agency spokesman Ben Nichols said in a statement on Twitter.

International Olympic Committee members were to hold an emergency telephone conference on Tuesday to decide provisional sanctions over what IOC president Thomas Bach called "a shocking and unprecedented attack on the integrity of sports and on the Olympic Games."

McLaren's report said the cover up started in 2010 after Russia's "abysmal" results at the Vancouver Winter Olympics and continued until 2015 after the Sochi Games.

President Vladimir Putin made the Sochi Games a showcase event and more than $50 billion was spent putting it on.

Russia, which had strongly denied any state involvement, is already banned from international athletics by the world body, the IAAF, because of doping exposed last year.

There will be mounting pressure for that to be extended even though Bach and some international federations have said there has to be a way for athletes proved to be clean to compete in Rio.

"The IOC will not hesitate to take the toughest sanctions available against any individual or organisation implicated," Bach said in a statement announcing the IOC conference on Tuesday.

McLaren's report said the Sports Ministry under Vitaly Mutko organised the subterfuge under which tainted urine samples were replaced and kept away from international observers.

"The Moscow laboratory operated for the protection of doped Russian athletes within a state-dictated failsafe system," McLaren said.

"The Sochi laboratory operated a unique sample swapping methodology to enable doped Russian athletes to compete at the Winter Olympic Games," he added.

"The Ministry of Sport directed, controlled and oversaw the manipulation of athletes' analytical results or sample swapping and the active participation and assistance of the FSB (Russian Federal Security Service), CSP (Center of Sports Preparation for Russian athletes) and both Moscow and Sochi laboratories," McLaren said.

His report came a day after a release from the United States and Canadian anti-doping agencies says that a report on Russia's doping will be "unambiguous" in stating that there was government involvement. It also asked for a blanket ban on Russia from Rio, which starts August 5, should be considered if the evidence was damning.

WADA mandated McLaren to investigate allegations made by former Moscow anti-doping laboratory director Grigory Rodchenkov in May. The whistleblower Rodchenkov is now in hiding in the United States and wanted by Russian authorities.

McLaren called the Rodchenkov "a credible and truthful person" despite admitting to concocting doping cocktails for Russian athletes.

McLaren dismissed any notion that having less than two months to conduct the investigation or the reluctance of some witnesses to come forward compromised the results.

He said his report was handed over to WADA on Saturday and had not been leaked in advance.