Three Russian cyclists are suing the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and investigator Richard McLaren for damages after McLaren’s report to WADA kept them out of the Rio Olympics last summer.
McLaren, a Canadian professor, led an investigation on Russia after allegations surfaced of a widespread, state-sponsored doping program. McLaren released two reports, mostly centered on athletics, but exposing what McLaren found to be major breaches of anti-doping policy, including a compromised WADA testing lab in Moscow and a system of sample-swapping that McLaren says Russia used to protect athletes from positive doping tests.
You can read about that first report here. A second report at the end of the year brought more allegations, including evidence that the institutional doping and cover-up programs continued past the Sochi Olympics in 2014.
The McLaren Reports were independent studies commissioned by WADA, and when McLaren gave his first report, the world’s anti-doping authority recommended that all Russian athletes in every sport be banned from the 2016 Olympics in Rio. The International Olympic Committee, though, chose to pass the decisions on to each sport’s national governing body, with athletes banned on a case-by-case basis. 271 of Russia’s 389 original entrants across all sports did compete in Rio. That included three high-profile swimmers who were on the cusp of facing bans: Yulia Efimova, Vladimir Morozov and Nikita Lobintsev.
But three Russian cyclists were among those banned. Now, the BBC reports that Kirill Sveshnikov, Dmitry Strakhov and Dmitry Sokolov have filed suit against WADA and McLaren in a Canadian court, seeking damages after suffering “great reputational harm.”
“Together, Wada and Dr Richard McLaren prevented us from reaching our lifelong goal of participating in the Rio Olympics, the pinnacle of our sport, and we allege that they wrongly associated our names with cheaters and doping,” said Sveshnikov in the BBC piece.
None of the three were individually named in the McLaren Reports (which centered mostly on athletics), but they did appeal their bans to the Court of Arbitration for Sport last summer, losing the appeal and their chance to compete in Rio.
They are suing the wrong Agency. In this case, don’t shoot the messenger who did their job uncovered a systemic, State sponsored doping/cheating program . They should take their heads out the sand sue the Russian government or Minister of Sport whose support of doping lead to their ban. The sooner clean Russian athletes (I assume their must be some) speak out against doping, the sooner they can initiate change from within.
When we look back through the lens of of history at how Russian doping was handled leading up to Rio, the gatekeepers who decided which Russian athletes could go and who couldn’t will be graded with a C-. Although I believe McLaren’s recommendations were for the greater good there were undoubtedly clean Russian athletes who couldn’t compete through no fault of their own. Strictly from a human perspective I feel for these cyclists.
All sorts of reports including the UN are later found to be either biased , insufficient or plain wrong . Sometimes they find a hostile reception because they are the truth ..just look at any report involving Israel as an example .
The article does not say where the case is lodged but there are aspects Ive thought that need to be put before a judiciary .
If the IoC had listened to WADA (like they should have) over Rio rather then play politics, we wouldn’t be in such a precarious place with doping.
When you don’t value your own agency how do you expect those who break it to.