Lead investigator: WADA sat on Russian doping allegations, delayed probe
The former chief investigator for the World Anti-Doping Agency says the organization failed to act on credible allegations of Russian doping and claims his attempts to investigate were repeatedly postponed by WADA president Sir Craig Reedie.
Jack Robertson, who departed WADA in January, told ProPublica's David Epstein that WADA sat on Russian doping allegations for months, and doing so prevented the IOC from being able to evaluate every athlete individually.
"WADA handed the IOC that excuse by sitting on the allegations for close to a year," said Robertson, who led the organization's investigation into state-sponsored doping.
"We knew since last August and WADA waited until May to name an independent commission to investigate all Russian sport and the lab. In November, after the first investigation press conference, (Olympic cross-country ski champion and WADA Athletes’ Committee chair) Beckie Scott demanded that WADA investigate other sports, not just athletics.
"Reedie said he’d take it under advisement, and he blew her off. WADA waited until the 11th hour, only once it was exposed to the public by '60 Minutes' and The New York Times, and so the IOC could say there wasn’t enough time."
Robertson said he was forced to leak info to the media in an effort to force Reedie to act.
Russia's track and field team was banned from Rio 2016 in June, prompting further allegations that the doping extended beyond athletics and throughout Russian sport.
The IOC decided against banning the country entirely last month, leaving the decision up to each global sport federation to decide which athletes would be banned from competing in other sports.
"The action the IOC took has forever set a bar for how the most outrageous doping and cover up and corruption possible will be treated in the future,” Robertson said.
“Those involved in running sport are former athletes, so somehow I figured that they would have honor and integrity. But the people in charge are basically raping their sports and the system for self-interest. Sport is seriously broken.”
Reedie has said there will be many clean Russian athletes at the Games, but Robertson isn't buying it.
"The whole ruse of 'clean Russian athletes' is a farce," the former investigator said.
"The investigation showed that to be on the national team, at least for athletics, you were required to dope. They actually preferred clean athletes who had never doped before, so they knew once they took this raw talent and put them on a doping regimen they would go from great to superhuman. We didn’t investigate all sports, but the evidence we had is that this was the typical method for all Russian sports."
More than 250 Russian athletes have been cleared to compete at Rio 2016.