Honorary President of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) and former head of the Independent State Anti-Doping Commission Vitaly Smirnov told that the statement by the head of the independent World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) commission to investigate the doping scandal at the 2014 Olympics Richard McLaren should be considered sincere.
In 2016, McLaren wrote a report in which he stated that in Russia there was a state system that manipulated doping samples and covered up athletes. In 2017, Smirnov announced that McLaren had cleared Russia of alleged state support for doping.
Earlier, the International Olympic Committee called on international sports federations to withdraw Russian athletes from official competitions due to the situation in Ukraine. On Sunday, McLaren, in an interview with Sportschau, called for the admission of Russian athletes to international competitions.
– I met McLaren shortly after my appointment to the commission (ROC for doping trials at the Sochi Games). He himself asked for a date, in Zurich they talked for almost 3 hours. He listened to me, refused some of his statements, told me that I had convinced him. And after that, he never said that Russia had a state doping system, that the head of state was personally responsible for it. He gave me the image of a person who knows how to listen and can change his point of view.
I think he made this statement about admitting Russians sincerely, without any trickery. This should be considered a sobering process. I hope similar statements will follow from other officials.
Without the participation of athletes from Russia, one of the main world powers, it is impossible to envisage the best results in many sports. McLaren surely understands the damage all of this is doing to global sport, and so spoke in that vein.
I’m not sure that McLaren has such a power of suggestion that all the federations and all the officials listen to it and immediately send us back to world sport. But the most important thing is that the CAS reacts to his words. It is necessary to achieve by all possible means the correction of injustice in the form of Russia’s withdrawal, Smirnov told .
Source : MatchTV
