WADA: Over 1,000 Russian athletes benefited from state-run doping program

LONDON, Dec. 9 (UPI) -- The World Anti-Doping Agency, or WADA, released a new report on Friday in which it said more than 1,000 Russian athletes across 30 sports benefited from a state-sponsored doping program.

WADA Commission member Richard H. McLaren, a Canadian sports law professor, discussed the report during a press conference in London.

"Over 1,000 Russian athletes can be identified as having benefited from manipulations to conceal positive doping tests," McLaren said, adding the report "reconfirms cover up of doping that took place in Russia on unprecedented scale."

The investigation against Russia began after Grigory Rodchenkov, a chemist who ran the laboratory that handled testing for thousands of Olympians, said he was partly responsible for the doping program.

The report released Friday is the second to be disclosed in what is known as the McLaren Independent Investigation.

During the press conference, McLaren said the latest report "reconfirms cover up of doping that took place in Russia on unprecedented scale."

"For every action taken by WADA to regulate, new actions evolved in Russia to subvert anti-doping process," McLaren said, adding the "report includes immutable evidence. Does not depend on verbal testimony but on physical evidence

In August, International Olympic Committee confirmed 118 athletes, or almost one third of the Russian team, would be banned from the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympic Games due to doping.

In the report, McLaren wrote the investigation is concluded.

"I have tabled two reports that taken together paint a detailed, but not fully complete picture of the doping control processes in Russia," the report reads. "It is time for everyone to step down from their positions and end the accusations against each other. I would urge international sport leadership to take account of what is known and contained in the reports, use the information constructively to work together, and correct what is wrong."

Russia last year dismissed accusations of a systemic culture of state-sponsored doping and calls the country be banned from international sport. Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, said the accusations were "groundless."