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The commission was investigating allegations made in a German TV documentary about Russian athletics last year
Russia should be banned from athletics competition, a World Anti-Doping Agency commission report has recommended.
Wada’s independent commission examined allegations of doping, cover-ups, and extortion in Russian athletics, which also implicated the IAAF, the sport’s world governing body.
It also wants five athletes and five coaches to get lifetime doping bans.
The report also identified “systemic failures” in the IAAF that prevent an “effective” anti-doping programme.
In addition, it states the London 2012 Olympics were “sabotaged” by the “widespread inaction” against Russian athletes with suspicious doping profiles by the IAAF and the Russian athletics federation.
Wada commission leader Dick Pound said Russia seemed to have been running a “state-supported” doping programme and also gave his backing to IAAF president Lord Coe, saying he was the right man to lead the governing body.
In an IAAF statement, Lord Coe described the information in the Wada report as “alarming” and said he would seek approval from the governing body’s council members to consider sanctions against the Russian athletics federation, which could include suspension.
Russia’s sport minister, Vitaly Mutko, has denied all allegations, while RusAthletics, the Russian track and field federation, has accused Wada of circumventing established protocols for dealing with doping.
“Any suspension should be discussed at the meeting of the IAAF in November,” the acting head of RusAthletics, Vadim Zelechenok, told R-Sport channel. “It should be proven that any violations were the fault of the federation and not individual sportspeople. We should be given a chance to clear our names.”
The international police body Interpol says it will be coordinating a global investigation into the suspected corruption and doping.
The report was commissioned on a “very narrow mandate” to “determine the accuracy” of allegations made in a German TV documentary about Russian athletics last December.
It claimed Russian athletes paid 5% of their earnings to domestic doping officials to supply banned substances and cover up tests, while athletics’ world governing body the IAAF was implicated in covering up the abuse.
The programme’s claims of widespread doping were made by former Russian Anti-Doping Agency (Rusada) official Vitaly Stepanov and his wife Yulia (nee Rusanova), formerly an 800m runner who was banned for doping.
While former discus thrower Yevgeniya Pecherina said that “most, the majority, 99%” of athletes selected to represent Russia use banned substances.
Pecherina is currently serving a 10-year doping ban that is due to end in 2023. Another banned athlete, Liliya Shobukhova, who won the London Marathon in 2010 said she paid the Russian Athletics Federation 450,000 euros (£350,000) to cover up a positive doping test.
The documentary also included an undercover video purporting to show 800m runner Mariya Savinova, who won gold at the 2012 Olympics in London, admitting to using the banned steroid oxandrolone.
The commission was not asked to examine separate doping claims made in August when The Sunday Times and a German broadcaster claimed leaked blood tests from 5,000 athletes over 11 years showed an “extraordinary extent of cheating”. The IAAF said the allegations were “sensationalist and infuriating” and Wada is investigating them separately.
BBC