RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – The split between Olympic leaders and global anti-doping officials over the Russian doping scandal continues to escalate.
The World Anti-Doping Agency fired back on Monday, a day after IOC President Thomas Bach suggested the agency was to blame for the last-minute chaos over the participation of Russian athletes in the Rio de Janeiro Games.
Bach said the agency should have acted sooner on evidence of state-sponsored doping rather than release the damning report by Canadian investigator Richard McLaren so close to the games, which open on Friday.
“While it is destabilizing in the lead-up to the games, it is obvious, given the seriousness of the revelations that he (McLaren) uncovered, that they had to be published and acted upon without delay,” WADA President Craig Reedie, who is also an IOC vice president, said in a statement Monday.
On Sunday, Bach defended the International Olympic Committee’s decision not to ban the entire Russian delegation from the Olympics, and said the IOC was not responsible for the timing of the latest WADA report, which came out on July 18.