McLaren report on Russia to pose ‘challenge’ – IOC

Richard McLaren’s full report into doping in Russia, set to be published Friday, will pose an “immediate challenge” to the International Olympic Committee, according to IOC president Thomas Bach.
The IOC on Wednesday pre-empted the report’s publication by extending sanctions against Russia until further notice, despite Bach insisting Thursday that “I cannot speculate, I don’t know the report”.
Bach, speaking after a three-day meeting of the IOC executive board, added: “For the IOC, the challenges are obvious. We we will have an immediate challenge tomorrow with the final McLaren report.
“We will deal (with it) as soon as we have the report. It will be handed to the two (IOC) commissions, then they will take contact with McLaren and will take up their work immediately.”
The IOC first imposed sanctions on Russia in July in the wake of McLaren’s opening report for the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) that revealed a widespread state-backed scheme in Russia to rig drug tests at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics and Paralympics.
The revelations led to the exclusion of more than 100 Russian athletes from the Rio Olympics and the entire Russian team from the Paralympics. McLaren’s full report is again expected to lift the lid once more on doping in Russia.
Bach added that re-testing from the 2008 Beijing and 2012 London Olympics had raised “concern regarding some countries, in particular Russia, and some sports, in particular, weightlifting”.
“We will have to analyse this and consult with WADA about this situation.”
When asked whether weightlifting’s presence in the Olympics might be at risk, Bach erred on the side of caution.
“We will have to analyse in detail, we will also have to put in relation the sport and the countries, and to see whether this is more a problem just in a certain number of countries. We will have to consult with WADA and we will see with WADA how to look at this situation.”
Turning to bids for the 2024 Olympic Summer Games, Bach called Budapest, Paris and Los Angeles “strong candidates”, hailing the 2020 Olympic Agenda for successfully keeping the idea of candidacy for the Games affordable.
But, with the hosts of the 2024 Games to be decided in Lima in September 2017, Bach warned that the current bidding procedure produced “too many losers”.
“It’s not the purpose to produce losers but to produce the best possible hopes, so we will have to look into this,” he said.
“It is about to change or to be changed, we will continue to change.”
Bach added: “For 2024, the process it is under way, we are very happy.
“We have to think long term, we have already started with 2024 by reducing the number of bidding cities. In this invitation phase we have already advised some potential bidders not to put their candidature forward. Maybe we need to strengthen this invitation phase, to have dialogue with some cities at an even earlier stage, I’m sure we have to make a change in this procedure.”

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Mr. Majani