The Latest: Investigator defends Russian doping report
The Latest on the release of a report that confirmed widespread doping in Russian sports (all times local to Rio):
2:31 p.m.
Russian President Vladimir Putin says the officials named in a new report as directly responsible for widespread doping will be suspended pending a thorough investigation in Russia.
Putin gave no names, but his statement appears to apply to Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko and his deputy, Yuri Nagornykh, who are both discussed in the report.
The report by the World Anti-Doping Agency investigator says Nagornykh directed workers at Moscow's anti-doping laboratory on which positive samples to send through and which to hold back. The report also says Mutko personally intervened to cover up a doping case.
In the statement released by the Kremlin, Putin asks the WADA commission to provide ''more complete, objective, evidence-based information'' about its findings to Russian investigators.
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1:42 p.m.
Volleyball officials are among those who don't want to see all Russians kicked out of the Olympics.
International Volleyball Federation president Ary Graca says there are no ''major issues'' with Russian national teams scheduled to compete in Rio de Janeiro next month. He noted that in volleyball, much of the testing is done outside of Russia, where labs have been implicated in the scandal.
The comments highlight a growing divide in Olympic sports among those who say a ban is the right punishment to maintain integrity and those who claim it would hurt athletes who did not cheat.
Brazilian beach volleyball star Emanuel Rego says there are too many innocent athletes who would be punished in a complete ban. Defending Olympic champion Julius Brink says he was shocked by the scope of the cheating, but he still doesn't think all Russian athletes should be punished by missing Rio.
But the president of the FIVB Athletes' Commission feels otherwise. Gilberto Amauri de Godoy Filho says it will take ''much of the brightness of the competition, but it is necessary to consider curbing doping.''
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1:29 p.m.
How did the Russia state-sponsored doping program work? The report confirming widespread cheating offers some details.
The report says Russia's security service broke into supposedly tamper-proof urine sample bottles to help doping cheats win medals at the Sochi Olympics.
This allowed agents at the Olympic testing laboratory to help swap in clean urine and replace samples from Russian athletes contaminated with steroids and other doping substances.
It's unclear how many 2014 Winter Games medals are linked to the conspiracy, though the New York Times reported in May that four golds were involved.
The exact method used by the FSB agency, the former KGB, to tamper with bottles was unknown.
The World Anti-Doping Agency investigator, Richard McLaren, says scratches on the bottles were noted by a trained expert's eye and using a microscope.
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1:19 p.m.
The World Anti-Doping Agency's executive board wants the IOC to ban all Russian teams from the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
WADA issued a seven-point list of requests after it published a report which confirmed claims of state-backed Russian cheating at the Sochi Olympics and beyond.
WADA also wants Russian government officials to be denied access to international competitions, including the upcoming Olympics.
The anti-doping watchdog also calls on world governing bodies of sports implicated in the inquiry report to consider action against Russian national bodies.
The WADA response is a further signal Russia could be facing Olympic expulsion when the 15-member IOC executive board discusses the crisis on Tuesday.
WADA's president, Craig Reedie, is also an IOC vice president who will take part in the scheduled conference call requested by IOC President Thomas Bach.
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12:33 p.m.
The leader of the U.S. Olympic Committee says the McLaren Report confirms that the current anti-doping system is broken.
The report confirmed that state-sponsored doping in Russian sports went far beyond the Sochi Olympics.
Scott Blackmun said the USOC looks forward to working with the IOC, WADA and the rest of the Olympics family to address all the flaws.
He said the USOC will rely on the IOC, WADA and international sports federations to apply appropriate sanctions.
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11:52 a.m.
The head of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency says the investigative report into Russian doping confirms what he calls a ''mind-blowing level of corruption'' within Russian sports and government.
Travis Tygart, the CEO of USADA, urged the international community to come together to ensure that what he called an unprecedented level of criminality never threatens sports again.
Lacking from his statement was any call for a full ban of the Russian team from the Rio Games. Last week, he said if the report was as damning as expected, he would push for such a ban.
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11:39 a.m.
The report that confirms widespread doping in Russian sports ties the scandal to Russia's sports ministry, headed by Vitaly Mutko.
Mutko is also a member of world soccer body FIFA's ruling council and chairs the organizing committee of the 2018 World Cup being hosted by Russia.
The World Anti-Doping Agency investigator says Mutko personally intervened to cover up a doping case of ''at least 1 foreign (soccer player) in the Russian League.''
The report says 11 positive tests by Russian soccer players were made to disappear in the state-sponsored doping program from late 2011 to 2015.
It was ''inconceivable that Minister Mutko was not aware of the doping cover-up scheme,'' according to evidence from the former head of Moscow's WADA-accredited testing laboratory.
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11:27 a.m.
IOC president Thomas Bach said the committee will not hesitate to take the toughest sanctions available against those implicated in the report confirming widespread doping in Russian sports.
He called the McLaren report a shocking and unprecedented attack on the integrity of sports and on the Olympic Games.
The IOC executive board will meet via conference call Tuesday to make initial decisions on possible sanctions for the Rio Games.
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10:52 a.m.
There are no forthcoming recommendations for punishment from the investigator whose report found widespread, state-sponsored doping in Russian sports.
Richard McLaren, who was in charge of the investigation, says he considered making recommendations but decided against it, and urged the International Olympic Committee and others to absorb the information and act upon it as they wish.
The Olympics are 18 days away, and the IOC and international sports federations will have to decide the fate of Russia's Olympic team. Several organizations, including the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, have called for a complete ban of the Russian team.
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10:45 a.m.
The investigator behind a report that found widespread doping in Russian sports says he's confident the document was not leaked, and stands by its credibility.
Several athlete and anti-doping groups were gearing up over the weekend to send letters to the International Olympic Committee urging that Russia's entire delegation be banned from the Rio Games.
Olympic leaders had said those moves undermined the report, and called it ''disappointing'' that the groups would try and have Russia banned in such an ''underhanded'' way.
Investigator Richard McLaren says he's confident the report was not leaked, and the moves to send the letters were based on nothing more than speculation.
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10:35 a.m.
An investigator looking into Russian doping found the country's state-directed cheating program resulted in at least 312 falsified results and lasted from 2011 through at least last year's world swimming championships.
The investigator, Richard McLaren, dubbed Russia's program the ''disappearing positive methodology.''
McLaren said allegations made by Moscow's former anti-doping lab director about sample switching at the Sochi Olympics went much as described in a New York Times story in May. That program involved dark-of-night switching of dirty samples with clean ones; it prevented Russian athletes from testing positive.
But McLaren, whose report went public Monday, said Russia's cheating also included the 2013 track world championships in Moscow and the 2015 swimming world championships in Kazan.
Russia's deputy minister of sports would direct lab workers which positive samples to send through and which to hold back.
