IOC on the verge of historic vote to ban Russia from the Rio Olympics

Olympic leaders will hold an emergency meeting Tuesday to consider a historic move: banning Russia from the 2016 Summer Games less than a month before the opening ceremony.

The planned teleconference follows a World Anti-Doping Agency report that alleges Russian sports officials — in cooperation with government agencies — conspired to conceal hundreds of positive tests from their athletes over the last five years.

“In the face of such evidence of state-sponsored subversion of the anti-doping process, WADA insists upon imposition of the most-serious consequences to protect clean athletes from the scourge of doping in sport,” said Sir Craig Reedie, the agency’s president.

WADA stopped short of demanding a ban, instead asking the International Olympic Committee to consider such an action against the Russian Olympic and Paralympic teams. The IOC’s executive board said it would decide swiftly.

“The findings of the report show a shocking and unprecedented attack on the integrity of sport and on the Olympic Games,” IOC President Thomas Bach said in a statement. “Therefore, the IOC will not hesitate to take the toughest sanctions available against any individual or organization implicated.”

Olympic leaders have excluded entire countries in the past, but only for geopolitical reasons. South Africa was previously banned for refusing to condemn apartheid, Afghanistan for discriminating against women under Taliban rule.

The ongoing doping scandal in Russia presents a vastly different scenario.

“The Olympic movement has not dealt with an issue of this magnitude before,” Roger Pielke Jr., director of the Center for Sports Governance at the University of Colorado, said recently. “It’s horrifically messy and there’s just no good outcome, this week or this summer.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday that sports officials named in the report will be suspended pending a government investigation. He also decried any potential ban as “a dangerous return to this policy of letting politics interfere with sport.”

The scandal has its roots in a previous WADA report from last fall that alleged systemic cheating among athletes, coaches and officials associated with Russia’s track team.

The team was subsequently banned from international competition and failed in an attempt to be reinstated for Rio.

The most-recent WADA investigation, headed by Canadian law professor Richard McLaren and released Monday, alleged that Russian officials falsified at least 312 doping tests from 2011 through last year.

Following up on allegations first made by “60 Minutes” and the New York Times, the investigation found a “disappearing positive methodology,” claiming that workers at anti-doping labs in Moscow and Sochi manipulated test results and swapped dirty samples for clean ones so athletes could avoid punishment for using banned substances.

The manipulation took place during such major events as the 2013 track world championships in Moscow and the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

Investigators said the Russian Ministry of Sport oversaw the switching of samples in 30 summer and winter sports with help from members of the Russian Olympic Committee and the FSB, the country’s national security service.

More specifically, the deputy minister of sports would allegedly direct lab workers as to which samples to send through the system and which to hold back, investigators said.

Vitaly Mutko, the sports minister, was implicated in at least one case involving a Russian soccer player. As part of its recommendations, WADA suggested that FIFA — soccer’s governing body — address Mutko’s position on its executive committee.

The anti-doping agency also suggested that Russian government officials be denied access to all international competitions, including the Olympics and Paralympics.

The Russians have acknowledged a history of doping dating to the Communist era.

In recent months, they overhauled the leadership of their track federation, offered to establish additional testing and allowed independent experts to observe their national anti-doping agency.

But a follow-up report last spring alleged that officials were still obstructing independent testers and that some Russian athletes were avoiding tests.

The McLaren Report stated: “This conduct shows a total disregard for the international community; and, reinforces the urgent need for true and demonstrable commitment by the Russian authorities for a change of culture.”

As the Games draw closer to an Aug. 5 start, there has been increasing international pressure to exclude Russia.

U.S. and Canadian officials reportedly circulated an email last week calling for such a ban. There was initial pushback from Olympic leaders, who characterized the email as premature, but that could now change.

“The McLaren Report has concluded, beyond a reasonable doubt, a mind-blowing level of corruption within both Russian sport and government that goes right to the field of play,” said Travis T. Tygart, chief executive of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

david.wharton@latimes.com

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