Here's wot the Kremlin has to say about it... surprise surprise surprise...
The Kremlin has dismissed allegations from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) that Russian athletes were guilty of using banned performance-enhancing substances on a large-scale, saying the assertions are groundless.
Key points
•Kremlin says doping allegations are "groundless"
•WADA suspends Russian doping lab accreditation
•Russia's sports ministry pledges that it will cooperate
"Until some evidence is presented ... it is difficult to accept these accusations, they are quite groundless," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday.
The WADA report outlined evidence of systematic government-backed cheating, noting that drug tests for athletes were conducted at a Russian lab which totally lacked credibility.
WADA's commission called for five Russian athletes — including 800m Olympic winner Mariya Savinova — to be given lifetime bans, suggesting the presence of doped athletes had "sabotaged" the 2012 Games in London.
A secret laboratory located in an industrial area 10 kilometres outside of Moscow was also named as a key component of the systemic and widespread doping regime.
WADA has since acted quickly in suspending the accreditation for the laboratory on Tuesday, in the first concrete response to the scandal.
"The suspension, which takes effect immediately, prohibits the Moscow Anti-doping Centre from carrying out any WADA-related anti-doping activities including all analyses of urine and blood samples," WADA said in a statement.
The laboratory has 21 days to appeal the sanction to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
The report also called for Russia to be banned from the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
Russia's sports ministry pledged on Tuesday to co-operate with anti-doping and international athletics authorities, and said it was prepared to take "appropriate steps".
New International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) president Sebastian Coe has given Russia a week to respond formally to the allegations.
Meanwhile, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) provisionally suspended former IAAF president Lamine Diack as an honorary IOC member and urged the athletics world governing body to initiate disciplinary procedures against Olympic athletes found to have violated doping rules.
The IOC said athletes, coaches or officials who were mentioned in WADA's report and were proven to have violated doping rules would be punished and would be stripped of any medals.
Athletics Australia chief executive Phil Jones backed the call for Russia to be banned from the 2016 Olympics, saying there was not enough time for the country to prove it was clean.
The head of UK Athletics on Tuesday also added his support to calls for Russia to be banned from next year's Games.
Asked if he agreed with the report's stance, UK Athletics chairman Ed Warner told BBC Radio 4: "Yes, absolutely".
"Lord Coe ... says that his council is meeting on Friday or Saturday this week to consider sanctioning Russia and possibly to suspend them. My strong advice would be: you've absolutely got to do that."
Russia's athletics federation (ARAF) could be provisionally suspended when the IAAF meets in Monaco later this month.
