McLaren Report

[2][3] On 18 July 2016, Richard McLaren, a Canadian attorney retained by WADA to investigate Grigory Rodchenkov's allegations, published a 97-page report covering significant state-sponsored doping in Russia.

"[4] The report concluded that it was shown "beyond a reasonable doubt" that Russia's Ministry of Sport, the Centre of Sports Preparation of the National Teams of Russia, the Federal Security Service (FSB), and the WADA-accredited laboratory in Moscow had "operated for the protection of doped Russian athletes" within a "state-directed failsafe system" using "the disappearing positive [test] methodology.

"[4][5][6][7] McLaren stated that urine samples were opened in Sochi in order to swap them "without any evidence to the untrained eye".

[4] At the Olympics, urine samples are stored in security bottles named the "BEREG-KIT", which must be broken open after being closed; the investigation, however, found that using a specific tool, the bottles were possible to open, and found scratch marks on the inside normally invisible to the naked eye.

"[4] It was used on 643 positive samples, a number that the authors consider "only a minimum" due to limited access to Russian records.