Russia blasts US daily over doping conspiracy report

Russian pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva was barred from participating in the Rio Olympics over state-sponsored doping

Moscow: Russia yesterday blasted a report in The New York Times that officials have acknowledged a massive sports doping conspiracy, reiterating claims there was no government involvement.

The New York Times reported on Tuesday that the acting director general of Russia's scandal-mired national anti-doping agency had "for the first time" conceded officials conducted the programme to cheat.

"It was an institutional conspiracy," Anna Antseliovich, was reported as telling the US newspaper in an article datelined from Moscow. Antseliovich and others interviewed continued to reject the characterisation of the doping scheme as "state-sponsored," telling the Times that top government officials were not involved. But Moscow later slammed the article, with anti-doping agency RUSADA insisting that Antseliovich's words were "distorted and taken out of context". The New York Times reporter "took these words out of context, creating the impression that RUSADA's leadership had admitted to an institutional system of a doping cover-up in Russia," the agency said in a statement.

"We want to underline that RUSADA does not and cannot have the authority to admit or deny such facts," it said.