'Russia ready to cooperate to fight doping'

Russia firmly denies the allegations on enabling the use of doping by the country's athletes, but will cooperate with the international organisations in fighting it, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.

In July 2016, World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA) independent commission headed by Richard McLaren introduced a report based on the investigation results, in which Russia was accused of running a state-wide doping programme, and urged the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to consider a blanket ban on the entire Russian team.

The second part of the report was released on December 9. The report claimed that more than 1,000 Russian athletes were involved in doping manipulations or benefitted from them. The names of the athletes were not disclosed.

"We strongly reject these allegations, at the same time, the president stressed the necessity to fully cooperate with the international organisations to clarify the situation and work out a new effective (system) on prevention of the use of doping," Peskov told reporters.

--IANS

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