He wrote a report that has prompted demands by antidoping officials for Russia to be banned from next month’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. Russian officials have called him a liar and a part of a Western plot to denigrate their nation.
Richard McLaren, a soft-spoken Canadian law professor, laid the groundwork for Russia’s potential Olympic ban with the release of his report, commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency, that documented how Russia’s elaborate state-sponsored doping scheme corrupted the results of the last two Olympics and tainted numerous athletic competitions.
The International Olympic Committee had said Tuesday that it was exploring the possibility of a “collective ban” on Russian athletes at the games, which begin on Aug.