Grigory Rodchenkov

Special to USA TODAY Sports

Two days before the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) issues one of the most historic decisions within its power — whether to reinstate the Russian Anti-Doping Agency — its review committee has recommended reinstatement based on a letter issued from Russia’s Ministry of Sport.

WADA must not fall prey to manipulation and false assertions from the Ministry, the same arm of the Kremlin that facilitated the doping program and asserted false compliance. To do so, would be nothing short of a catastrophe for clean sport.

The Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) was first suspended in November 2015 following the release of the Pound Report, WADA’s independent investigation into widespread doping in Russian athletics. The Pound Report brought to light my country’s state-sponsored doping program to the world, revealing a labyrinth of cover-ups and sample manipulation. The report also proved that doping-free competition and the protection of clean athletes — both cornerstones to WADA’s mission — were deliberately ignored.

RUSADA was a central component of this sophisticated system and to the misreporting of positive findings by the now infamous Moscow Laboratory.

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For many years, RUSADA undermined the idea of clean sport. The McLaren Report, commissioned to independently verify the findings in the Pound Report, revealed the depth of cheating and fraud that corrupted the world’s biggest sporting events. Those criminal actions were performed by numerous actors but orchestrated by the Russian government and its leading personnel and institutions, including President Vladimir Putin, the Russian Federal Security Service (known as the FSB), the Russian Ministry of Sport, the army and the police. In fact, it’s no coincidence that most of the Russian athletes involved in the doping system were army and police officers.

As if his report wasn’t enough, Professor McLaren’s findings and conclusions were confirmed and upheld by two special investigative commissions established by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

After months of deliberation, the IOC made a decision in the interest of the world’s clean athletes, just before the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang. The IOC prevented individual Russian athletes from competing, and suspended the Russian Olympic Committee from the Olympics.

Regrettably, however, the Russian Olympic Committee was reinstated by the IOC just three days after the conclusion of the Pyeongchang Games, a poor decision that reeked of backdoor dealings. Just before the Games began, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) granted relief for the appeals of 28 Russian athletes, which lifted their disqualifications and allowed them to retain their illegitimately earned medals.

These two unpopular decisions ran in complete contradiction to not only the interests of clean athletes and sports fans, but also to the evidence of the McLaren Report.

Even now, more than seven months after the decision, CAS appears unwilling to disclose reasoned decisions on 37 of the 39 cases, which raises into serious question the transparency of its decision-making process. Only two decisions were published, on Alexander Legkov and Alexander Zubkov, both of whom were Olympic champions at the Sochi Games. Legkov overturned the IOC disqualification, but Zubkov was disqualified for excess concentration of table salt in his urine sample.

In my role in the Russian doping system over those years, I personally remember how we swapped the content of clean urine bottles with the dirty sample belonging to those two ‘champions.’ At the time, I thought it was a fitting coincidence that we had hidden completely false urine samples of the bottles for Zubkov and Legkov, while just across the way we could hear the IOC carrying out their closing ceremony for those very athletes.

It is now with a heavy heart and deep regret that I recall those moments that betrayed the Olympic ideal, and it is my most sincere hope that my efforts and perspective can help to repair this broken system.

In recent years, it has become crystal clear that to succeed in the fight against doping, we must target cheating countries and international sports federations by challenging their denial and their reckless behavior. The athletes are mere pawns in this chess game, and as was proven by the Pound and McLaren Reports they often have no choice but to be doped. They follow orders, then they deny any wrongdoing.

The McLaren Report was successful in documenting cheating by the Russian state and all its organizations. As anticipation builds ahead of the WADA executive committee meeting Thursday in Seychelles, I feel it’s important to clarify what is a clear and firm demand from WADA, that there must be a full recognition of the McLaren Report by Russian sports authorities and that they must hand over all evidence, including the database and all physical samples, in the Moscow laboratory.

It is clear that given the circumstances we face in the standoff between WADA and Russia, and any decision by WADA to reinstate RUSADA — which would then be followed by the reinstatement of the Moscow laboratory — would be a catastrophe for Olympic sport ideals, the fight against doping and the protection of clean athletes.

Grigory Rodchenkov is the former Moscow lab director and whistleblower who exposed Russia's state-sponsored doping system. He has been at an undisclosed location in the United States since 2016.