“It was an institutional conspiracy,” Anna Antseliovich, the acting director general of Russia’s anti-doping agency, told the New York Times, but added that top officials were not involved.

More than 100 Russian athletes were barred from competing at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro this year after the International Olympic Committee set criteria for Russian athletes to meet, including a clean doping past and sufficient testing at international events.

“From my point of view, as a former minister of sport, president of the Olympic committee — we made a lot of mistakes,” Vitaly Smirnov, head of a new commission created to combat doping, was quoted as saying by the New York Times.

“We have to find those reasons why young sportsmen are taking doping, why they agree to be doped.”

(Reporting by Amlan Chakraborty in New Delhi; editing by Jason Neely)