From Inside the Games

Richard McLaren, the Canadian lawyer whose investigative work did so much to expose state-sponsored doping in Russian sport, is to lead the independent investigation into allegations of corruption in weightlifting.

His appointment has been approved decisively by the Executive Board of the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF), and he and his team from McLaren Global Sport Solutions are due to start work on on Monday.

Allegations of corruption in finance and anti-doping procedures involving the IWF, and of doping by children in Thailand, were made in the television documentary Secret Doping – Lord of the Lifters, which was shown by the German state broadcaster ARD on January 5.

The ARD team, led by Hajo Seppelt, was first to expose the extent of doping in Russia in a 2014 documentary, a precursor to the McLaren Report that led to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) recommending Russia be banned outright from the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

“Cleared” Russians competed in most sports under a neutral flag but they were banned outright from athletics and weightlifting.

Seppelt’s team also revealed high-level corruption in 2015 that led to the arrest of Lamine Diack, President of the International Association of Athletics Federations who is due to appear in court in Paris in June on charges of corruption and money-laundering linked to the Russian doping scandal.

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