Moscow: WADA Informant's Attempts to Hamper Probe Nullify His Credibility

"You should pay attention to the current activities of Grigory Rodchenkov, to his bribery attempts as well as the attempts to hamper the objective investigation; such actions completely nullify Rodchenkov's credibility," President of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) Alexander Zhukov said Wednesday.

According to another Russian senior lawmaker Mikhail Degtyarev, Rodchenkov could have acted as part of an international criminal group to discredit Russian athletes.

"The Investigative Committee has done serious work, the evidence of Rodchenkov's illegal activities has been collected, there is a reason to believe that he acted as part of an international organized crime group, the aim of which was to discredit Russian athletes and our anti-doping system," Degtyarev, the chairman of the Russian parliament's lower house Committee for Physical Culture, Sport, Tourism and Youth Affairs, told R-Sport.

READ MORE: Two Russian Athletes Banned for Life Over Sochi 2014 Olympics Doping

The statements come hours after Russia’s Investigative Committee's investigators have initiated criminal proceedings against Rodchenkov over abuse of power as enough evidence had been found to prove that the WADA informant destroyed athletes’ doping tests. According to the investigation into the report by Richard McLaren, he gave athletes doping disguised as vitamins, and they allegedly did not know what medication they were taking.

In 2016, head of a WADA independent commission McLaren presented a two-part report on doping violations in Russia, which were based mostly on Rodchenkov's words and alleged the existence of a state-supported doping system. Russian officials have strongly refuted the allegations of an alleged state-run program, while admitting that Russian sports had some issues with doping abuses.