LONDON — International sports’ antidoping watchdog on Friday laid out mountainous evidence that for years Russian officials orchestrated a doping program at the Olympics and other competitions that involved or benefited 1,000 athletes in 30 sports. The findings intensified pressure on the International Olympic Committee to reassess Russia’s medals from the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and penalize the nation ahead of the 2018 Winter Games. 
 
 The evidence, published by the World Anti-Doping Agency, was the coda to a set of investigations led by the Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren, who issued a damning report in July that prompted more than 100 Russian athletes to be barred from the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. 
 
 The follow-up report outlined competitions that had been tainted by years of extraordinary preparations, ensuring Russia’s dominance at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, the 2013 track and field world championships in Moscow and the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi — the “apex” of Russia’s cheating, the report said, because as the host of the event it controlled drug testing. 
 
 The subterfuge included using table salt and Nescafé instant-coffee granules to help conceal tainted urine and bypass controls, according to the inquiry. Some samples were clearly fraudulent: Urine provided by two female hockey players at the Sochi Games contained male DNA. ||||| CLOSE An investigation found that Russian athletes were involved in a state-run doping system. USA TODAY Sports 
 
 The Olympic flag (left) flies next to the Russian flag during the opening ceremony for the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games. (Photo: Robert Hanashiro-USA TODAY) 
 
 With each chapter of the Russian doping scandal, little changes about the core plot that the country’s athletes, sports officials and government engaged for years in doping and covering up of positive tests. 
 
 Over the course of two investigations commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency, the breadth of the operation has become more apparent. The details only add to the basic arc of the story. 
 
 In releasing his second report Friday in London, Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren revealed more than 1,000 athletes were involved in the Russian system of state sponsored doping. 
 
 The report lacked not for the type of details of McLaren’s first report, released in July, which confirmed the swapping of urine samples through a hole in the wall at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. 
 
 It includes a Sochi Duchess List of 37 protected athletes, named after the performance enhancing cocktail made for them by former Moscow lab director Grigory Rodchenkov, and the altering of samples by diluting them with water or adding salt or Nescafe. 
 
 Agents for the Federal Security Service (FSB) helped open sample bottles previously thought to be tamper proof in the lead up, during and after the Sochi Games, with the “magicians” swapping samples in the Moscow lab through 2014. 
 
 McLaren’s report details a cat-and-mouse game in which “for every action by WADA there was a Russian reaction to counter their measures.” 
 
 In response to concerns of audits of the country’s washout testing to ensure its athletes would test clean before the 2012 London Olympics, Russia had athletes collect clean urine in Coke and baby bottles to store in a bank. 
 
 “The story of how all these pieces fit together seems like fiction,” said McLaren. 
 
 “The results of the forensic and laboratory analysis initiated by my team established the conspiracy that was perpetrated between 2011 and 2015. It is impossible to know how deep and how far back a conspiracy goes. For years, international sports competitions have unknowingly been hijacked by the Russians. Coaches and athletes have been playing on an uneven field. Sports fans and spectators have been deceived.” 
 
 McLaren’s second report confirmed the findings of the first report while revealing more about a system of covering up tests that was refined over time. 
 
 Most notably, he said more than 1,000 Russian Olympians and Paralympians – in summer and winter sports – were identified “as being involved in or benefiting from manipulation to conceal positive doping tests.” 
 
 Among the report’s other findings: 
 
 Urine swapping aided by the FSB during the Sochi Olympics began with two events in Russia, including the 2013 IAAF World Championships, serving as trial runs. It continued afterward as the FSB would go to the Moscow lab about once per month to swap out urine from five to 20 samples. 
 
 Forensic testing revealed two athletes who won four gold medals and one athlete who claimed silver in Sochi were among eight athletes who had samples with “physiologically impossible salt readings.” The B samples for all eight athletes had evidence of tampering. Samples from two female hockey players had male DNA. 
 
 Rodchenkov altered samples by diluting them with water or adding salt or Nescafe granules. 
 
 The investigation examined 96 B samples from the Olympics and 21 from the Paralympics in Sochi. All had scratches indicative of tampering. 
 
 In preparation for the London Olympics, the Moscow lab monitored athletes’ PED levels through “washout testing,” helping them minimize the likelihood of testing positive in competition and dope up until the Games. McLaren identified 15 medal winners from 38 on the washout list who competed in London. 
 
 “The Russian Olympic team corrupted the London Games on an unprecedented scale, the extent of which will probably never be fully established,” McLaren said. “This corruption involved the ongoing use of prohibited substances, washout testing and false reporting. 
 
 “The desire to win medals superseded their collective moral and ethical compass and Olympic values of fair play.” 
 
 Institutionalized conspiracy 
 
 The timeline detailed in the report shows the evolution of the Russian system that from 2011 to August 2015 doped athletes and covered up their positive tests. 
 
 While the report supports the one released in July – an investigation rushed by the Rio Olympics in August – it revealed more of the individuals involved in the conspiracy. 
 
 In advance of the London Olympics, the Moscow lab conducted washout testing of athletes to be sure they would test clean in the Games. Initial tests that were positive were reported as negative in WADA’s computer monitoring system, which is known as ADAMS. 
 
 Because the samples were collected in official containers, it could have been caught by a WADA audit. 
 
 Following the Olympics, WADA asked for the A and B bottles from 67 samples taken in the months leading up to London. 
 
 The McLaren report, with the first part released in July, confirmed allegations of widespread doping in Russia. Here, Russian flag bearer Sergei Tetyukhin leads the team during the opening ceremony. The IOC allowed international sports federations to decide which Russian athletes were eligible to compete in Rio. (Photo: Jack Gruber-USA TODAY Sports) 
 
 Knowing some that had been reported negative would test positive, Rodchenkov swapped urine or tampered with 10 A samples but could not open the B bottles. 
 
 That gap in the doping program prompted the FSB in early 2013 to figure out how to open caps from B sample bottles, and it tested the procedure in the Universiade Games that Russia hosted that year. 
 
 In advance of the IAAF World Championships in Moscow that year, athletes did their washout testing in unofficial containers that could not be tracked. The FSB used that event as another trial run for swapping of urine. 
 
 “This is the apex of the Russian move from uncontrolled chaos an institutionalized, disciplined, medal-winning strategy and conspiracy,” McLaren said. 
 
 It used them throughout 2014, with the FSB visiting the Moscow lab to swap out about five to 20 samples per month. 
 
 In January of that year, WADA changed its regulations to require labs to report athletes’ steroid profile into the ADAMS system when labs report test results. Because everyone would have a natural steroid profile, changes to that could be tracked over time and be indicative of doping. 
 
 The lab would record false information for the steroid profile or leave it blank. 
 
 Following a December 2014 documentary released by German broadcaster ARD that alleged widespread doping in Russian athletics, WADA seized more than 3,500 samples from the lab. 
 
 Before the regulators got the samples, the lab compiled a list of 37 known to be dirty that had been reported as negative in ADAMS. 
 
 Without enough clean urine from those athletes, Rodchenkov worked to alter the samples by swapping out urine, adding salt, diluting them or using a different athlete’s sample to match the steroid profile. 
 
 Richard McLaren reacts during a press conference following the publication of his report on doping in Russian sport at a hotel in central London on Dec. 9. (Photo: FACUNDO ARRIZABALAGA, EPA) 
 
 Of those, McLaren’s team examined 26 samples from 25 athletes, finding 10 had DNA mismatches or other inconsistencies. 
 
 Ultimately, McLaren’s team found more than 1,231 samples that were reported as positives to the Russian sports ministry before either being entered as negatives in ADAMS or not being entered at all. More than 800 of those required a decision from a sports ministry officials, while it was understood that those records would automatically be falsified for elite athletes. 
 
 Calls for change 
 
 As with other rounds of revelations of Russian doping, McLaren’s second report drew strong responses from the sport and anti-doping communities. 
 
 The IOC had already committed to retesting all Russian samples from Sochi, and on Friday it said it would retest all Russian samples from London. 
 
 Already, the IOC has found 101 positive tests in its reanalysis of samples from London and Beijing. Of the 82 sanctions the IOC has issued this year, 75 have been to athletes from former Soviet countries. Russia leads the way with 27 athletes sanctioned. 
 
 The IOC in July established two commissions to investigate Russian doping. 
 
 IOC President Thomas Bach said McLaren’s report “demonstrates a fundamental attack on the integrity of sport,” adding that any athlete or official who was part of the system should be subject to a lifetime ban. 
 
 In response, the IAAF said it would reanalyze Russian samples from world championships up to and including the 2013 event in Moscow. 
 
 “It’s another staggering example of how the Olympic movement has been corrupted and clean athletes robbed by Russia’s state-supported doping system,” Travis Tygart, CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, said in a statement. “The IOC has to act — and clean athletes won’t be satisfied until WADA is empowered to be a truly independent global regulator and the Russian Olympic Committee is suspended until deemed code compliant. 
 
 "We also need to need to do everything in our power to support the athletes who were robbed. And while they may never be able to get back the moment that was stolen from them, we have to make sure that at least some of what was taken from them is restored." 
 
 While McLaren was responsible for the investigation, his report does not determine if any individual athlete committed an anti-doping rule violation. Rather, WADA will provide that evidence to the appropriate international federations. 
 
 “Russian athletes should not be welcome in the Olympic Movement until their sport system and their government are demonstrably free of the will to subvert the fundamental values and spirit of sport,” Joseph de Pencier, CEO of the Institute of National Anti-Doping Organizations, said in a statement. 
 
 McLaren said his investigation did not have evidence that the Russian Olympic Committee was involved in the system. 
 
 McLaren noted that Russia is exploring potential criminal charges for those involved and is conducting its own inquiry. 
 
 Sports minister Vitaly Mutko was promoted to deputy prime minister in October. Two Russian officials – deputy minister of sport Yuri Nagornykh and Natalia Zhelanova, then Mutko’s advisor on anti-doping – were part of the system of cover ups and have been fired. 
 
 “I think they’ve done a lot of good things coming out of the first report,” McLaren said. “I think they’re trying to change.” 
 
 The latest report is likely to renew calls of an Olympic ban, a move the IOC eschewed for Rio. For his part, McLaren declined to weigh in. 
 
 “It’s not for me to decide whether they can compete in the next Olympics,” he said. “Can they be trusted? I think the answer is yes but they need to reform the system.”
– The Russian doping scandal just keeps getting bigger: A new report implicates 1,000 athletes in 30 sports over recent years, along with officials at various levels of government. The upshot is sure to be increased pressure to penalize Russia ahead of the 2018 Winter Games. In the report—which amplifies an earlier one in July—World Anti-Doping Agency investigator Richard McLaren lays out 1,166 "immutable facts" he says prove Russia to be guilty of an "institutional conspiracy" between 2011 and 2015, per the New York Times. This involved cheating "on an unprecedented scale" at the 2012 London Olympics, where athletes were given a "cocktail of steroids ... to beat the detection thresholds," McLaren says. The Russian Anti-Doping Agency says accusations of cheating haven't been proven, reports USA Today. Though his initial report helped ban 30% of Russia's delegation from the Rio Games, McLaren's investigation continued. American athletes, for example, have discussed boycotting the world championships in bobsled to be held in Sochi in February over lingering concerns about doping. "Coaches and athletes have been playing on an uneven field," McLaren says, per the AP. "It's time that this stops." New evidence presented in the report shows Russian officials swapped or tampered with urine samples, including those of 15 medalists at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. Samples from female athletes, for example, had male DNA. IOC's president has said he supports lifetime Olympic bans for athletes and officials involved.