Three Russian cyclists are suing the World Anti-Doping Agency and the high-profile Canadian lawyer who led the recent explosive investigation into Russian doping allegations.
The trio alleges that Montreal-based WADA and Western University law professor Richard McLaren “unfairly implicated them” in an alleged doping scheme.
Kirill Sveshnikov, Dmitry Strakhov and Dmitry Sokolov allege in their statement of claim that the McLaren-led investigation was “rushed and compromised.”
They say they were banned from the Rio Olympics as a result of being implicated in the McLaren Report and suffered “great reputational harm.”
All three athletes attempted to appeal their case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport prior to the Rio Games but were unsuccessful.
Sveshnikov alleges that WADA and McLaren prevented the three Russian cyclists from reaching their life-long goal of participating in the Rio Olympics, and “wrongly associated” their names with “cheaters and doping.”
McLaren detailed in two reports last year an orchestrated program of cheating that involved the Russian ministry of sport, FSB security service and national sports and anti-doping bodies. The plot helped the home team win medals at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and 2013 track and field world championships in Moscow.
The suit has been filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.
