Russia emailing Olympic rivals in worldwide attempt to save team from being kicked out of Rio

RUSSIA has mysteriously emailed Australian journalists as part of a desperate worldwide charm offensive to fight the threat of being kicked out of Rio.

Russia will learn its Olympic fate on Tuesday morning.

RUSSIA has mysteriously emailed Australian journalists as part of a desperate worldwide charm offensive to fight the threat of being kicked out of the Rio Olympics.

With their track athletes banned from the Games due to their deep-seated drug culture, the pressure is mounting for the International Olympic Committee to this week stop the entire Russian team from going.

The trigger point is Richard McLaren’s report into allegations of an orchestrated and state-supported doping scheme at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games, which was released overnight.

The report showed that the Russian secret service helped athletes cover-up doping during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi represented a “massive betrayal”.

Russia’s Olympic fate will be decided by the IOC.

The report reviewed allegations by Grigory Rodchenkov, former head of the corrupt Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory, who alleged that 15 Russian medal winners at Sochi were implicated in a secret operation in which “dirty’’ doping samples were switched for clean ones.

Already, the United States and Canada have called for Russia to be banned after gaining early information about what will be released in the report.

A leaked letter from the US and Canadian officials has called for Russian athletes to be banned from the Games in the expectation the McLaren report will be damning.

In the lead-up to the decision, journalists from Australia who have covered the Russian issue have been sent an email from the Russian government’s sports station Match TV, asking them to view the documentary Doping Trap which is scheduled to be broadcast on Russian television on Tuesday.

The Russian track and field team have already be banned from competing in Rio.

There had been no contact between the journalists and the Russian station before the emails.

“The documentary presents the Russian side of the story, and offers facts that point to a consistent campaign of disinformation and harassment waged against Russian sports establishment and Russian athletes,’’ the email states.

Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko has claimed there will be mounting pressure on his country to be banned in the wake of the publication of the McLaren Report.

Many national anti-doping bodies are thought to support a possible Russian ban, aside from Canada and the US.

Website Insidethegames quoted Graeme Steel, chief executive of Drug Free Sport New Zealand, as claiming that if the report’s findings are as grim as expected, the IOC will have no alternative but to ban the entire Russian squad.

Originally published as Russia emailing Olympic rivals in worldwide attempt to save team from being kicked out of Rio