In a newspaper column, Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko said officials are “ashamed” and “sorry” for breaking anti-doping rules and that a Rio Olympics without Russian track and field athletes would be “unjust” and “risk tearing this [Olympic] unity apart.”
“Serious mistakes have been made by the federation management, along with athletes and coaches who have broken anti-doping rules and neglected the principle of fair play, so fundamental to sport for immediate benefits,” Mutko wrote, according to the Times of London. “Let us be clear. We are ashamed of them.”
The column comes nine days after a state-sponsored Russian doping program leading into the Sochi Olympics, which included gold-medal winners, was first reported.