With the Rio Olympic Games just days away, the entire Russian team looks set to be banned from competing. An inquiry by Canadian law professor Richard McLaren has found Russia guilty of systematic cheating of drug-testing procedures.

McLaren’s report was commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Authority (WADA), an unelected, unaccountable body formed at the initiative of the equally unelected, unaccountable International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Yet despite unanimous media endorsement, McLaren’s case would not stand up in a court of law. It relies solely on the evidence of Dr Grigory Rodchenkov, former head of Moscow’s drug-testing laboratory and now a resident of Los Angeles, together with what the report vaguely calls “other witnesses who came forward on a confidential basis.” It did not interview anyone in Russia because, as McLaren argued, “it was simply not practical and I deemed such interviewing would not be helpful.”