Sports federations face obstacles in sanctioning Russian athletes Sports federations could spend months if not years pursuing anti-doping rule violations Check out this story on USATODAY.com: http://usat.ly/2hqgx0g In announcing the final revealing details of Russian state-sponsored doping in a report earlier this month, Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren was clear on his mandate – investigating Russian doping but not adjudicating it. The Herculean task of doing that now falls to the international federations , who could spend months if not years pursuing anti-doping rule violations against the hundreds of athletes involved in the Russian state-sponsored system.