WADA exposes rampant doping scandal in Russia
Anti-doping agency says star athletes have long taken part in pervasive cheating regime
GENEVA— Top Russian athletes, including Olympians and winners of prestigious events such as the Chicago marathon, have for years participated in a systematic doping program that involved some of Russia’s sports officials, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) said Monday.
The agency released a lengthy report here that described a pervasive doping culture among Russia’s sports programs, evoking notorious drug regimes like the state-run doping system of East Germany. The report recommended that Russia be suspended from competition by track and field’s governing body, and one of its authors said it would encourage the International Olympic Committee to bar Russia’s athletic federation from next summer’s Rio Olympics.
“It’s worse than we thought,” said Dick Pound, a co-author of the report.
“It’s residue of the old Soviet Union system.”
The report implicated athletes, coaches, trainers, doctors and various Russian institutions, including the country’s anti-doping agency and an accredited laboratory in Moscow that handled testing for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
It detailed payments to conceal doping tests and arrangements by which athletes were made aware of when they would be tested, in violation of code which dictates they be spontaneous, and also the destruction of samples.
The report also said members of Russian law-enforcement agencies were present in the Moscow lab and involved in the efforts to interfere with the integrity of the samples, creating “an atmosphere of intimidation” on lab processes and staff members.
“What made these allegations even more egregious was the knowledge that the government of the Russian Federation provides direct funding and oversight for the above institutions, thus suggesting that the federal government was not only complicit in the collusion, but that it was effectively a state-sponsored regime,” the report said. It recommended WADA impose lifetime bans for five coaches and five athletes, including the gold and bronze medallists from the women’s 800 metres at the 2012 London Olympics.
Pound also said Monday the World Anti-Doping Agency had negotiated a cooperation agreement with Interpol and handed over extensive documents and evidence.
“This is not he-said, she-said,” Pound said.
Interpol confirmed that co-operation with its own announcement Monday.
Russian athletes, in soaring numbers, have been caught doping in recent years. Russia had far more drug violations than any other country in 2013 — 225, or 12 per cent of all violations globally, according to data from the World Anti-Doping Agency. About a fifth of Russia’s infractions involved track and field athletes, the focus of Monday’s report.
“This level of corruption attacks sport at its core,” Richard H. McLaren, a Canadian lawyer and co-author of the report, said in an interview Sunday.
In contrast to corporate governance scandals like those currently roiling world soccer, he said, drug use by athletes has distorted the essence of professional games.
“Bribes and payoffs don’t change actual sporting events,” McLaren said. “But doping takes away fair competition and an equal playing field.”
The report released Monday was the result of a 10-month investigation by an independent commission of the WADA.