STATE-SPONSORED RUSSIAN DOPE PLAN ‘PRETTY DISGUSTING’
Speedskater Ivanie Blodin emerged from body-mass testing Thursday at the Olympic Oval only to hear about yet another doping scandal in amateur sports.
The New York Times reported Thursday that dozens of Russian athletes — including 15 medallists — took part in a state-sponsored doping program at the 2014 Sochi Olympics.
“It’s pretty disgusting,” said Blondin, a world champion in the mass start who finished fifth in the team pursuit behind the third-place Russians in Sochi. “But I can totally believe it.”
The detailed allegations — fitting of a John le Carré novel, complete with spies swapping out urine samples through a hole in the wall in the middle of the night — come from Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, who ran Russia’s drug testing lab in Sochi.
The Times identified Russian gold medallists Alexander Zubkov (bobsled), Alexander Legkov (cross country) and Alexander Tretiakov (skeleton) as alleged participants in the program. In total, 14 cross-country skiers were allegedly fuelled by performance-enhancing drugs along with the entire Russian women’s hockey team.
Five-time Olympic hockey medallist Hayley Wickenheiser calls the allegations “extremely disturbing but not surprising.”
“Hockey is not typically a sport with a history of rampant doping,” said Wickenheiser, a member of the International Olympic Committee’s athletes’ commission. “This all needs to be fully investigated, and we need to stand by those protecting clean athletes. It reads like a bad spy novel.”
Canada came close to sweeping the Sochi podium in men’s moguls, but Russian Alexandr Smyshlyaev won bronze ahead of fourth-place Marc-Antoine Gagnon of Montreal. Canada finished fourth in team luge behind Germany, Russia and Latvia. Canada also placed second behind the Russians in the team event in figure skating.
The question remains whether Canada deserves an upgrade in any of those events.
The New York Times article emerged on the same day the World Anti-Doping Agency declared Kenya non-compliant. It’s now up to the International Olympic Committee to decide if the African country — so dominant in the distance events in track and field — will compete this summer at the Rio Olympics.
The Russian track and field team is suspended for non-compliance, and the International Association of Athletics Federation will decide next month whether to lift the ban in time for Rio.
Beckie Scott, the 2002 Olympic champion in cross-country skiing, pleaded with WADA foundation in Montreal Thursday to fight for that ban to be upheld.
“We acknowledge that WADA does not have jurisdiction over the Olympic Games,” said Scott, of Vermilion, Alta. “WADA does have, however, influence and clean athletes of the world propose that you use that influence with respect to Rio and Games beyond. Athletes strongly feel that if there cannot be a guarantee that athletes there from Russia are clean and not involved in doping activity that they should not be there.”
The Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport also called on the IAAF to maintain the ban for Rio” and do the right thing for clean sport,” CCES president Paul Melia said in a written statement.