Doping culture will take years to change — whistleblower
Russia’s doping “culture” will take years to change, regardless of the nation’s ban from the Winter Olympics, whistle-blower Vitaly Stepanov said.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) banned Russia from the Pyeongchang Games yesterday after it found evidence of an “unprecedented systematic manipulation” of the anti-doping system.
Stepanov, a former employee of the Russian anti-doping agency RUSADA, helped expose massive doping problems in Russia in 2014 with his athlete wife Yulia Stepanova. He welcomed the IOC decision as “fair” but expressed doubt that it would do much to change Russia’s mindset in the short term.
“I think we are still many years away from the time when the doping culture truly changes in Russia,” he said. “There are many sports officials running sports in Russia in the old way. Many coaches that are still doing the same . . . doping athletes.
“Many athletes who believe everybody is doping and the only way to win is to dope as well. Those are the things that have to change and it takes a long time.”
Evidence from Stepanov and wife triggered a World Anti-Doping Agency ( WADA) investigation that alleged the Russian government was complicit in an elaborate scheme of institutional doping. Moscow has consistently denied state involvement and the couple, who live in the United States at an undisclosed location, have been denounced as traitors.
WADA has demanded Moscow own up to state-sponsored doping as a condition of lifting its suspension of RUSADA. Russian president Vladimir Putin is expected to respond to the IOC decision today.
“If the Russian president agrees to the terms by the IOC, and they do not boycott the Games, then that would mean they admit the guilt, admit the state-run doping system,” added Stepanov.
The IOC suspended Russian Olympic Committee president Alexander Zhukov as an IOC member, while Russian Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Mutko, sports minister at the time of the Sochi Games and now head of Russia’s 2018 World Cup organising committee, was also banned from the Games for life.
Many Russian sports officials were furious. Alexei Kravtsov, president of the Russian Skating Union, said: “The decision is offensive, insulting and completely unjustified.”
The IOC’s decision comes 18 months after it decided not to impose an outright ban on Russian athletes ahead of the Rio Games. ICO President Thomas Bach said the situation was different now.
“At the time of Rio it was mainly about the failure in the Moscow lab. Now it’s about the manipulation of an Olympic lab. The conditions then and now are totally different.”