Spectre of Russian doping
The 2018 Fifa World Cup draw last night was made inside the Kremlin, the onion-domed citadel of political power which looms over Moscow. It is ironic then, that while the competitors who have made the finals of soccer’s showpiece had every reason to focus on who they will face in the opening round – and if the fabled stories of celebratory Russian hospitality are to be believed, either toast their luck or drown their sorrows in a virtual sea of the finest vodka– it is the very powers which stalk the corridors of the Kremlin, which translates to “fortress inside a city”, that still stand accused of state-sponsored doping unprecedented in Olympic history.
This week in the Netherlands, Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren, who produced two reports on Russian sports doping, said the country risked heavier punishment with its continued denials of state involvement at the Play The Game conference on integrity in sports in Eindhoven.
McLaren told the conference that Russia was playing a dangerous game ahead of the International Olympic Committee decision on participation in the Winter Games in Pyeongchang.
“First of all, I would like to know if they have actually read the report,” said McLaren, who headed a commission on behalf of the World Anti-Doping Agency.
McLaren’s comments came on a day when a Russian inquiry repeated the allegation against the former head of the Moscow drug-testing lab, Grigory Rodchenkov, who turned whistleblower after fleeing to the US.
The Russian authorities said Rodchenkov himself distributed drugs to athletes and manipulated test results, an argument which would help refute suggestions that the Russian state was involved in organised doping.
McLaren said he thought Rodchenkov would not risk being expelled from the US. “In the position he’s in, I think that it would be dangerous to lie.”
Russia have consistently denied state doping and President Vladimir Putin has suggested the US orchestrated things to interfere with the Russian presidential election next year.
MacLaren’s warning takes on a new dimension with the announcement by the Russian sports ministry that the country’s athletes stripped of their titles from the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics will not return their medals until an appeal has been heard.