HISTORY SHOWS OUR SPORT IS NOT THE CLEANEST

Musgrave: My mindset is that the guys I race against are clean and Wada are doing their job

EIGHT years have passed since Sochi and Russia’s state-run doping programme which shamed the Winter Olympics.

Long enough for certain details to have become sketchy, but not the damning findings that plunged a dagger into the heart of clean sport. It is why British crosscountry skier Andrew Musgrave arrives here hopeful, rather than certain, he is competing on a level playing field.

“History shows our sport is not the cleanest ever,” the Norwegian-based star said. “Doping has definitely been a problem, a massive issue.

“You cannot go round thinking everyone is doping otherwise you wouldn’t want to do the sport.

“So I go in with the mindset the guys I am racing are clean and hope Wada do their job if they are not.”

Wada, the World AntiDoping Agency, know they dare not fail him. Sochi, with its infamous mouse-hole through which urine samples were passed to be swapped, caused untold embarrassment.

And with global distrust of China, reflected in the West’s diplomatic boycott of the Games, some might consider Beijing a less than ideal venue for them to seek to rebuild faith.

The agency’s boss Olivier Niggli (above) painted a picture of hope, tinged with hardedged realism, on his arrival. “I don’t want to over-sell this,” said the Wada director general.

“We have to be humble, knowing what happened in Sochi. We are only antidoping, we’re not secret service. The programme put in place in Beijing is probably the most robust of all Games. “It is run by the International Testing Agency, we have an independent observer and not only have we audited the lab a number of times but the samples will be stored outside of China. “We have good cooperation from the Chinese authorities who have not resisted any of our requests or demands, including that samples be under a university, not the national doping agency.

“Things are very different from Sochi. There’s a lot of good reasons to see the system as transparent and working well. I hope the athletes feel that way.”

Niggli knows it is a nonnegotiable that history recalls Sochi as the low point.

“We were a bit naive going to Sochi,” he added. “But from that the anti-doping system has really learned a lot.

“The system has been reinforced with a number of safeguards put in place.”

Words alone won’t be enough.

The proof of the pudding will be in the results – not only on the snow and ice, but from testing and retesting in the weeks and months which follow.