USA TODAY International Edition
System fails to address state- run doping
Potential penalty lacks precedent in Russia’s case
A first anti- doping violation can get an athlete a suspension, forfeiture of medals and disqualification of results. Another one likely garners a longer suspension and maybe even a lifetime ban.
But when a country or sports officials subvert anti- doping rules and run a state- sponsored system to dope athletes and cover up results? Well, the World Anti- Doping Agency code and Olympic charter don’t outline specific sanctions for that.
The International Olympic Committee is considering a ban of Russia from the Rio Olympics less than three weeks before they open with little in the way of a specific road map of how to deal with a rogue program.
It has said it is trying to find a balance between collective responsibility and individual justice. Without question, antidoping efforts have focused on the latter as they sanction athletes, coaches and sport personnel on an individual basis.
Collective responsibility seems a fraught proposition as it undoubtedly will include clean athletes who were not part of the Russian system in which widespread efforts to dope athletes and cover up positive tests have been revealed in media reports over the last two years and in three reports released by WADA over the last nine months.
“As the WADA code gets re- examined, there needs to be a standard by which collective responsibility can be assessed and provisions to do that. And we’ve seen it before. It’s happening right now,” said Max Cobb, CEO of US Biathlon. “It’s not as if this is something new or untested in sport. It’s just that it’s never been applied to an entire delegation at the Olympic Games.”
In fact, Russia does not stand alone in running a state- sponsored doping program. East Germany systemically doped athletes from a young age in the 1970s and 1980s, allowing the country to rise in Olympic medal counts.
The extent of the system was not revealed until after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. While it predates the existence of WADA, the East German system serves as a powerful precedent for Russia’s situation.
That kind of system isn’t one contemplated specifically in the governing documents of WADA and the IOC, however.
“Administrators are focused on controlling and punishing athletes. Where are we holding administrators to account? Where are the sanctions for administra- tors?” said David Larkin, an international sports lawyer. “They’re kind of in there, but the real cultural focus is on the bad athlete who has no power. The convenient people who get off scot- free over and over again tend to be administrators.
“The legal rules reflect that. Case in point, an entire country is now flouting the system and there is no immediate legal recourse.”
FAILURE IN THE SYSTEM A report Monday from Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren confirmed allegations in reports by 60 Minutes and The New York Times of Russian athletes doping during the Sochi Olympics in 2014. Russian officials, with the help of the Federal Security Service ( FSB), tampered with samples to swap out dirty urine for clean urine.
McLaren’s report, which was commissioned by WADA, revealed a widespread system of covering up positive drug tests that was in place from 2011 until August 2015. It involved the Ministry of Sport, the Center of Sports Preparation of the National Teams of Russia ( CSP), the FSB and the Moscow and Sochi labs.
The system, which McLaren dubbed “The Disappearing Positive Methodology,” worked to cover up positive tests for Russian athletes in 29 Olympic sports as well as in Paralympic sports. Yury Nagornykh, the deputy sports minister who decided which tests would be covered up, is on the executive board of the Russian Olympic Committee, and a CSP deputy director was previously on staff at the ROC while the system was in place.
McLaren’s report built on the work of an independent commission report released in November that showed state- sponsored doping in Russian track and field. That report prompted the International Association of Athletics Federations ( IAAF) to ban Russia from international competition, and that ban was extended last month to include the Rio Olympics.
In response to the latest revelations, WADA, the Institute of National Anti- Doping Organizations ( iNADO), athletes and antidoping officials have called for all Russian athletes to be banned from the Olympics and Paralympics.
“The thing that shocks me as a lawyer over and over is that we have a system of sport justice that is so unsophisticated and so unworthy of public trust that we are always left with statements like, ‘ I hope the IOC does the right thing. I hope WADA does the right thing,’ ” Larkin said.
“What they’re really doing is invoking the goodwill of people in charge of the system, and that’s really what we’re at the mercy of with this process where the justice system is so unsophisticated and the due process protections are so few.”
FOCUSED ON ATHLETES Without specific guidelines in the WADA code or Olympic charter to deal with a state- run doping system, those agencies are left with broad sections that could apply as officials see fit.
IOC President Thomas Bach said in a statement Monday that his organization “will not hesitate to take the toughest sanctions available” against individuals or organizations implicated in the McLaren report.
“The findings of the report show a shocking and unprecedented attack on the integrity of sports and on the Olympic Games,” he said.
Non- compliance with the WADA code can result in ineligibility to bid on events, forfeiture of positions within WADA, cancellation of international events and symbolic or other consequences. WADA has declared the Moscow lab and the Russian Anti- Doping Agency non- compliant.
The Olympic charter calls on national Olympic committees ( NOCs) to ensure observance of the charter and adopt and implement the WADA code in their countries.
The IOC announced Tuesday that it had started disciplinary actions related to Russian sports ministry officials and others implicated in the McLaren report. Under the same article, it has the ability to suspend NOCs.
“It’s a perfectly fair question to ask why has anti- doping evolved so that it’s focused on only the bad athletes and not the bad administrator or the bad institution or the bad country,” said Roger Pielke Jr., a University of Colorado professor whose book, The Edge: The War Against Cheating and Corruption in the Cutthroat World of Elite Sports, is due to be released in September.
“One answer to that is that the WADA code is written by and overseen by governments and administrators, not athletes. So it is a huge gap that’s going to have to be addressed. That’s the big challenge after the excitement of Rio is done. What do you do?”
INCONSISTENCY IN RULES Officials point to a few measures that would help anti- doping agencies better respond to these kinds of doping violations.
Better code compliance review would be one, Cobb said. He pointed to the Moscow lab, which was provisionally suspended in November 2013, just months before it would run testing for the Sochi Olympics.
“I think the weakness there was that WADA didn’t do a good job of enforcing code compliance or hasn’t done enough to enforce code compliance. And had it done more to monitor and enforce code compliance, then these instances would have been nipped in the bud,” Cobb said. “Absent that code compliance being applied to Russia, there was just this culture of deceit that was allowed to blossom.”
WADA has increased efforts on code compliance this year, suspending the accreditation of labs in Madrid, Beijing and Lisbon, Portugal. It suspended the accreditation of the Rio laboratory in June for not following international standards before reinstating its accreditation Wednesday.
Others suggested the IOC would be well served by taking the approach that some international federations have regarding collective responsibility.
The International Weightlifting Federation’s bylaws allow it to ban a country from the Olympics in the case of multiple anti- doping rule violations. Bulgaria has been banned from Rio, while several others — including Russia — have seen their quota spots reduced because of multiple positive tests. This month the International Canoe Federation suspended teams from Romania and Belarus, the former for systemic doping.
For now, the IOC is waiting for more guidance before deciding on Russia’s status for Rio.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport is set to decide Thursday a case brought by the Russian Olympic Committee and 68 athletes challenging the IAAF ban.
The IOC will have to weigh its options after the CAS decision in a short time frame. The Olympics open Aug. 5.
Many expressed hope that the failings in anti- doping and sport governance revealed by the policing of Russia’s state- run doping system would lead to change. To that end, the IOC has asked WADA to convene a world conference on doping in 2017 and has requested that the anti- doping system be made independent from sports organizations.
“Rio just complicates everything, because that’s what everybody’s focused on, but once we get outside the pressure and the politics of the immediate Rio decision, there’s huge significance for sport and anti- doping regulation going forward,” Pielke said. “Rio’s just the tip of the iceberg.
“The worst- case scenario is that Russia gets banned, all the people who are either for or against Russia, the cheerleaders on either side, they have their outcome and then everybody moves on, and in September everyone goes back to business as usual. That would be the worst outcome.”