Doping is widespread in Russian athletics and protected by a buffer of complicit officials on the national and international levels, according to a blockbuster report released on Monday by the organization that oversees the anti-doping code used by national federations and the International Olympic Committee.
Anti-doping report finds ‘a deeply rooted culture of cheating’ in Russian athletics
The World Anti-Doping Agency report found “corruption and bribery practices at the highest levels of international athletics.”
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The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) recommended that five Russian runners and five Russian coaches and administrators receive lifetime bans, and that the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) governing body suspend Russia from competition, possibly compromising Russian athletes’ ability to compete at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. WADA also recommended that Moscow’s anti-doping lab lose its accreditation following the discovery of a second shadow lab used to doctor blood test results.
“A deeply rooted culture of cheating”
Dick Pound, a former president of WADA, was appointed by the organization late last year to lead an independent commission investigating claims of doping in Russian athletics. In a press conference Monday to release the results of the commission’s 11-month probe, Pound referred to what he called “a deeply rooted culture of cheating.”
The 325-page WADA report found that “Moscow testing laboratory director Grigory Rodchenkov ordered 1,417 doping control samples destroyed to deny evidence for the inquiry,” according to the AP. It added that Rodchenkov “personally instructed and authorized” the destruction just days before a scheduled WADA inspection. Rodchenkov has confessed to destroying the samples.
The effects of the WADA report are likely to be wide-ranging. In the months since the doping allegations first became public, Liliya Shobukhova, the Russian winner of the 2010 London Marathon, was stripped of her title. The Sunday Times reported in August that seven London Marathon winners have had suspicious blood test results.
“It’s pretty disturbing,” Pound said at Monday’s press conference. “It’s worse than we thought. Unlike other forms of corruption it affected results on the field of play.”
“Direct intimidation and interference by the Russian state”
Critical among the report’s assertions is that doping in Russian athletics was subject to an extensive, ongoing cover-up by the Russian establishment. The Russian government was specifically accused of being involved in the doping program.
"THERE WAS DIRECT INTIMIDATION & INTERFERENCE by the Russian state with the Moscow laboratory operations"
— Dan Roan (@danroan) November 9, 2015 The report carries especially bleak implications for the IAAF. In December, a German television station alleged that the IAAF failed to follow up on more than 150 suspicious blood tests in what it called an “East German-style” doping program. WADA announced the Pound investigation two weeks later.
On Monday, the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) Ethics Commission recommended the suspension of Lamine Diack from his post as Honorary Member of the IOC. Diack served as IAAF president for 16 years before stepping down in August, delivering a harsh farewell in which he claimed that there was no doping problem in international athletics.
Much of the WADA report’s section on the IAAF was withheld Monday due to an ongoing criminal investigation. Diack is under investigation in France for allegedly receiving more than €1 million ($1.08 million US) to conceal evidence of doping, French police announced on Monday.
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