Doping in Russia
Systematic doping of Russian athletes has resulted in 51 Olympic medals stripped from Russia, four times the number of the next highest, and more than 30% of the global total. Russia has the most competitors who have been caught doping at the Olympic Games in the world, with more than 150.
The World Anti-Doping Agency has described doping among Russian competitors as state-sponsored and systematic, with the Russian state being found to have supplied steroids and other drugs to athletes. Due to widespread violations of anti-doping regulations, including an attempt to sabotage ongoing investigations by the manipulation of computer data, WADA in 2019 banned the Russian Federation from all major sporting events, including the Olympic Games, for four years. In 2020 the Court of Arbitration for Sport reduced the ban period to two years following an appeal by Russia. Competitors from Russia meanwhile may take part in international competitions under a neutral flag and designation.
Soviet era
According to British journalist Andrew Jennings, a KGB colonel stated that the agency's officers had posed as anti-doping authorities from the International Olympic Committee to undermine doping tests and that Soviet competitors were "rescued with tremendous efforts". Regarding the 1980 Summer Olympics in the Soviet Union, a 1989 Australian study said, "There is hardly a medal winner at the Moscow Games, certainly not a gold medal winner, who is not on one sort of drug or another: usually several kinds. The Moscow Games might as well have been called the Chemists' Games."Documents obtained in 2016 revealed the Soviet Union's plans for a statewide doping system in track and field in preparation for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Dated prior to the country's decision to participate in the 1984 Summer Olympics boycott, the document detailed the existing steroids operations of the program, along with suggestions for further enhancements. The communication, directed to the Soviet Union's head of track and field, was prepared by Dr. Sergei Portugalov of the Institute for Physical Culture. Portugalov was also one of the main figures involved in the implementation of the Russian doping program prior to the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Timeline of the doping
Doping issues from 2008 to 2009
In 2008, seven Russian track and field athletes were suspended ahead of the Summer Olympics in Beijing for manipulating their urine samples.Multiple Russian biathletes were involved in doping offences in run-up to the 2010 Winter Olympics. The president of the International Biathlon Union, Anders Besseberg, said, "We are facing systematic doping on a large scale in one of the strongest teams of the world."
Reviewing 7,289 blood samples from 2,737 competitors from 2001 to 2009, a report found that the number of suspicious samples from "Country A" notably exceeded other countries. One of the authors said that Country A was Russia.
In October 2009, International Association of Athletics Federations general secretary Pierre Weiss wrote to Valentin Balakhnichev that blood samples from Russian athletes "recorded some of the highest values ever seen since the IAAF started testing" and that tests from the 2009 World Championships "strongly suggest a systematic abuse of blood doping or EPO-related products".
2010–2014: allegations of state-sponsored doping and 2014 ARD documentary
In 2010, an employee at the Russian Anti-Doping Agency, Vitaly Stepanov, began sending information to the World Anti-Doping Agency alleging that RUSADA was enabling systemic doping in athletics. He said that he sent two hundred emails and fifty letters over the course of three years. In December 2012, Darya Pishchalnikova sent an email to WADA containing details of an alleged state-run doping program in Russia. According to The New York Times, the email reached three top WADA officials but the agency decided not to open an inquiry but instead forwarded her email to Russian sports officials. In April 2013, having failed a doping test for the second time, Pishchalnikova was banned by the Russian Athletics Federation for ten years, in a move that was likely in retaliation. Her results from May 2012 were annulled, thus setting her on track to lose her Olympic medal. British journalist Nick Harris said that he contacted the IOC with allegations about Grigory Rodchenkov's laboratory in Moscow in early July 2013.According to Stepanov, "Even at WADA there were people who didn't want this story out," but he said that a person at the organization put him in contact with the German broadcaster ARD. WADA's chief investigator Jack Robertson believed that the organization was reluctant to take action and that media attention was necessary, so he obtained the permission of WADA's director-general, David Howman, to approach an investigative reporter called Hajo Seppelt, who had previously reported on doping in East Germany and other countries. In December 2014, ARD aired Seppelt's documentary, "Geheimsache Doping: 'Wie Russland seine Sieger macht'" , which uncovered alleged Russian state involvement in systematic doping, describing it as "East German-style". In the documentary, Stepanov and his wife Yuliya Stepanova, claimed that Russian athletics officials had supplied banned substances in exchange for 5% of an athlete's earnings and had also falsified tests in cooperation with doping control officers. It included conversations that had been secretly recorded by Stepanova, e.g. Russian athlete Mariya Savinova saying that contacts at a Moscow drug-testing laboratory had covered up her doping. Russian long-distance runner Liliya Shobukhova allegedly paid €450,000 to cover up her positive doping result. According to the allegations, Dr. Sergei Portugalov of the Institute for Physical Culture, who stands accused of organising state-sponsored doping in the Soviet Union, dating back to the early 1980s, was also involved in the recent Russian doping programme.
2015
In January 2015, then-All-Russia Athletic Federation President Valentin Balakhnichev resigned as treasurer of the International Association of Athletics Federations.In response to the ARD documentary, WADA commissioned an investigation headed by former anti-doping agency President Dick Pound, the report of which was published on 9 November 2015. The 335-page document, described as "damning" by The Guardian, reported widespread doping and large-scale cover-ups by the Russian authorities. It stated that the Federal Security Service had regularly visited and questioned laboratory staff and instructed some of them not to cooperate with the WADA investigation. Two staff members said that they suspected that the offices and telephones were bugged. The report recommended that ARAF be declared non-compliant with respect to the World Anti-Doping Code and that the IOC should not accept any 2016 Summer Olympics entries from ARAF until compliance was reached.
A day later, WADA suspended the Moscow Anti-doping Center, prohibiting the laboratory "from carrying out any WADA-related anti-doping activities including all analyses of urine and blood samples". On 13 November, the IAAF council voted 22–1 in favour of prohibiting Russia from world track and field events with immediate effect. Under other penalties against the ARAF, Russia has been also prohibited from hosting the 2016 World Race Walking Team Championships and 2016 World Junior Championships, and ARAF must entrust doping cases to Court of Arbitration for Sport. ARAF accepted the indefinite IAAF suspension and did not request a hearing. ARAF's efforts towards regaining full IAAF membership will be monitored by a five-person IAAF team. On 18 November 2015 WADA suspended RUSADA, meaning that Russia does not have a functioning NADO for any sport.
In November 2015, France began a criminal investigation into former IAAF president Lamine Diack, alleging that he accepted a 1 million euro bribe from the ARAF in 2011 to cover up positive doping results of at least six Russian athletes.
2016
January to May 2016
In January 2016, the IAAF gave lifetime bans to the former head of the Russian athletics federation, Valentin Balakhnichev, and a top Russian coach, Aleksey Melnikov.In mid-January, WADA released the second report by its independent commission. The following month, the United Kingdom Anti-Doping agency was tasked to oversee testing in Russia.
Two former directors of RUSADA, Vyacheslav Sinev and Nikita Kamaev, both died unexpectedly in February 2016. The Sunday Times reported that Kamaev had approached the newspaper shortly before his death planning to publish a book on "the true story of sport pharmacology and doping in Russia since 1987". Grigory Rodchenkov, the director of a prominent laboratory who has been described by WADA as "the heart of Russian doping", was fired by Russian authorities and fled in fear of his safety to the United States, where he shared information with the help of filmmaker Bryan Fogel, which was documented in the film Icarus.
In March 2016, German broadcaster ARD aired a documentary called "Russia's Red Herrings", alleging that competitors were alerted about testing plans and offered banned substances by individuals at RUSADA and ARAF. According to a May 2016 report in The New York Times, whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov said that doping experts collaborated with Russia's intelligence service on a state-sponsored doping programme in which urine samples were switched through a "mouse hole" in the laboratory's wall. Tamper-resistant bottles were opened in a nearby building and the urine samples were replaced with athletes' urine taken months in advance. Rodchenkov said that at least fifteen medalists at the 2014 Winter Olympics were involved. On 19 May, WADA appointed Richard McLaren to lead an investigation into the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
On 15 March 2016, the International Olympic Committee announced that they were re-analyzing stored urine samples from the 2008 and 2012 Olympics using more advanced analytical methods to detect banned substances that would have gone unnoticed at the time of competition. Specific sports and countries were targeted, including in particular competitors likely to compete in Rio de Janeiro who also competed in London 2012 and Beijing 2008. Participants from the 2006 and 2010 Winter Olympics were also being targeted as urine samples can only be stored for 10 years. The re-analysis programme would eventually conclude in November 2017.
Away from the Olympics, Russian heavyweight boxer Alexander Povetkin and tennis player Maria Sharapova would both fail drug tests in March and May respectively, both testing positive for Meldonium. Russian-Finnish footballer Roman Eremenko would also fail a drugs test later on in the year.