Russian Insider Says State-Run Doping Fueled Olympic Gold

[gooner]

Big story this.

LOS ANGELES — Dozens of Russian athletes at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, including at least 15 medal winners, were part of a state-run doping program, meticulously planned for years to ensure dominance at the Games, according to the director of the country’s antidoping laboratory at the time.

The director, Grigory Rodchenkov, who ran the laboratory that handled testing for thousands of Olympians, said he developed a three-drug cocktail of banned substances that he mixed with liquor and provided to dozens of Russian athletes, helping to facilitate one of the most elaborate — and successful — doping ploys in sports history.

It involved some of Russia’s biggest stars of the Games, including 14 members of its cross-country ski team and two veteran bobsledders who won two golds.

Dr. Rodchenkov said the sports ministry actively guided the doping effort. In the six months before the Games, he said, he met with Mr. Mutko’s deputy, Yuri Nagornykh, in a second-floor office at the ministry’s palatial Moscow headquarters at least once a week.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/13/sports/russia-doping-sochi-olympics-2014.html

 

[BullsFan22]

Re: Russian Insider Says State-Run Doping Fueled Olympic Gol

Big story this.

LOS ANGELES — Dozens of Russian athletes at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, including at least 15 medal winners, were part of a state-run doping program, meticulously planned for years to ensure dominance at the Games, according to the director of the country’s antidoping laboratory at the time.

The director, Grigory Rodchenkov, who ran the laboratory that handled testing for thousands of Olympians, said he developed a three-drug cocktail of banned substances that he mixed with liquor and provided to dozens of Russian athletes, helping to facilitate one of the most elaborate — and successful — doping ploys in sports history.

It involved some of Russia’s biggest stars of the Games, including 14 members of its cross-country ski team and two veteran bobsledders who won two golds.

Dr. Rodchenkov said the sports ministry actively guided the doping effort. In the six months before the Games, he said, he met with Mr. Mutko’s deputy, Yuri Nagornykh, in a second-floor office at the ministry’s palatial Moscow headquarters at least once a week.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/13/sports/russia-doping-sochi-olympics-2014.html

They are really going after the Russians, aren't they? If it's not politics, it's sports.

 

[Jagartrott]

The Russian secret service changed 'hot' samples with clean ones (taken months earlier) via a hole in the wall.
Sounds like a B-movie from the 80s or something.
*cue synthesizer music*

 

[Benotti69]

If anyone thinks any other big nation are any different from the Russians, wake up!

 

[JackRabbitSlims]

Russian officials used baby bottles to swap urine tests at Winter Olympics - report

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11638555

 

[BullsFan22]

Re:

Russian officials used baby bottles to swap urine tests at Winter Olympics - report

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11638555

What's next? Every child ever born within the Russian borders was given shots of EPO, Xenon, Steroids, Meldonium 30 minutes after birth?

Seriously, why is this coming out NOW. And where was WADA in Sochi? Who does the testing at the Olympics? No IOC official, no WADA official, no international governing bodies, no national teams, no federations, no athletes knew of this? If this 'really' was the case, surely someone else would have said something much, much earlier. Perhaps not a Russian, but someone else associated with the games. Are people really buying into these types of stories? The Russians aren't really that stupid to do something like this, are they? I mean this seems like it comes out of some cheesy 70's or 80's flick.

 

[hrotha]

Looking forward to the day Sky gets busted and y'all engage in a debate about doping in Russia.

 

[42x16ss]

An Australian race walker is getting a gold medal awarded from 2012 after the Russian who won initially failed a retrospective test. The nationalistic crap coming out of the media covering it here has been nauseating, totally holier-than-thou

They conveniently forget the NRL and AFL "supplement scandals" that are being slowly and surely swept under the carpet.

 

[Irondan]

Re: Russian Insider Says State-Run Doping Fueled Olympic Gol

This is shocking news. I honestly thought doping ended in 2006. Maybe that was only in cycling and the UK

What slander.

Suggesting that anyone in the UK ever doped.

Didn't you listen to Wiggins. If anyone in the UK ever doped, they would be ostracized.

Doping didn't end here in 2006. we are simply too moral and noble a population to ever even consider it.

Same with Norway...

This Russian plot to steal all the gold in the world is certainly worrying enough, it makes makes you wonder what other countries are on this program.

I have to agree with Benotti, Russia's not alone.

 

[Robert5091]

"In a dark-of-night operation, Russian antidoping experts and members of the intelligence service surreptitiously replaced urine samples tainted by performance-enhancing drugs with clean urine collected months earlier, somehow breaking into the supposedly tamper-proof bottles that are the standard at international competitions, Dr. Rodchenkov said. For hours each night, they worked in a shadow laboratory lit by a single lamp, passing bottles of urine through a hand-size hole in the wall, to be ready for testing the next day, he said.

By the end of the Games, Dr. Rodchenkov estimated, as many as 100 dirty urine samples were expunged."
I await the Tom Cruise movie

 

[blackcat]

Re:

An Australian race walker is getting a gold medal awarded from 2012 after the Russian who won initially failed a retrospective test. The nationalistic crap coming out of the media covering it here has been nauseating, totally holier-than-thou

They conveniently forget the NRL and AFL "supplement scandals" that are being slowly and surely swept under the carpet.

his name is jared tallent.

dont you forget it 42.

tallent so manifest when god was handing out talents he gave him an extra l to make him two l's and two fast race walker legs

the guy is a gun. fast walker qua fast walker. no satire in this post. no sirreee

 

[python]

gee, that nyt article reads like a spy novel...where should i start ? the posters in the xc ski thread may recall i predicted more 'news' b/c the dr. had defected...

before i go any further, i will say that many years ago i had several contacts with the 'hero' of the article. what he said probably happened. if anyone knows about the dark side of doping in any given country, the country's head of the anti-doping lab is THAT person.

but the 'good dr.' story should still be suspicious. very suspicious. funny, but it all reminds me that real spy story with nuclear poisoning of litvinenko...both were insiders that changed sides. while we dont know of the crimes committed by litvinenko when he worked the kgb, the nyt article clearly points out that its source was accused by wada of extorting money from the athletes he doped as well as he was investigated for trafficking.

in one word, the source is likely a criminal running from justice. he seems found it in america. where else ? a scum like that have a tendency to talk themselves up or 'add some'. it's not a brainer.

i sincerely hope he isn't poised. or poisoned.

 

[BullsFan22]

Re:

gee, that nyt article reads like a spy novel...where should i start ? the posters in the xc ski thread may recall i predicted more 'news' b/c the dr. had defected...

before i go any further, i will say that many years ago i had several contacts with the 'hero' of the article. what he said probably happened. if anyone knows about the dark side of doping in any given country, the country's head of the anti-doping lab is THAT person.

but the 'good dr.' story should still be suspicious. very suspicious. funny, but it all reminds me that real spy story with nuclear poisoning of litvinenko...both were insiders that changed sides. while we dont know of the crimes committed by litvinenko when he worked the kgb, the nyt article clearly points out that its source was accused by wada of extorting money from the athletes he doped as well as he was investigated for trafficking.

in one word, the source is likely a criminal running from justice. he seems found it in america. where else ? a scum like that have a tendency to talk themselves up or 'add some'. it's not a brainer.

i sincerely hope he isn't poised. or poisoned.

He won't be poisoned, but he's definitely poised. He's in the US now, I am sure he'll get protection. I am quite sure more will be said. The timing of this is brilliant too. Right around the Victory Day celebrations in Russia. I found the Legkov interview on Match Tv interesting. Sometimes you can tell when people are desperate. I am glad he mentioned the fact that he was tested 33 times during the run up to Sochi. He also mentioned that he hardly spent time in Russia in the years he worked with Knauthe and Burgermeister and lived in an apartment in Davos. If we look at his history as a World Cup skier, we'll notice that he's spent more time training abroad with foreign coaches than in Russia. It would have been one thing if these accusations came prior to Vancouver or right after it, but since Russia had a sub-par games in Vancouver, and only the sprinters won medals in cross country (4 total medals from cross country, one gold in the sprint for Kriukov), nobody really cared. The cross country did better in Sochi, even though they won 'only' 5. They were unlucky in the sprint where Ustiugov was part of that massive crash and Vylegzhanin was obstructed by Sundby in the skiathlon. I am assuming the accusers and the predators will look at that famous 50km and say 'look at that, we have our stinky fish!'

I hate having to repeat myself on some of these threads/topics, but this is full on political now. The Russians are clearly made as a scapegoat. I mean, who else would be? This bus won't stop here either, not until the Russians are barred from the Rio Olympics and for the foreseeable future and international events. And not just the track and field team. I bet the football team will be barred from Euro 2016 as well. Their 2018 world cup hosting rights will also be revoked, I am almost certain of that.

The USOC did an eerily similar thing years ago (probably still doing it), when they protected positive dope tests from athletes that went on to win Olympic and World Championship medals. Did the USATF get barred from future events? Heck no. How many times will someone like Justin Gatlin be caught doping before he is banned for life? I am surprised Shubenkov hasn't been accused yet.

 

[Farcanal]

Re:

Those who live in a glass house probably shouldn't throw stones. (that's not directed at any one country in particular, but more generally to western media and governing bodies)

For a country like the US, there is no indication whatsoever that they ever made any attempts to shed the internal Olympic drug testing system that was put in place in the late 70s under the Amateur Sports Act. And why would they shed it. It's brought them plenty of medals, and hardly anybody knows anything about it.
The UK's lottery funded sports conglomerate (which directly feeds into UKAD), too, is very reminiscent of a state-sponsored doping agenda.

Really? Do you have any evidence of this or is it purely reminiscence on your part? No UK lottery funds go to UKAD at all. It is very much a stand alone NADO, as is USADA I understand. Both rely on funds from the state so cannot be seen as entirely independent, but are set up on the same model to be free of direct influence.

Funds coming from the Department of Sport and Culture are obviously government money but how else could it be funded? Are the highly concerned clinic members going to have a whip round or dig deep into their pockets and put their money where their mouths are to provide a truly independent agency? Even if they did, could it even then be described as independent, as it could still be claimed the direction was being influenced by hidden agendas.

 

[BullsFan22]

Re:

Those who live in a glass house probably shouldn't throw stones. (that's not directed at any one country in particular, but more generally to western media and governing bodies)

For a country like the US, there is no indication whatsoever that they ever made any attempts to shed the internal Olympic drug testing system that was put in place in the late 70s under the Amateur Sports Act. And why would they shed it. It's brought them plenty of medals, and hardly anybody knows anything about it.
The UK's lottery funded sports conglomerate (which directly feeds into UKAD), too, is very reminiscent of a state-sponsored doping agenda.

Yep.

I'll post this link again. If we google Wade Exum, we'll see various articles on this very topic. I share the NYT article because it's been the recent NYT article about the Russians that's making waves.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/17/sports/olympics-anti-doping-official-says-us-covered-up.html

Remember, this is roughly a 10 year span. Carl Lewis, among others, failed several tests leading up to the 1988 US Olympic trials, and the USOC and USATF disregarded those let him compete. Post 2000 USATF is no different. Gatlin, Gay, Clark, Young...Was Jeremy Wariner given a silent ban? He was gone for a while, now making a comeback, it seems. And what about Alberto Salazar, Galen Rupp and one of our favorites here in the clinic, Mo Farah? The Oregon Running Project shined some new light, but apparently the Brits saw enough and had enough so the story died after week or so.

 

[Benotti69]

I hope all this leads to the end of the olympics. Rio is poised to be a disaster on so many levels and i hope it proves to be.

 

[Pazuzu]

Re:

I hope all this leads to the end of the olympics. Rio is poised to be a disaster on so many levels and i hope it proves to be.

I hope it doesn't even get that far. Given the current situation in Brazil it may not.

 

[frenchfry]

Re:

I hope all this leads to the end of the olympics. Rio is poised to be a disaster on so many levels and i hope it proves to be.

The olympics, in their current form, deserve to disappear. From a sporting point of view, nothing would be lost by their disappearance.

Already the winter olympics are in trouble, as only dictatorships are willing to spend $50 billion for 2 weeks of drug fueled propoganda.

 

[BullsFan22]

Re: Re:

What was the motivation, exactly? Every nation has its own interests, for better or for worse. You talk about deflection and an apologist attitude, but it seems to me, like the cold war, it goes both ways, does it not? It's the classic case of who can throw the most mud the farthest. When people say, directly or indirectly 'well, you are deflecting the issue and saying, everyone else dopes so why only focus on so and so...' that's a classic case of deflecting. Does it make it ok for the Russians to dope, even though the Americans have had scores of doping cases over the decades, in various sports? Of course it doesn't. However, it seems to me that from what I have seen in the US, since i've lived there the longest, there is an ignoramus outlook, particularly to certain parts of the world, specifically, Russia. Russia is this, Russia is that. Putin is worse than Hitler, etc, etc. I don't know how the US is perceived in Russia, as I've never been to Russia, so I am not going comment on that, but from what I have seen, the US is never gun-shy to point fingers at anything Russian. The politicians fuel this fire on a daily basis, the media lap it up and the average joe buys into it like a little kid eats ice cream on a hot summer day. I don't doubt the Russians do this too differently.

My main point is, until people start looking at these issues objectively, nothing will change in not just sports or olympics, but in life in general. There seems to be this urge to always live in controversy. Once people see doping as a global issue and not just pointing solely at Russia and basically every other non-English speaking country, we can really tackle the issue. Nobody here really denies that Russia has issues with doping in sports, but we are also not blinded by the hypocrisy by countries like the US and UK who relentlessly point fingers while parading their own dopers. The vast majority of Russians that have been caught doping in the past few years, have been caught by Russian authorities: RUSADA, the RUSOC and Ministry of sport. They have worked with WADA and independent, foreign based institutions to help them fight doping. People only want to hear what they want to hear. I am not a Russian, I've never even been to Russia, from what I know, I've never had any friends or relatives that have been to Russia for a longer period of time (i.e, vacation, job related, etc), but quite frankly, I too, am nauseated by the endless mud slinging towards anything Russian these days. I am saying 'these days' because I was born when the Cold War was winding down. I can only imagine the vitriol in the the decades prior to 1991.

 

[D-Queued]

Re:

If anyone thinks any other big nation are any different from the Russians, wake up!

From a Russian perspective, there are no other nations. Certainly not any big ones.

Just saying.

Dave.

 

[gooner]

Re: Russian Insider Says State-Run Doping Fueled Olympic Gol

Justice Department looking into it.

The United States Department of Justice has opened an investigation into state-sponsored doping by dozens of Russia’s top athletes, according to two people familiar with the case. The inquiry escalates what has been a roiling sports controversy into a federal criminal case involving foreign officials.

The United States attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York is scrutinizing Russian government officials, athletes, coaches, antidoping authorities and anyone who might have benefited unfairly from a doping regime, according to the people, who did not have authorization to speak about the inquiry publicly. Prosecutors are believed to be pursuing conspiracy and fraud charges.

Federal courts have allowed prosecutors to bring cases against foreigners living abroad if there is some connection to the United States. That connection can be limited, such as the use of an American bank.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/18/sports/olympics/justice-department-russia-doping-investigation.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

 

[TheGreenMonkey]

1. This is definitely political but what is being uncovered is very bad.
2. There is a difference between doping in a way that beats the testing and doping knowing that a positive will be covered up. This gave the Russian athletes a bigger advantage from doping.
3. I am sure other ADA's around the world are protecting their own as well but that is less useful than what the Russian did.

 

[BullsFan22]

Re: Russian Insider Says State-Run Doping Fueled Olympic Gol

Justice Department looking into it.

The United States Department of Justice has opened an investigation into state-sponsored doping by dozens of Russia’s top athletes, according to two people familiar with the case. The inquiry escalates what has been a roiling sports controversy into a federal criminal case involving foreign officials.

The United States attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York is scrutinizing Russian government officials, athletes, coaches, antidoping authorities and anyone who might have benefited unfairly from a doping regime, according to the people, who did not have authorization to speak about the inquiry publicly. Prosecutors are believed to be pursuing conspiracy and fraud charges.

Federal courts have allowed prosecutors to bring cases against foreigners living abroad if there is some connection to the United States. That connection can be limited, such as the use of an American bank.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/18/sports/olympics/justice-department-russia-doping-investigation.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

The US government is getting involved in this!?!? LMFAO. Team America: World Police Part Deux!! Who is going to investigate US doping coverups by the USOC?

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/17/sports/olympics-anti-doping-official-says-us-covered-up.html

And here is Exum:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F04etMA6bgk

It's fairly obvious now that the USA is frustrated that Russia hasn't been banned from Rio yet, so they are just trying to speed things up themselves and finish the job. Just like the FIFA raids a few months ago. You can be sure that they'll speed up the process on the 2018 world cup too. Will probably give that to England and will probably take 2022 to the US. Or vice versa. Politics out of sports? When was the last time that happened? Rodchenkov is partying now with some money in his pockets and nice weather down on the Redondo Beach in LA.

 

[BullsFan22]

Re:

1. This is definitely political but what is being uncovered is very bad.
2. There is a difference between doping in a way that beats the testing and doping knowing that a positive will be covered up. This gave the Russian athletes a bigger advantage from doping.
3. I am sure other ADA's around the world are protecting their own as well but that is less useful than what the Russian did.

If the Russians did do this, well, it's home cooking, isn't it? It's you home games, you know the ins and outs, hometown volunteers, etc.
Covering up positives is nothing new.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F04etMA6bgk

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/17/sports/olympics-anti-doping-official-says-us-covered-up.html

Lance Armstrong had numerous tests covered up. I am fairly certain most people in the clinic knew that.

 

[BullsFan22]

Re: Russian Insider Says State-Run Doping Fueled Olympic Gol

Last part of Victor Conte's interview on ABC. You'll see the rest of the parts (there's 5 total) on the related videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d43xFW8oCKE