If you watch the Olympics regularly you will have grown used to seeing certain names at the top of the medals table – the USA, China, Great Britain and Russia usually there or thereabouts come the end of the event.

Now many in the know have long suspected that Russia’s athletes might be dabbling in substances that the IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) doesn’t allow, but new information points to doping on a scale never thought possible.

A Russian insider has revealed that dozens of athletes competing at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, including at least 15 medal winners, were ‘part of a state-run doping program, meticulously planned for years to ensure dominance at the Games’.

It’s the story that is dominating sports headlines around the world, with more below from the New York Times:

The director, Grigory Rodchenkov [pictured above], 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.

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…

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…

None of the athletes were caught doping. More important, Russia won the most medals of the Games, easily surpassing its main rival, the United States, and undermining the integrity of one of the world’s most prestigious sporting events.

Old habits die hard, and it seems that even after all these years the Russians will still do anything to beat their Cold War rivals.

A case of practice makes perfect then:

Dr. Rodchenkov described his own work at Sochi as a “strong accomplishment,” the apex of a decade-long effort to perfect Russia’s doping strategy at international competitions.

“We were fully equipped, knowledgeable, experienced and perfectly prepared for Sochi like never before,” he said. “It was working like a Swiss watch.”

After Sochi, Dr. Rodchenkov was awarded the prestigious Order of Friendship by President Vladimir V. Putin.

The article goes on to lay out in great detail how the state managed to pull the wool over the eyes of the watching world, so if your interest is piqued I suggest you read further HERE.

May I suggest that Russia’s football team is closely monitored ahead of the 2018 World Cup they are hosting…

[source:newyorktimes]

[imagesource:here]