IAAF and Russian Athletics Anti-Doping Corruption Review

[caseyedwards]

Now that the IAAF has ruled every Russian athlete is guilty of doping all their medals from recent events should be taken away. London 2012, Moscow 2013. All of them. And they all should be banned for life.

 

[Sylvia]

Associated Press' latest updates today continue: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/5529...est-russia-offers-cooperation-ahead-iaaf-vote
10:50 p.m.

The Russian track federation admits it is has many problems but insists it has made significant progress on reforms despite Friday's ban.

Federation general secretary Mikhail Butov tells reporters "we know that we have problems, not a few of them, and we have taken real steps to correct them. ... We'll keep moving."

Butov adds that he expects Russia to be able to compete at next year's Olympics and that his motivation is for Russia's "clean athletes to compete internationally."

10:35 p.m.

Russia's council member at the IAAF, Mikhail Butov, says the length of his country's ban from track and field will depend on how convincingly Russian representatives can make the case that they have reformed.

Addressing reporters outside the federation offices following the IAAF's teleconference meeting, which voted 22-1 to suspend Russia, Butov says "the period (of suspension) is unfortunately not prescribed and therefore will depend on how convincing we are with our case and how objective the commission is ... We'll work with them."

Butov was part of the teleconference but did not vote.

 

[Twilight1]

They should be banned period. Any cheaters should be and I don't care what country you are from. Cheat and get banned for life.

 

[Sylvia]

Reviving this thread 3+ months later due to the Bobrova/Sharapova revelations that broke on Monday, March 7...

WADA: 'Much, much work' still to be done on Russian doping (AP article):
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/09a5...ys-it-will-investigate-new-doping-allegations

A documentary shown Sunday by German broadcaster ARD accused Russian coach Vladimir Mokhnev of continuing to train athletes while he serves an IAAF suspension and reported that another coach offered banned substances for sale.
The ARD documentary also alleged that the acting head of the Russian anti-doping agency had allowed an unidentified athlete to reschedule a supposedly no-notice drug test.
"WADA has viewed, and is dismayed by, the revelations," the Montreal-based agency said. "WADA will verify these allegations and, in particular, seek confirmation as to when the evidence was collected."
"We are open to serious strategic partnership with the IAAF and WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) and we will not allow individual people to cast a shadow over Russian athletics," the Russian federation said.

ETA link to an AP article (Feb. 21): Russian doping official planned book before sudden death

Sunday Times sports writer David Walsh, renowned for his coverage of cycling champion Lance Armstrong's doping, reported that Nikita Kamaev wrote to him in November offering to reveal information on doping covering the last three decades since Kamaev began work for a "secret lab" in the Soviet Union.
Kamaev's former boss at the RUSADA agency, Ramil Khabriev, told Russia's Tass agency that Kamaev planned a book but abandoned it because an "American publisher" had demanded too much influence over its contents.
Kamaev died Feb. 14, aged 52, of what the Russian anti-doping agency, RUSADA, called a "massive heart attack."

 

[caseyedwards]

Obviously the task force is not working and maybe has been corrupted itself. If everyone knows a banned coach is coaching nothing is being done for anti doping.

 

[Willin]

Well, with the talk on this thread about if figure skaters doped and why they would need to dope, I think we got our answer to one of those questions...
Interesting that this only happened after this investigation began, and with a Russian athlete. For now I'm going to take it as an isolated case. Now it's best to sit and wait to see what comes out about this current incident. Maybe it was like the Maria Sharapova thing where she was taking a medicine that became banned without her knowledge while she was still on it?

 

[care bear]

Geheimsache Doping - Russlands Täuschungsmanöver. The ARD film in 3 parts can be watched here http://trackandfield.bplaced.net/20...nds-taeuschungsmanoever-teil-3-am-06-03-2016/
I am very sorry because my English is very limited and I can not translate it. This is the short review of the Part 1
https://presse.wdr.de/plounge/tv/das_erste/2014/12/_pdf/20141208_PM_Doping_Sport_inside_Engl.pdf

 

[Sylvia]

Dick Pound: Russia 'dithering and procrastinating' on doping (Associated Press article):
http://www.bigstory.ap.org/article/...d-russia-dithering-and-procrastinating-doping

"We thought at the time when we released the report that if they dropped everything and went full speed ahead on genuine reform they could probably get enough done to get back into Rio, but they have been dithering and procrastinating and I think that time is really shrinking," Pound said in an interview on the sidelines of the Tackling Doping in Sport conference at Twickenham Stadium.

The IAAF's governing council holds a two-day meeting beginning Thursday in Monaco, where officials will examine Russia's efforts to reform. In addition, WADA still needs to declare Russia's national anti-doping agency and anti-doping lab compliant with its rules before the country can return to the international fold.

ETA link to a Reuters article: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-doping-russia-idUSKCN0WB1AY

"There seems to be some evidence that they're just changing deck chairs on the Titanic," he [Pound] told an anti-doping conference.
...
Last week a German TV documentary contained fresh allegations of malpractice in Russia's anti-doping system.
Amongst the claims in Sunday's ARD program were that Russian coaches suspended in the worst corruption and doping scandal to hit the sport were still working in athletics, while others continued to provide banned substances to athletes.
...
"Clearly it's not going to go away. Neither WADA nor the IAAF are going to buy a band-aid solution," he told Reuters.

 

[caseyedwards]

Is it dithering and procastinating on anti doping while its actually becoming more extreme in doping?

 

[Sylvia]

Geheimsache Doping - Russlands Täuschungsmanöver. The ARD film in 3 parts can be watched here http://trackandfield.bplaced.net/20...nds-taeuschungsmanoever-teil-3-am-06-03-2016/
I am very sorry because my English is very limited and I can not translate it.

Thank you for the link. I just found the 3rd part of the ARD documentary in English (28 minutes):
Doping: Top secret - Russia's red herrings [english version]
Published on Mar 8, 2016 - 3rd part of the documentary series about doping in athletics in ARD/WDR German TV (original german title: Geheimsache Doping: Russlands Täuschungsmanöver).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XGVKE3yrXs

 

[caseyedwards]

When is the action to ban all russian athletes going to be taken?!

 

[Sylvia]

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2016.../10reuters-sport-doping-athletics-russia.html

MONACO — The IAAF Council is awaiting news on Friday of Russia's progress in reforming its anti-doping operation when a negative report from the governing body's task force would likely leave the country's involvement in the Olympics hanging by a thread.
...
It will be delivered by Norwegian Rune Andersen, a former director of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and leader of the five-person task force given the job of discovering whether Russia is showing signs of reform following its suspension from athletics in November in the wake of a WADA commission report that exposed an extensive state-sponsored doping program.

 

[caseyedwards]

Lol. Russia is not going to be in Rio in any sport. Its going to be an extrmely stridently negative progress report.

 

[Sylvia]

http://www.bbc.com/sport/athletics/35784749

Russia will find out in May if it can send athletes to Rio 2016, while five more nations are in "critical care", says IAAF president Lord Coe.
Russia's athletics federation was suspended by the sport's world governing body in November after being accused of "state-sponsored" doping.
A taskforce, set up by Coe, said Russia has made "considerable progress" but there is "significant work to be done".
Ethiopia, Morocco, Ukraine, Kenya and Belarus are also under scrutiny.

ETA: http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/mar/11/russia-work-to-do-rio-2016-olympics-sebastian-coe
Excerpts:

The Guardian understands that the five countries named on a new watch list – Kenya, Morocco, Ethiopia, Ukraine and Belarus – could be banned from competition themselves, underlining the depth of the doping crisis facing the sport. Those nations have been given until November to improve their systems and their participation in the Rio games is not in jeopardy.

He [Coe] also said the independent IAAF task force would consider a request by Yulia Stepanova, the whistleblower whose undercover work informed the German documentary that blew the lid off the Russian doping scandal, to appear at the Rio Games.
Rune Andersen, head of the task force charged with deciding whether Russia should be welcomed back to international competition after Wada’s damning verdict in November, said culture change in Russian athletics could take years.

 

[poths]

sources have been accurate to date. I'm glad people can now see that doping in this skating is very REAL, but I'm more interested in potential emails outlining Sochi results, prior to Sochi. Far more damning to this sport in my opinion than the positive tests (with more to come).

 

[troika]

Reviving this thread 3+ months later due to the Bobrova/Sharapova revelations that broke on Monday, March 7...

WADA: 'Much, much work' still to be done on Russian doping (AP article):
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/09a5...ys-it-will-investigate-new-doping-allegations

ETA link to an AP article (Feb. 21): Russian doping official planned book before sudden death

When I read this news I did not realize at first that I knew Nikita Kamaev (Russian doping official) - he was classmate of my friend and I even have a picture with him some XX years ago!!!

 

[Sylvia]

It definitely begins with T&F but it's repercussions are far reaching; including statements such as - Russian state security officers were masquerading as engineers in the Sochi WADA accredited lab. This obviously opens up the entire Winter Olympics to scrutiny. Whilst the true narrative will inevitably take time to unravel, there seems to be a genuine effort to weed out the corruption. My issue thus far is the rhetoric that this begins and ends with Russia and that cheating is restricted to PEDs. Not the case. However, I have (some) faith that story will unfold further towards the truth

So... 6 months later, this follow-up: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/russian-doping-at-sochi-winter-olympics-exposed/

A Russian whistleblower has information that at least four of Russia's gold medal winners at the Sochi Winter Olympics were on steroids. Vitaly Stepanov reveals this in an interview with Armen Keteyian to be broadcast on 60 Minutes Sunday, May 8 at 7 p.m. ET/PT. <snip>
Vitaly and Yuliya have taken refuge here in the U.S. in fear of retaliation. Another exile in the U.S. for the same reason is Grigory Rodchenkov, who ran Russia's drug testing lab. No one knows more about doping in Russia than Rodchenkov, who says he could make positive test results disappear. Vitaly began Skyping with him and recorded the conversations.

Rodchenkov told Stepanov that Russian Intelligence Officers, or FSB agents, helped Russia cheat at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. "FSB tried to control every single step of the anti-doping process in Sochi," says Vitaly. He says Rodchenkov told him he has the "Sochi List" of Russians who competed there on steroids, four of whom he said were gold medal winners.

The 15 non-figure skating Russian gold medalists from Sochi were:
Short track speed skating (4): Viktor Ahn (2 golds), Semion Elistratov, Vladimir Grigoriev, Ruslan Zakharov
2 & 4-man Bobsleigh (4): Aleksandr Zubkov (2 golds), Alexey Voyevoda (2 golds), Dmitry Trunenkov, Alexey Negodaylo
Men's Biathlon (4): Alexey Volkov, Evgeny Ustyugov, Dmitry Malyshko, Anton Shipulin
Cross country skiing: Alexander Legkov
Skeleton: Alexander Tretiakov
Snowboarding: Vic Wild (2 golds)

ETA: I didn't list the 11 Russian figure skating gold medalists because we know who they are and I'm hoping none of them are involved in doping.

 

[snowbird]

My apologies if this is redundant. Sixty minutes on Mother's Day.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/cbs-report-russian-gold-medalists-used-steroids-sochi-042528099--spt.html

 

[Sylvia]

Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko's response to the upcoming 60 Minutes report: http://tass.ru/en/sport/874486

"This will continue for a long time," Mutko said. "Stepanov is riding his hobby-horse again. He will endlessly talk about doping in Russian sports. This was in the first film (German TV Channel ARD’s documentary entitled Geheimsache Doping - Secret Doping Case) and appeared in later films. All his so-called revelations are based on speculations and are being actively distributed," he added. <snip>
"Soon our athletes will have to perform at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. It is obvious that someone wants to harm Russian sports.

ETA:

April 21, 2016 AP article: http://summergames.ap.org/article/iaaf-expected-rule-russian-athletes-fate-june

The IAAF council is expected to rule on the fate of Russian track and field at its next meeting in June.
The IAAF said in a statement on Thursday that its council will be convened on June 17 in Vienna, Austria, for a full-day meeting. <snip>
If Russia is reinstated, the IAAF has insisted that individual Russian athletes will only be allowed to compete at the Olympics if they have been tested at least three times in the preceding six months.

 

[Cachoo]

Please no figure skaters....this guy must be scared out of his wits if he skedaddled to the US.

 

[Willin]

Ugh, Mutko is either in serious denial or in serious PR mode. The case of Meldonium may have produced some results that were later overturned due to problems with the testing, but there were still a few results that were positive outside of any residual amount. How does he explain the violations at their lab outside of the accusations from insiders? How does he explain the other samples tested positive in T&F that are threatening their place in Rio?

I just don't get this at all. Own up to it and say you're going to fix it/punish athletes who have been caught like they do in most other countries. It's not that hard. At least say you're "reviewing the evidence" or "doing an investigation" instead of blaming everything on other people. If you can't even say that, keep your mouth shut or deny to comment.

This just makes Mutko look worse. Like how dumb do you have to be to believe that every case of doping found in your athletes, even obvious clusters among certain athletes, are due entirely to some external sabotage? It's hard to believe Mutko's that dumb, so it just makes it look like he's lying through his teeth.

Sabotage on such a massive scale would take way too much effort. The people who "want to harm Russian sports" would have to tamper with ONLY Russian/Eastern European samples (Russian & WADA & Sport-Specific) if he thinks the samples are tampered with. That would take way too much time and effort to not be noticed. If the claim is that they sabotaged instruments of measurement, they would have to gain access to these pretty secure labs and then somehow manipulate scientific instruments to only give bad results to people from Russia/Eastern Europe while giving accurate results to the rest of the 1000s of samples they test a year. If he thinks someone managed to drug a significant number of Russian athletes with performance enhancing drugs - how? Not that many athletes would let someone not in their medical team or training staff inject them with something or give them a pill. If the sabotage came from the inside, how did the perpetrator get that position and why would they want to risk their career to sabotage even one athlete? How did they get access to athletes from multiples sports at multiple training centers? All of this talk of sabotage just makes me find another way that explanation on that scale is entirely impractical.

 

[caseyedwards]

When will russia be banned from rio and all its medals from sochi be revoked and maybe a permanent ban from the olympics. Its the only thing that makes sense.

 

[Cachoo]

Vitaly Stepanov is very brave and so honorable. I know it took guts for his wife Yulija to come forward. I hope they remain safe.

 

[Sylvia]

Re-posting from the TV Alerts thread:

No names of any Russian Sochi gold medalists alleged to have doped were revealed tonight in the 60 Minutes report.

Link to the 60 Minutes transcript: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-russian-doping-at-sochi-winter-olympics-exposed/

 

[caseyedwards]

They didnt the name the dopers but its silly because they also say all russians in sochi were doping. What was said multiple times? "All russians are on pharma"? So IOC really has to ban Russia from rio and revoke all the medals from sochi- at least.

 

[Sylvia]

Sochi Olympics doping claims meant to derail WADA meetings: Russian sports minister [Mutko] (May 9th AFP article): http://sports.yahoo.com/news/sochi-...eant-derail-wada-meetings-163430648--oly.html

A statement published Monday by the Russian sports ministry said that Moscow was "certain about the transparency of doping control during the Olympic Games".
"In addition to Russian specialists, doping control stations also employed foreign experts," the statement said. "Furthermore, a team of independent observers managed the doping control operations on a daily basis during the Games."

This is a longer version of the May 10th Reuters article that I posted in the related TV Alerts thread:
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/20...vitaly-stepanov-wada-russian-doping-athletics
Excerpts:

[WADA president] Reedie later acknowledged the role whistleblowers have had in exposing the alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs, while pointing to the increase in Wada’s powers in the last 18 months.
“There is no question that the Stepanovs provided vital information and intelligence that allowed the commission to be established; and, without which, widespread doping in Russian athletics may never have truly been exposed,” he said.
“What may have appeared as inaction reflected the fact that, until the revised World Anti-Doping Code came into effect on January 1, 2015, Wada did not have the power to conduct its own investigations. At the time, the agency was only able to collect information and pass it on to those that did have the power to investigate, in this case, the Russian authorities.
“Wada believes that passing the whistleblowers’ information on to the Russian authorities would not have resulted in the required scrutiny.”

Based on the Wada commission report, the International Association of Athletics Federations suspended Russian athletics from international competition, including the Rio Olympics. The IAAF council will decide on 17 June whether to reinstate Russia and allow its athletics team to compete in Rio. The council also is expected to take up the request by Stepanov’s wife Yuliya, who served a two-year doping ban, to compete in Rio.

Whistleblower Stepanova hoping to compete at Rio 2016 as an independent or refugee athlete (March 6 article): http://www.insidethegames.biz/artic...rio-2016-as-an-independent-or-refugee-athlete

 

[caseyedwards]

Because she was involved in the Russian sports program recently she should be banned for rio and maybe more. Just like Russia as a country.

 

[Garden Kitty]

NY Times article on the allegations

 

[Sylvia]

I started a new thread with the NYT article (due to its very substantial details): http://www.fsuniverse.net/forum/ind...s-state-run-doping-fueled-olympic-gold.98596/

Thanks for posting the link, @Garden Kitty!

 

[Sylvia]

Rio 2016: Russia [Mutko] 'sorry' for cheats but should be allowed to compete: http://www.bbc.com/sport/athletics/36295481

Russia is "very sorry" and "ashamed" of cheating athletes who were not caught by its anti-doping systems, the country's sports minister has said.
Russia was banned from international competition after a damning report by the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada).
But Vitaly Mutko argued not lifting the ban for the 2016 Rio Olympics would be "unfair and disproportionate" and that clean athletes should not be punished.
They will have been rigorously tested by Rio, he wrote in the [London] Sunday Times.