Sport has, both before and after the collapse of communism in the early 1990s, had a very special status and role in Russia. This is not least due to President Vlademir Putin’s strong personal passion for sport, which he has used as an essential weapon to strengthen himself and his political project of a united Russia over the past two decades. And not least, Putin has through international sports events, which include The World Cup 2013 in athletics, the Winter Olympics 2014, the World Cup 2015 in swimming and most recently the World Cup 2018 in football used sport to position Russia internationally. Far down the road is Putin, who, among other things, has a black belt in judo and still plays ice hockey, succeeds in using sport as an internal and external “weapon”, but a state-run doping program and the subsequent exclusions from the 2016 Olympics, the 2018 Winter Olympics and the upcoming two Olympic Games – the 2021 and Winter Olympics – The 2022 Olympics have also been – and continue to be – a serious threat to Putin’s national project and Russia’s international reputation. Only Russian athletes who can prove that they have not been part of the state doping program are allowed to participate in international sporting events under a neutral flag.
One of the “sons of the homeland” turned his back on Russia
The state-controlled doping system is the main theme of the book: «The Rodchenkov Affair. How I Brought Down Putin’s Secret Doping Empire’ (Ebury Publishing, London, UK, 2020), which has just been published. The author of the book is Dr. Grigory Rodschenhov, who in the period 2006-2015 was director of Russia’s only World Anti-Doping Agency-accredited laboratory. The 61-year-old Rodchenkov, who has a PhD in chemistry from Moscow University, chose to flee Russia to the United States at the beginning of 2016, after WADA’s independent commission had come forward with several accusations against Rodchenkov over a long period of time, Among other things, disposal and destruction of 1,417 doping samples from the 2014 Winter Olympics and blackmailing Russian athletes to hide their positive test results. Rodchenkov feared for his safety in Russia and he lives today – 4 years later – hidden under the US witness protection program. Two of Rodchenkov’s closest employees from the “Anti-doping laboratory” in Moscow died unexpectedly in the months after the doping scandal started.
A deadly “cocktail”
After his escape from Russia, Rodchenkov, partly through interviews with the media, partly as a participant in the Netflix documentary Icarus and partly in testimony for the McLaren report, has been extremely open about his central role in Russia’s systematic state doping. In particular, the Mc-Laren report, which was an independent investigation commissioned by WADA, contains detailed information that the Russian Security Police (FSB) actively participated in the cover-up of positive doping tests of more than 1,000 Russian athletes from more than 30 different sports, both summer -, winter and para sports. The McLaren report also found that the Moscow laboratory under Rodchenkov’s leadership operated under state control and that employees of the Moscow laboratory were required to be part of the state system that enabled Russian athletes to compete and, not least, win the Olympics and World Championships -medals via the use of doping substances. The biggest fraud was carried out in connection with the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sojti, where Rodchenkov acted during the day as the internationally recognized head of the anti-doping laboratory, but at night was the mastermind behind a gigantic fraud. Rodchenkov used his professional knowledge as a chemist to develop a “cocktail” consisting of three anabolic steroids – oxandrolone, methenolone and trenbolone – which he mixed with alcohol and “delivered” to a large number of Russian athletes. The “cocktail” had to be swirled around in the mouth a few times before it was spit out. The banned substances were dissolved in the alcohol and absorbed through the oral cavity. At the same time, a special list was prepared of athletes whose doping samples were to be automatically exchanged for their own clean urine stored in the “FSB Command Center” in Sochi. Agents from the Russian security police manage to find a method to open and re-close the test tubes that would normally be impossible to manipulate. Before the Olympics, a hole had been drilled in the wall of the doping laboratory, which was under strict control by WADA and a number of international doping experts. And during the Olympics, the urine samples of the Russian athletes were smuggled out at night by a secret agent disguised as a plumber and to the nearby headquarters of the security police, which was located in the same building complex. Rodchenkov was, both in 2014 and today, convinced that the “cocktail” helped to improve the Russian athletes’ final percentages in the hunt for Olympic medals on home soil in Sochi.
Doping – also a family matter
The new book adds a number of new information about state doping in Russia and not least Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov’s role in the “system”. The book also contains exciting chapters about Rodchenkov’s childhood and youth as a talented middle-distance runner and not least his first experiences with the use of doping as a 22-year-old student at Moscow. Rodchenkov especially received advice and guidance from his mother, who worked as a doctor in a hospital in Moscow, where she, among other things, procured ampoules with nandrolone – a growth hormone which was widely used by athletes from especially Eastern Bloc countries such as the Soviet Union and the GDR. The book also contains exciting reading about Rodchenkov’s career within the Russian Olympic Committee and his “collaboration” on the use of illegal drugs with his sister – Marina Rodchenkova – who was convicted and imprisoned in 2012 for the purchase and sale of prohibited drugs. Rodchenkov tells, among other things, in the book that he was not jailed by Russian authorities in 2012 because they had “earmarked” him for doping the “athletes of the motherland” at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
New law in the US could “turn upside down” on power relations in international elite sports
The book has been published at a particularly interesting time, when the US Senate is facing the adoption of a special law – “The Rodchenko Anti-Doping Act (RADA) – which will give the US authorities unprecedented control over international sports – to the great displeasure of both the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). In autumn 2019, RADA was adopted by the House of Representatives and if it is also adopted in the Senate, RADA must then be signed by President Donald Trump before it is officially repealed into law. The purpose of the law is to prosecute persons, organizations and companies – including sponsors – who have knowledge of and/or participate in the doping of athletes – American and non-American – in major international sports competition through the use of prohibited substances or methods. The law applies to all major international sports competitions in which American athletes participate and where the organizers receive sponsorship from companies doing business in the United States. The law’s penalties include fines of up to $1 million or imprisonment of up to 10 years, depending on the offense. Individual athletes who test positive for doping will not be penalized under the law, but athletes who believe they have been cheated by competing athletes or others involved in state-sponsored doping can bring civil lawsuits against them. The IOC and WADA see “The Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act” as a very big threat to the “autonomy” and sovereignty of the international organizations, which in their view should be “above” national laws and legal systems.
The Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) is currently considered non-compliant with WADA’s guidelines and code. But RUSADA has appealed a 4-year exclusion from, among other things. the Olympic Games and world championships in selected sports, to the international sports court – “Court of Arbitration for Sport” (CAS). More major political dramas await in the coming months – with Putin and Trump in the background… or the front line.
