Le Monde | • Updated | By
A DCO leaving his Moscow hotel through the window to escape his police guard and send samples Lausanne; sports ransomed by their coach; Moscow’s anti-doping laboratory tapping of secret services; of the ex-KGB agents disguised as engineers in the same institute … This is not the scenario of the latest installment of James Bond but the reality of the Russian athletics today.
The report of the independent commission set up by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), presented Monday, November 9, confirmed the existence in Russia of a state doping. The department recommends the suspension of the Russian Athletics Federation and the end of the accreditation for the anti-doping laboratory in Moscow, leading the Russian Anti-Doping Agency. Moreover, life in Committee requests the suspension of five Russian athletes whose Mariya Savinova, Olympic champion in the 800 m. The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), she issued an ultimatum to Russia, which has until the end of the week to face charges. The country faces a temporary suspension or even miss the 2016 Olympics
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Top 300 page report, which is only a first step in the huge task of purifying the world athletics entrusted to this commission, cast a shadow over all of Russian sports performance and results of the London Games, in 2012 and Sochi in 2014. They in turn could affect the 2018 World Cup football, attributed to Russia and whose chairman of the organizing committee is none other than the sports minister Vitaly Mutko appointed like “accomplice” system.
The operation of the Russian athletics was already widely known since the revelations of the German ARD television on a systemic doping, there is almost ‘one year. But what investigators of the independent commission have since discovered is “worse than expected” said its president Richard Pound.
“authorities of Consent”
The involvement of the Russian state is notably evidenced by testimonials attesting to the pressures imposed by the sports ministry and the FSB, former KGB, the doping control operations to allow sports Russian to continue to prepare medically without fear of suspension. “Our conclusion is that this would have been possible without that the authorities are aware of and do not give their consent, implicit or explicit,” said former WADA President . during a press conference in Geneva
Asked about the relevance of the formula “State doping” Pound added: “If by that we mean to consent and authorize r [doping] yes, there is no other possible conclusion. “
The expression is fraught with meaning in athletics, sports bars to still soiled by the performance of anabolic doped athletes of the Eastern bloc in the 1980s An era when referred the former Olympic swimmer, considering that the involvement, active or passive, in Moscow in the doping of its champions was “a legacy of the era of the Cold War” .
As in Soviet times and in the GDR, Russian athletes were, says the commission, faced with a choice: to dope or quit the national team. Cheating and circumvention of anti-doping rules were presented as “necessary for competition and maybe even patriotic obligations” .
The athletes were under pressure from their coaches, and the laboratory of Moscow under that of the FSB. A Secret Service agent frequently visited doping laboratory accredited by WADA, which controls the samples of major competitions held in Russia, the IAAF World Championships in Athletics (2013), the Winter Games in Sochi and championships Swimming World (2015).
Phones bugged
This agent, named Yevgeny Blotkine, met once a week the laboratory director, Grigory Rodchenkov, particularly in order to be kept informed of “mood WADA” . An employee of the laboratory has reported phones tapped, another reported the presence of cookies placed by the FSB in the offices. Although the independent commission was unable to verify these statements, they reflect the feeling of oppression of the laboratory, frequently interrogated by the secret services and discouraged from responding to WADA.
The surveillance was particularly felt during the Sochi Olympics, which saw Russia finish in medal table of the head (33, including 13 gold) and FSB agents disguise themselves as lab engineers: “We do not have strong evidence that samples [Sochi Olympics] were handled, but it is difficult to see what interest the Russian state can find athletes urine, “ quipped . Mr. Pound
The Laboratory Director, Dr. Rodchenkov, was at the heart of the doping cloaking device and drew personal profit, according to several testimonies: the athletes paid to clear positive controls. He acknowledged having destroyed 1417 samples three days before an inspection visit of the Commission in December 2014, to prevent the WADA practice new tests.
This explosive report does not concern the athletics alone nor Russia alone. But it is especially the sport and its second power. The presence of Russian athletes at the Olympics in Rio in nine months, would send a disastrous message. Yet it is a risk because the commission did not recommend the banning of Russia for a specific period. The IAAF, which has already launched the procedure of suspension could rise before the August if it considers the conditions met. A perspective that is not offended Monday, Mr. Pound, yet considered the least lax players in the fight against doping.
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