Systemic doping of Russian athletes during the 2014 Sochi Olympics was facilitated with the help of the country’s internal intelligence agency and through the replacement of urine samples, the New York Times reported on Thursday.
Based on interviews with Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, then director of Russia’s anti-doping laboratory, the Times reported that as many as 100 dirty urine samples were replaced through a process that involved a man believed to be an officer with the Federal Security Service (FSB) breaking into bottles thought to be tamper-proof and replacing urine collected after competition with clean urine collected months earlier when the athletes were not doping.
Rodchenkov has been living in Los Angeles since an independent commission report by the World Anti-Doping Agency in November concluded he’d helped lead a state-sponsored doping program with the track and field team by destroying urine samples and covering up positive tests.
Speaking to the media for the first time since the report’s release, Rodchenkov told the Times he created a cocktail of three anabolic steroids, which helped athletes recover and compete at a high level for successive days. He dissolved the drugs in alcohol, speeding up absorption and shortening the detection window. Rodchenkov told the Times that he gave that to many top-level athletes before the 2012 Summer Olympics in London and before the Sochi Games.
Once samples were collected, a colleague of Rodchenkov’s would pass samples through a hole in the wall between the sample collection room and a storage room that was concealed by a small cabinet, he told the Times. He would give the sealed bottles to a man he believed was an FSB officer, who would return them unlocked.
According to the Times, that man gave Rodchenkov clean urine collected before the athlete started doping and he used that to replace the tainted sample.
Rodchenkov provided the Times with a spreadsheet naming the athletes who were in the doping program that he said was given to him by the sports ministry before the Olympics. Medal winners, who are automatically tested at the Olympics, were to have their samples substituted.
“People are celebrating Olympic champion winners, but we are sitting crazy and replacing their urine,” Rodchenkov told the Times. “Can you imagine how Olympic sport is organized?”
Russia led the medal count in Sochi with 33 medals, 13 of them gold, but a third of those medals went to athletes named in the spreadsheet.
The Times did not name all of those athletes — and pointed out athletes named in the spreadsheet also did not win medals — but said they included bobsledder Alexander Zubkov, who won two gold medals; cross country skier Alexander Legkov, who won gold and silver; and skeleton athlete Alexander Tretyakov, who won gold.
In advance of the Times’ report, Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko called a news conference on Wednesday and told reporters from TASS, a state-run news agency, that the accusations were baseless.
Based on interviews with Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, then director of Russia’s anti-doping laboratory, the Times reported that as many as 100 dirty urine samples were replaced through a process that involved a man believed to be an officer with the Federal Security Service (FSB) breaking into bottles thought to be tamper-proof and replacing urine collected after competition with clean urine collected months earlier when the athletes were not doping.
Rodchenkov has been living in Los Angeles since an independent commission report by the World Anti-Doping Agency in November concluded he’d helped lead a state-sponsored doping program with the track and field team by destroying urine samples and covering up positive tests.
Speaking to the media for the first time since the report’s release, Rodchenkov told the Times he created a cocktail of three anabolic steroids, which helped athletes recover and compete at a high level for successive days. He dissolved the drugs in alcohol, speeding up absorption and shortening the detection window. Rodchenkov told the Times that he gave that to many top-level athletes before the 2012 Summer Olympics in London and before the Sochi Games.
Once samples were collected, a colleague of Rodchenkov’s would pass samples through a hole in the wall between the sample collection room and a storage room that was concealed by a small cabinet, he told the Times. He would give the sealed bottles to a man he believed was an FSB officer, who would return them unlocked.
According to the Times, that man gave Rodchenkov clean urine collected before the athlete started doping and he used that to replace the tainted sample.
Rodchenkov provided the Times with a spreadsheet naming the athletes who were in the doping program that he said was given to him by the sports ministry before the Olympics. Medal winners, who are automatically tested at the Olympics, were to have their samples substituted.
“People are celebrating Olympic champion winners, but we are sitting crazy and replacing their urine,” Rodchenkov told the Times. “Can you imagine how Olympic sport is organized?”
Russia led the medal count in Sochi with 33 medals, 13 of them gold, but a third of those medals went to athletes named in the spreadsheet.
The Times did not name all of those athletes — and pointed out athletes named in the spreadsheet also did not win medals — but said they included bobsledder Alexander Zubkov, who won two gold medals; cross country skier Alexander Legkov, who won gold and silver; and skeleton athlete Alexander Tretyakov, who won gold.
In advance of the Times’ report, Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko called a news conference on Wednesday and told reporters from TASS, a state-run news agency, that the accusations were baseless.