Russian athletes, state accused of obstructing drug tests

The 23-page report, which has been passed on to the IAAF Council to digest ahead of tomorrow’s meeting – when the IAAF will decide if Russian athletes can compete in Rio – laid bare damning statistics to suggest Russia has not done enough to tackle doping since it was banned from global competition in the wake of the first WADA independent commission report in November.

WADA said in a report more than 736 tests of Russian athletes had been declined or cancelled between February 15 and May 29 for a variety of reasons, including intimidation of testers and threats of expulsion from the country.

Russian Federation will learn on Friday, June 17, 2016 if its track and field athletes will be allowed to compete at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, as more damning evidence of doping irregularities pour in.

At the Russian National Walking Championship on February 27, 15 athletes mysteriously did not start, withdrew or were disqualified, the report said. However, their findings and report will bear a significant weight in the decision-making of International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF).

Russia’s track and field team now is suspended from worldwide competition, a penalty the IAAF imposed last November, after a previous WADA investigation found widespread drug cheating among the nation’s track athletes.

A blanket ban on all of Russia’s track and field athletes would be unjust to those who have never been implicated in doping and have passed a certain number of tests, the Russians argued’.

The IAAF suspended Russian Federation previous year over concerns its athletes were guilty of systematic doping.

How far are Russian athletes willing to go to cheat?

The Wada update revealed several examples of widespread efforts to avoid testing, including one detailed instance where an athlete tried to use a container inserted inside her body that presumably contained clean urine. The report said testers were routinely intimidated by Russia’s FSB security service and that packages containing samples have been tampered with by Russian customs officials.

The Russian Olympic Committee has said 22 of the cases involved Russian athletes, including medalists.

In another incident, the entire Russian under-18 team at the Hockey World Championships were withdrawn en bloc and replaced by the under-17 team, reportedly due to use of the banned drug meldonium. It has no authority to administer drug tests or conduct investigations, is funded by the very sporting bodies it is supposed to be policing, and is run by members of the IOC, the same people who benefit greatly from the Olympic Games presenting a clean and drug-free image.

In its report, WADA concluded that Russian athletes continued to fail drug tests and obstruct doping control officers. “A lot of credibility is at stake for the Russians, the IAAF and the IOC”. As the outgoing Wada director general, David Howman, said recently: “The problem is that you have to change the culture, from top to bottom”.