What's Old Is New Again...The Sports Edition

Whenever I hear of athletes abusing steroids and other such performance-enhancing drugs [PEDs], one of the first things that comes to mind is “East German swimmers.”  I was almost fourteen years old when the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games took place.  Besides Nadia Comenici’s perfection in gymnastics, for me the enduring image of those games is the female swimmers from East Germany.  They were bigger, stronger, and faster than anybody else in the pool.  American swimmers, Shirley Babashoff being the most outspoken of the bunch, complained of being at a competitive disadvantage.  The East German girls were built like men, they sounded like men, and they dominated.  Something was just not quite right.  But the Americans were labelled as “sore losers.”  Then the Berlin Wall came down, and all of East Germany’s dirty little secrets about doping all their athletes were no longer secret.  It turns out the grapes weren’t so sour after all.  

During the Cold War international sports competitions were but one of the stages where countries on both sides of the Iron Curtain competed to demonstrated the superiority of their respective political systems.  To insure their “superiority”, Eastern bloc nations, notably the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic [DDR, or East Germany for short] had state-instituted doping regimes for their athletes. The DDR’s Stasi drugged more than 10,000 athletes with performance-enhancing substances, some of them without their knowledge.  East German athletes under the age of eighteen were given “little blue pills” and told they were taking “vitamins”.  Older athletes were sworn to secrecy about their “supplements”.  The East German authorities cared nothing for the side effects these drugs might have on their athletes.  The athletes were considered to be soldiers in the Cold War struggle against the capitalist West and were seen as expendable.  It was a Faustian bargain for the athletes.  Medal-winning performances resulted in certain perks – money, better living conditions, and better cars and other goods than what was afforded to the “proletariat”.  But the price they paid was steep.  These athletes have had myriad health problems.  Some died young, others had miscarriages, stillbirths and children with birth defects.  Others suffer from depression, cancer, liver damage, and damage to their endocrine and cardiovascular systems.  

So why do I bring up past PED abuse by countries that no longer exist?  In keeping with the theme of “what is old is new again”, there’s a huge controversy involving the current crop of Russian athletes and PED abuse.  Last year the German broadcaster ARD entitled “Top Secret Doping: How Russia Makes Its Winners.”  After this exposé aired, the World Anti-Doping Agency [WADA] established an Independent Commission to conduct an inquiry into the allegations made in the German broadcast.  Last November the IC released its findings.  The report is as detailed as it is damning.  Violations reported include [but are not restricted to] and are quoted verbatim from the report:  

Within the scope of this investigation, there is clear evidence of a “Systemic Culture of Doping in Russian Sport” perpetuated, in part, although not exclusively, through coaches and administrators, whose collective actions at times extended beyond mere administrative violations into potentially criminal acts.  

Evidence of extensive PED use is supported and confirmed by audio and video evidence.  It is also documented by witness statements that corroborate the original allegations of the German television documentary and which provide further details regarding the extensive use of PEDs and blood doping within the Russian federation.  

This network created an atmosphere in which an athlete’s choice was frequently limited to accepting the prescribed and mandated doping regimen or not being a member of the national team.  

The coaches wrongfully encouraged their athletes, or athletes chose to believe that all other nations were following similar illicit training methods, thereby creating a self-justification that ‘sport doping’ and the non-enforcement of violations were competitive necessities and perhaps even patriotic obligations.  

The IC investigation found overwhelming evidence against a number of senior national team coaches who were involved in collusion to illicitly obtain details of suspicious ABP testing results against their athletes. Such conduct demonstrates an embedded and institutionalized process designed to secure winning at any cost.  

On the secret whistleblower recordings, coaches discussed with athletes, in their own words, how ABP testing can be circumvented, the problems ARAF has had with preventing ABP from capturing violations of their athletes and what they can do about it in the future, including the suggestion of administering newly developed PEDs that will escape detection.   

Athletes under current anti-doping sanctions were allowed to compete during the period of the sanctions, contrary to a specific Code prohibition.  

There was collusion between the President of ARAF and the laboratory Director Rodchenkov to conceal positive drug tests by swapping clean samples for known dirty “A” samples at the Moscow lab.  Athletes paid both the President and the Director for the benefit of such services.  

Interviews with athletes and secret recordings led to the finding that within Athletics, (which is the only sport that the IC was mandated to investigate) there were a series of high-level individuals involved, who, for monetary payments, conspired to conceal positive doping samples, leading to the conclusion that there was likely a system in Russia for cover-ups in doping.  

The Deputy Director General of the Russian Federal Research Center of Physical Culture and Sports (VNIIFK) provided banned substances to Russian athletes and was very active in the conspiracy to cover-up athletes’ positive tests in exchange for a percentage of their winnings.  

Russian law enforcement agencies were involved in the efforts to interfere with the integrity of the samples.  

Deliberate efforts were made to stretch the time between notice and the provision of samples for analysis, to provide opportunity for obstructive actions in relation to the tests.  

Coaches were complicit in attempting to prevent access to athletes for testing, thereby obstructing the doping control process.  

The IC determined that there were many occasions on which Russian athletes participating in athletics were given advance notice of proposed out-of-competition tests and were thus able to avoid being tested or take steps to render the tests ineffective.  

The IC found examples of the use of false identities for purposes of evading testing.  

RUSADA DCOs [Doping Control Officers] routinely accept bribes from the athletes, thereby ensuring that the doping control test will not be effective.  

The Moscow laboratory is not operationally independent from RUSADA or the Ministry of Sport.  Its impartiality, judgment and integrity were compromised by the surveillance of the FSB within the laboratory during the Sochi Winter Olympic Games.  

The apprehension of surveillance by the staff in the Moscow laboratory caused by FSB representatives regularly visiting the laboratory and weekly discussions occurring between the Moscow laboratory Director and the Russian Security service affect the impartiality, judgment and integrity of the laboratory.  

The IC concludes that there was direct intimidation and interference by the Russian state with the Moscow laboratory operations.  

Why is there such pervasive doping in Russia?  It starts at the top.  Sport is part and parcel of Vladimir Putin’s image.  In contrast to his old, often inebriated and decrepit predecessor Boris Yeltsin, Putin portrays himself as a man of action.  Photos of Putin the Manly Man are all over the internet.  He can be seen swimming the butterfly in frigid waters, playing hockey, sparring with judo partners, fishing, hunting, and riding horseback bare-chested, flying airplanes, driving race cars, riding motorcycles, etc.  You get the picture.  But there’s more than just Putin’s image at stake.  He sees his tenure as Russian president as a return of Russia to “great power” status.  When the Soviet Union was a great power, it was regularly at the top of medal tables in the Olympics and other international sports competitions.  The Soviet Union enjoyed the prestige of being a major sports power.  Putin wants that prestige for Russia.  He has been able to attract major sporting events to Russia – 2013 World Track and Field championships in Moscow, the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics and the 2018 FIFA World Cup.  In 2014 the Russian Formula 1 Gran Prix resumed in Sochi after a 100-year absence.  Events such as these give Putin’s regime legitimacy in the eyes of the international community.  There’s another benefit for the regime.  The construction projects that go with these events give Putin’s cronies more opportunities to plunder the Russian treasury, while they provide Putin “services” as thanks in return.  That’s just one of the ways the system works in Russia – as long as the oligarchs stay out of politics and support the Collective Putin, they get to keep what they steal.  

After publication of the Independent Committee’s report, the International Association of Athletics Federations [IAAF] banned Russian track and field athletes from international competitions over which it has jurisdiction.  The 2016 Rio Olympics is one such competition.  The IAAF is expected to rule next month whether to lift the Russian team’s suspension.  International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said that if WADA “prove the allegations true, it would represent a shocking new dimension in doping with an, until now, unprecedented level of criminality.”  Bach also suggested the entire Russian Olympic team could be banned from Rio.  Such a thing is unheard of for competition violations.  But it is a sign of the times that such an action is being contemplated, much less discussed publicly.  This discussion would not have happened during the Soviet era.  If the IOC takes action to ban Russia from the Rio Games, this would be a huge blow to Vladimir Putin’s quest for enhanced prestige.  “Great powers” don’t get banned from the Olympics.  Russia would become an international athletics pariah like South Africa was during the time of apartheid.  

A quote from a senior representative of the IAAF Anti-Doping department is in the report:  

“To be frank there is no surprise to anybody that the former Soviet Union countries have a doping culture deeply incurred [sic] in the sport. It works for Russia, it works for Ukraine, works for Belarus, for Kazakhstan, works for all the former Soviet Union countries.”  

What is old is definitely new again…