Agence France-Presse
Montreal, May 13: The prospect of Russian and Kenyan athletes being barred from the Olympics gathered momentum as a tidal wave of doping sleaze engulfed both countries with just three months to go before the Rio Games.
Kenya was plunged into crisis after the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) ruled at a meeting here Thursday that the African nation’s drug-testing body had breached strict international rules. It was declared ‘non-compliant with immediate effect’ by Rene Bouchard, chairman of WADA’s compliance review committee (CRC).
But even as WADA conducted its board meeting here, a fresh round of revelations about drugs at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi erupted in the ‘New York Times’.
It quoted the former head of Russia’s anti-doping laboratory as stating that dozens of Russian athletes, including 15 medallists, were involved in a successful plot to evade drug-testers.
The laboratory director Grigory Rodchenkov, detailed how athletes were given a three-drug cocktail of performance-enhancing substances combined with alcohol to boost absorption.
Up to 100 tainted urine samples were replaced with clean ones collected months before, with samples passed through a hole in a lab wall at night.
“We were fully equipped, knowledgeable, experienced and perfectly prepared for Sochi like never before,” Rodchenkov was quoted as saying. “It was working like a Swiss watch.” Russia topped the table in Sochi with 33 medals, including 13 Olympic titles.
Rodchenkov moved to the United States following his resignation after WADA’s initial report into Russian doping was released in November.
In February, after his departure, two of Rodchenkov’s former anti-doping colleagues in Russia died unexpectedly.
The ‘New York Times report’ also alleged that Russian officials involved in the plot had found a way to access supposedly tamper-proof containers used to collect urine samples without anyone knowing. The IOC called on WADA to investigate the claims.
“These allegations are very detailed and very worrying and we ask the WADA to investigate immediately,” an IOC spokesman said here Thursday. The chief of WADA Sir Craig Reedie stated that the body will start investigations immediately.
In Moscow, Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko described the latest allegations of systematic doping as ‘absurd’. “I think that the guys (accused by the ‘New York Times’) are exceptional athletes, the accusations are absurd,” Mutko said in comments cited by Russian news agency ‘TASS’. “The charges against them are baseless.”