The report from the independent commission of the World Anti-Doping Agency on drug abuse in Russian athletics "is devastating," according to a FINANCIAL TIMES editorial. It amounts "not only to an indictment of Russia’s entire system." Its publication marks a "dark day in modern athletics." Millions of amateur athletes and spectators -- not to mention "top-level sportspeople who eschew drugs" -- have been "betrayed." While FIFA has been "ripped apart by scandal and arrests over the past year," corruption there did not affect the outcome of football’s "great sporting contests." The same "cannot be said of the scandal now engulfing athletics." The WADA report revealed "not just widespread doping among Russian athletes, but a systematic effort at collusion and intimidation by the national authorities." It found Russian officials pressured athletes to use drugs "or lose the right to compete at the top level." Moscow and Russian media "have been quick to claim that this is all the product of a western conspiracy against Russia." This kind of "accusatory smokescreen is now a familiar part of the modus operandi" of President Vladimir Putin's Russia (FT, 11/10).
RODCHENKOV COMES CLEAN: In Sydney, Simon King reported a Moscow drug-testing laboratory at the center of the Russian track and field doping scandal was run by a retired athlete who openly admitted to former WADA President John Fahey that he once used performance-enhancing drugs. Fahey said that on a visit to the lab he was shown a picture of Grigory Rodchenkov running a 5,000m race in the '80s. Fahey: "I said to the director of the laboratory, 'Who are these?' and he said, 'The guy in front is me and the other three behind me are Russian athletes ... and all four of us were doping.' And I astoundedly said, 'Where did you get your drugs from?' And he said they used to buy them on the black market from Russian soldiers who got them in East Germany -- and that's the guy running the laboratory. ... It was pretty clear that their whole program was not geared for outcomes of catching cheats and stamping out doping" (THE AUSTRALIAN, 11/11).
PURPOSE OF SPORTS IN RUSSIA: In London, Paul Hayward observed sport in Putin’s Russia "appears to serve three functions." Boosting nationalism, "provoking the West, and providing opportunities for Kremlin allies to ransack vast construction budgets," as in the Sochi Winter Olympics. It does all three "exceptionally well." To "gold medal standard, in fact." Along the way, Russia has also "managed to heap discredit on at least two world governing bodies." First FIFA, where Putin thinks Sepp Blatter "should win a Nobel Prize," and now at the IAAF, where it is alleged that Russian officials paid €1M ($1.07M) in bribes to President Lamine Diack to "suppress positive tests from Russian athletes." Those who say sport and politics should not mix "will have a hard time separating Putinism from the engulfing scandals of our age" (TELEGRAPH, 11/10).
ATHLETICS DRAGGED BACKWARD: In London, Matt Dickinson commented the Russians "are laughing in the face" of int'l justice, "a law unto themselves in sport as in so many other spheres." Their "athletes, their rules, their cheats; and all given the Kremlin’s blessing to dope their way to Olympic gold." WADA Independent Commission Head Dick Pound said, "An inherited attitude from the old Cold War days." This "sordid affair dragged sport back decades," to East Germany in the '70s, "right down to the involvement of the Russian secret police disguised as laboratory technicians in a Stasi-like system of spying and intimidation." It has reached a point "where only a Cold War response will do." Drastic action must be taken, "even if some innocent Russian athletes suffer" (LONDON TIMES, 11/10).
BLAME IT ON PUTIN: Also in London, Matthew Syed wrote the doping scandal "shows what happens when sport becomes politicised. When a nation’s athletes are not just competing for pride, honour and personal glory, but to demonstrate the superiority of a political system and, to get to the nub of the matter, a political leader." There are a number of strands to follow, but they are "symptoms of a deeper story." A story "that begins with a former KGB officer becoming a political leader" who at the start of his second term "attempted to turn a nation state into a projection of his own, carefully airbrushed image." For Putin, sport has become a part of "this squalid attempt to create a cult of personality" (LONDON TIMES, 11/11).
COE REACTION WEAK: In London, Ian Herbert wrote, "You were looking for some sign that Sebastian Coe felt what we felt: an inner rage that Russia, with its malign 'second laboratory' in Moscow and its intelligence service officers infiltrating anti-doping work, had stolen in on our sport -- our London Olympics -- and cheated us." But he did not "seem to feel what we feel. ... If this is the kind of leadership the sport is relying on to build its credibility, God help athletics" (INDEPENDENT, 11/10).
