A film portraying banned Russian athletes "as victims of a political smear campaign will be shown on state television on Monday, the same day on which an international report on Russian doping is published," according to Alec Luhn of the London GUARDIAN. The 25-minute film on the Russian state-owned sport channel Match TV "profiles Russian athletes banned from the Rio de Janeiro next month." It "disputes the findings of widespread performance-enhancing drug use made by the World Anti-Doping Agency and western media." The narrator in the trailer of the film, titled The Doping Trap, said, "There are four stories of those Russian athletes who have fallen under the WADA steamroller. Who has trapped them in the name of politics, and what will happen when this trap is sprung?" The film attempts to "cast a shadow on the growing evidence of widespread doping in Russia." It opens with Ekaterina Poistogova, who won Bronze in the 800m at the London Olympics, "speaking through tears about how devastating her ongoing suspension has been, suggesting it contributed to her recent divorce." WADA recommended Poistogova receive a lifetime ban in November after interviewing her and analyzing an "enhanced recording of a conversation between her and the whistleblower Yuliya Stepanova." The Doping Trap claims that filmmakers obtained a copy of a conversation between Stepanova and Poistogova but "it wasn’t possible to understand anything from the audio recording." The film "also takes aim" at former Russian anti-doping laboratory Head Grigory Rodchenkov, calling his revelations that Russian officials and intelligence agents directed systematic doping at the Sochi Olympics as "either truth or fiction by the famous inventor" (GUARDIAN, 7/17).
