Friday, May 13, 2016

Russian Olympic Doping Scandal

A story from CBS’ “60 Minutes” reported that dozens of athletes and officials were involved in a doping scheme at the Olympics in 2014, with at least three Russian gold medalists supposedly involved. The International Olympic Committee will investigate with the World Anti-Doping Agency to investigate this claim.

Grigory Rodchenkov (former head of Moscow’s Anti-Doping Agency) was confiding in Russia’s anti-doping agency worker, Vitaly Stepanov, of these alleged scandals. Stepanov recorded these conversations without Rodchenkov’s knowledge and reported it to the World Anti-doping Agency. Conversations included how he was ordered to replace athletes’ tainted samples with clean urine and that the Russian government was involved in maintaining the secret. The allegations were very specific, which has raised alarm for some.

Russia’s track team has consequently been banned from international competitions and the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and the decision will be made next month regarding whether the team will be allowed to compete in Rio. Some people, such as sports Minster Vitaly Mutko, are defending the athletes and calling the claims to be absurd. It will be interesting to see what the outcome of these allegations will be.

Jessy Krempp


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