Russia will have a major presence at the 2016 Olympics because of a broken investigative process and integrity problems in anti-doping leadership, according to the World Anti-Doping Agency’s former chief investigator. As of now, 119 Russian athletes have banned from competing in Rio for doping, including most of the track and field team and the entire weightlifting team, but over 250 other athletes have been approved to compete by their sports’ individual federations.
Jack Robertson, who left WADA in January, said in an interview with Pro Publica and BBC that the agency intentionally failed to properly investigate allegations of doping by the Russian national team despite evidence indicating it was a widespread problem.
“The action the IOC took has forever set a bar for how the most outrageous doping and cover up and corruption possible will be treated in the future,” Robertson said.
Following months of investigation, the International Olympic Committee recently decided to let each sports’ individual federation determine whether to let Russian athletes participate. This was done by the IOC as a tactic to ensure most of the athletes would not get banned, according to Robertson.
“The IOC knows there’s simply not enough time for the federations to make a determination. But also, it’s not their job. This was not the IOC’s buck to pass,” he said.
Since November, there have been several reports of a state-sponsored doping system used by Russia. The scandal began when one athlete, Yulia Stepanova, decided to speak out about her experiences doping under the guidance of Russian officials. WADA’s policies specifically encourage whistleblowers, but it’s easy to see from Stepanova’s experience how that doesn’t appear to really be the case. She is now banned from this year’s Olympics, while many other Russian athletes will be competing with IOC approval.
That’s because the IOC’s recent ruling said that any Russian who previously got banned for doping couldn’t compete, a list that includes Stepanova. Robertson claims that rule was made specifically to ban Stepanova, who has had her career completely upended by breaking from the ranks as a whistleblower.
“The one thing [Stepanova] ever asked for in return was to be able to compete as a clean athlete in the Olympics,” Robertson said. “If she said nothing, she’d have a home and a salary and be in Rio right now.”
That’s only part of a broken process described by Robertson. One of the most damning claims made by the former investigator is that WADA deliberately delayed its investigation in order to wait until the last minute, when it could pass the buck to the individual federations and effectively avoid handing out punishments.
The McLaren report, which details many aspects of the Russian doping scheme, wasn’t released until July 18, just a few weeks before the start of the Games in Rio. This is after the initial report was released at press conference by WADA officials in November and the former head of Russia’s anti-doping laboratory, Grigory Rodchenkov, discussed details of the doping system with the New York Times in May.
Robertson says investigators had evidence of doping much earlier, but WADA, led by president Craig Reedie, failed to act. The lack of response, in Robertson’s opinion, showed that Reedie and the agency were “more committed to preserving his friends’ reputations than discovering the truth.”
Only when information was leaked to the media and public pressure began to build did WADA begin to seriously investigate the allegations. And between that response and the agency’s final ruling — not only admitting Russian athletes, but banning Stepanova, the clean whistleblower — there’s a lack of integrity in how this was handled, according to Robertson. The result is that “sport is seriously broken.”
“The world needs WADA and IOC and IAAF, but we need people to run them who value integrity,” he said. “That’s all. The people I worked with at WADA were absolutely amazing, the best in the field. But it’s my feeling they’ve been betrayed by their leadership.”
This article was written by Satchel Price from SB Nation and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.
