Unfolding the Doping Scandal

If you can't keep track of everything that's happened to Team Russia this quad, and why it's happened, I've compiled a timeline to help you figure out how this mess got started. I used several different articles from The Telegraph, The Mirror, and Sport 24 had a very useful timeline which I copied but expanded on. 

Russia, always.

But before I get to that I just want to note that our gymnasts are staying away from the negative media and focusing on their training as if their participation is not a looming question mark. I congratulate leaders Aliya and Kolya on how they are navigating their teammates through this ruckus, urging them to stay focused and positive. Both captains assert they will not compete under an IOC flag if Russia is banned from Rio. Kolya:"It is crucial to act under the colors of the Russian flag. I was born here, and so I will compete under the colors of Russia." Aliya:"If it [Rio] won't happen, I'm going to be very upset. But I'm still going to work until the last. We refuse to compete under a different flag, if it isn't a Russian flag." The contributions Aliya has made to Team Russia counts for more than just medals, and it seems our Tsarina can't carry the responsibility much longer . She said after Brazil she's ready to go home, clear out her locker at Round Lake, and effectively move on with her life with no regrets. "I've had a good career" she mused. 

TIMELINE OF THE DOPING SCANDAL ENGULFING RUSSIA

December 3, 2014 : German broadcaster ARD's program "Top-Secret Doping: How Russia Makes Its Winners" causes shockwaves with its revelations of doping by Russian athletes and cover-ups by senior officials at the IAAF, the sport's world governing body.

December 11, 2014 : The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) announces an independent commission headed by its former president Dick Pound to investigate the ARD allegations. IAAF president Lamine Diack's son, Papa Massata Diack, steps down as an IAAF consultant, Russian athletics chief Valentin Balakhnichev quits as IAAF treasurer and the IAAF's anti-doping director, Gabriel Dolle, is also dismissed.

February 17, 2015 : Balakhnichev quits as president of the Russian athletics federation (ARAF).

August 1, 2015 : ARD's follow-up program, "Doping - Top Secret: The Shadowy World of Athletics" causes fresh uproar, alleging that suspicious blood results were not followed up by the IAAF. The second documentary is aimed at Russian and Kenyan athletes based on a leaked IAAF database with details of 12,000 blood tests from 5,000 competitors which revealed "extraordinary" levels of doping.

August 2, 2015 : WADA announces the independent commission's investigation will be extended to cover the latest allegations.

August 4, 2015 : IAAF presidential candidate Lord Coe reacts angrily to the claims the organization has not acted properly over doping. "It is a declaration of war on my sport," he said. "There is nothing in our history of competence and integrity in drug-testing that warrants this kind of attack."

August 19, 2015 : Coe succeeds Diack as IAAF president.

November 4, 2015 : French police announce they have arrested Lamine Diack on suspicion of taking more than one million euros in bribes to cover up positive drugs tests. Diack is also charged with money laundering and conspiracy. His adviser, Habib Cisse, and the IAAF's former doping chief, Gabrielle Dolle, are also arrested.

November 9, 2015 : WADA's independent commission publishes its findings, saying Russia was guilty of state-sponsored, systemic doping practices. It details how certain athletes were immune from doping controls and how clean athletes were given disadvantaged settings to train and compete in because they refused to take drugs. One of the most angering aspects of the report was the destruction of more than 1,400 blood and urine samples, and using the FSB to bug the laboratories when WADA investigators came. The bold move to intimidate possible whistleblowers and blatantly obstruct the investigation upset WADA so much that Dick Pound vows to push forward and punish the country. It's important to understand what's inside the WADA report (if you don't want to read it) so please click here for a summary. The IAAF gives Russia until November 13 to respond. Russia admits to some problems but denies the overall allegation, including the one that claims top level government officials have always been aware of the doping and encouraged it in the run-up to Sochi.

November 13, 2015 : Russia is provisionally suspended from all international athletics competitions by the IAAF. Of 23 eligible IAAF council members, 22 voted in favour of the sanction with one voting against. The member for Russia was ineligible to vote.

November 18, 2015 : WADA declare the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) non-complaint with international sport's anti-doping code with immediate effect.

November 26, 2015 : Russia now accepts full suspension over its doping scandal and promises to co-operate with inspectors who will oversee changes to its drug-testing system.

January 5, 2016 : Coe sets out a 10-point "road map" to rebuild the trust in athletics eroded by drug and corruption scandals. Read what his "map to trust" entails here.

January 1, 2016 : Meldonium is now officially banned by WADA. NOC's received news of the impending ban the previous year. Maria Sharapova admits to taking the drug after it became illegal so she is banned from tennis for two years. 

January 7, 2016 : Three senior IAAF officials - Papa Massata Diack, Balakhnichev and IAAF treasurer Alexei Melnikov, a senior ARAF coach - are banned for life by the IAAF's ethics commission for blackmailing athletes and covering up positive drugs tests. Dolle receives a five-year ban.

January 11, 2016 : UK Athletics launches a 'Manifesto for Clean Athletics'. It wants all world records to be reset and says it will seek to bring in a lifetime ban for any athlete guilty of a serious drugs violation.

January 14, 2016 : WADA's second report into doping and corruption is published. It says IAAF leaders must have known about the wide scope of doping. Hours after denying the report, Lord Coe admits to his governing body covering up positive doping tests.

January 27, 2016 : The Daily Mail reports that it has two witness accounts of Coe warning the British delegation of a possible bribes-for-votes plot in Monaco, just days before the vote for the setting of the 2017 World Championships were to happen. They report brown envelopes full of cash being handed out. Eventually Doha, Qatar is revealed by the IAAF ethics committee to be the foul player while Qatar refutes the bribery allegation. London wins the bid for the 2017 World Championships. 

April 3, 2016 : Nikolai Kuksenkov is removed from the provisional European team after he tests positive for meldonium. He remains adamant that he last took the drug months before the 2015 Euro Games whence it was taken off  his list of medication. He is allowed to resume training a few weeks later since he qualifies for the 'no fault or negligence' provision stipulated in the World Anti-Doping Code.

April 29, 2016 : In an exclusive interview with The Sports Integrity Initiative, investigative journalist Hajo Seppelt says that he doesn’t blame Russian athletes for use of meldonium, because ‘'it is another symptom of the systematic doping in Russia" that he has identified through his previous documentaries with ARD.  By now it is evident to WADA that meldonium has a long shelf life in the body's system (depending on the body), and an investigation to determine the duration of withdrawal clears most athletes implicated in the scandal.

May 2016 : The former head of Russia's anti-doping laboratory, Grigory Rodchenkov, exiled in the United States, describes an organised doping campaign including at least 15 medallists from the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, with the close involvement of the sports ministry and the FSB security service. Three days after calling the claims "absurd", Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko says he is "ashamed and sorry".

June 2016 : A third ARD program claims that Russian authorities have been covering up for coaches disgraced by the doping program, directly pinpointing Mutko for his alleged involvement in the cover-up. As with the first two documentaries, they use a number of leaked material and private recordings to back up their allegations.The IAAF Council unanimously votes to extend the ban on the Russian athletics federation, but offers an Olympic lifeline to athletes training outside the Russian system to compete in Rio as neutrals. One such neutral is Daria Klishina, who trains in Florida and has been tested outside of Russia for years. Some Russian critics call her a traitor but her Russian teammates urge her to go to Rio and win all the golds for them.

July 18, 2016 : Canadian law professor Richard McLaren releases a 96-page report for WADA which outlines rampant Russian state-run doping at the Sochi Olympics and other major sports events.The investigation finds the FSB secret service helped "the state-dictated failsafe system" carried out by the sports ministry and covering 30 sports. WADA consequently calls for Russia to be banned from the Rio Olympics in August and urges global sports governing bodies to bar Russia until "culture change" is achieved. IOC president Thomas Bach describes the revelations as "a shocking and unprecedented attack" on sport. For a quick summary of what's 'shocking and unprecedented' about the McLaren report click here.

July 19, 2016 : Russia's Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko is barred from attending the Rio Games and the IOC orders a disciplinary commission to look into his ministry's role detailed in the McLaren report.

July 21, 2016 : An appeal by 68 Russian athletes against the IAAF blanket ban is rejected by the Court of Arbitration for Sports on the grounds that a governing sports body is within its rights to collective punishment if collective cheating has occurred. The court paves legal way for a possible blanket ban for all Russian athletes in Rio. “Today’s judgment has created a level playing field for athletes. The CAS upholds the rights of the IAAF to use its rules for the protection of the sport,” read a statement from the IAAF in response to the judgement. “While we are thankful that our rules and our power to uphold our rules and the anti-doping code have been supported, this is not a day for triumphant statements. I didn’t come into this sport to stop athletes from competing. It is our federation’s instinctive desire to include, not exclude,” said IAAF president Sebastian Coe. 

THOUGHTS 

There has been an environment of stubborn denial among the people of Russia, who refuse to believe the mountain of evidence against them even though they would accept the testimonies and facts if it were against any other country. It is disappointing how many celebs, politicians, and athletes continue to use the politics line instead of admitting that something is wrong even if the investigation was politically induced. Either they don't think their country has done anything wrong or if they do, they think it is acceptable because widespread cheating exists everywhere in the same quantities as in Russia. This is their great defense. But if we bar clean athletes from the Games then these people will have a reason to feel like victims, and I don't see why they should be given that satisfaction. To the athletics athletes who were clean, I'm so sorry this is happening to you. To know that your own country conspired to keep you from achieving your best results because you refused to dope and you refused to dishonor your flag must be difficult enough to bear... and now the world repays your integrity by banning you from the Olympics. While the faux-resentment of dopers is embarrassing for me to see, your grief is real and just and lamentable. I am with you. I hope Russian gymnasts, and other sports that weren't mentioned in the Mclaren report, are allowed to go to Rio so that those who cheat can sit at home and be ashamed of what separates them from their competing countrymen.