Russians irate over Sochi claims
Print Edition
TWO Olympic gold medalists from Russia denied doping yesterday, a day after they were named in a newspaper report detailing state-sponsored cheating at the 2014 Sochi Winter Games.
Bobsled champion Alexander Zubkov and cross-country skier Alexander Legkov were among the athletes accused in a New York Times article of doping by the former head of the Russian national drug-testing laboratory.
“What’s written now in this article is baseless libel,” Zubkov told Russian state TV, adding that he regularly gave doping samples in his career.
“I’m a person who has worked for many years in sport, competed at the Olympics, and I know how much responsibility each athlete bears when they compete at such a high level.”
The claims also brought a strong response from the Kremlin. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman denounced them as “a turncoat’s libel”.
Grigory Rodchenkov, the former head of the Russian lab now living in Los Angeles, told the Times he was given a spreadsheet of doping athletes by the Sports Ministry ahead of the games. It allegedly bore the names of 15 athletes who later won medals, including Zubkov and Legkov.
The spreadsheet was not published and there was no way to verify it.
Rodchenkov said he then switched out tainted urine samples for clean ones at the doping lab used for the games in Sochi, with help from people he believed to be officers of the Russian security services.
Legkov defended his “honest medals” and said Rodchenkov, who resigned as lab director last year following separate allegations that he covered up doping in track and field, was not a credible source.
Zubkov and Legkov later threatened to sue Rodchenkov for defamation, with Zubkov calling the accusations “simply lunacy”.
Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected the claims that the Russian government oversaw a state-sponsored doping program and subsequent cover-up.
“It just seems like, you know, some kind of a turncoat’s libel,” Peskov said, without mentioning Rodchenkov. “I wouldn’t put trust in such unfounded claims.”
The World Anti-Doping Agency is set to investigate Rodchenkov’s allegations.
Meanwhile, Kenya’s track and field athletes won’t be banned from the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro despite serious concerns over the African country’s anti-doping program, the IAAF said yesterday.
The IAAF said in a statement that Kenya remains on a “monitoring list” of countries with doping problems until the end of the year. But, despite Thursday’s decision by WADA to declare Kenya’s drug-testing agency non-compliant, the nation’s athletes can still compete through to the end of 2016.
“During the monitoring process ... Kenyan athletes remain eligible to compete nationally and internationally,” it said.
That means Kenyans will be able to take part in track and field at the Rio Games in August, unless the International Olympic Committee steps in. That is considered unlikely.
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