ARD Documentary Exposes Doping and Cover-Up System in Russia / Active Athletes, Coaches and Insiders Come Clean With
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Exclusive: ARD Documentary exposes Doping and Cover-up System in Russia / Active Athletes, Coaches and Insiders come clean With a degree of clarity previously never seen, athletes, coaches and other whistleblowers have undermined the reputation of this year's Olympic and future football World Cup host Russia - before the camera and with plenty of evidence. In the programme “Top-secret Doping: How Russia makes its Win- ners” (Wednesday, December 3rd 18.50 - 19.50 hrs., Das Erste – First Ger- man TV Channel), several people involved in Russian sport deliver extensive evidence about state-supported doping and massive corruption and cover- ups. “You cannot achieve the results that you are getting, at least in Russia, whithout doping. You must dope. That’s how it is done in Russia. The officials and coaches clearly say by using natural abbility you can only do so well. To get medals you need help. And the help is doping, prohibited substances”, Vitaliy Stepanov told the ARD. Stepanov was an employee of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency RUSADA for three years and even advised the Director- General. He reports for the first time and openly before the camera about his experiences. His wife Yuliya Stepanova (former Yuliya Rusanova) , a world-class 800-metre runner, currently suspended because of doping, accuses the Russian sports system of only having achieved many of its successes through large-scale fraud: “That is hammered into the coaches and the coaches hammer it into the athletes. The athletes, therefore, do not think when they are taking banned drugs that they are doing something wrong”. And she goes on: “The coaches take any girl, feed her with tablets and then she runs. And tomorrow she will be suspended and then they say, we’ll find a new one. They feed them and say: ‘Yes, take that, everyone takes it. Take these substances’. And when one is caught, they throw the athlete away and pick up a new one”. In order to prove the allegations, Yuliya Stepanova has secretly made nume- rous audio and video recordings at her own risk and made these files availab- le to the ARD. Thus, the recordings prove the involvement of one of the head coaches of Russian athletes, Alexei Melnikov, and the leading sports physici- an Sergey Portugalov in in the drug procurement system and the cover-up of positive doping tests. Both Melnikov and Portugalov refused to answer the ARD’s questions on doping practices. In a cell phone-video passed on to the ARD-Doping Editorial Group, the 800- metre Olympic champion from London 2012, Mariya Savinova, talks about her doping practices, for example, the taking of the banned anabolic agent o- xandrolone. Her coach Vladimir Kazarin is shown giving tablets containing the active substance oxandrolone to another athlete. All the videos and sound recordings contained in the film are in the possession of the ARD-Doping Edi- torial Group in their original, uncut and full length form. Kazarin and Savinova did not respond to inquiries from the ARD. The fact that, despite the apparent illegal use of drugs, there are so few posi- tive doping test results, is described by Vitaliy Stepanov: "There were times in Rusada when I heard people from the ministry, from ani-doping departement would call to Rusada and wanted to see who the athlete is, who has the posi- tive sample and if ist a no-name, then the sample is positive, if it is someone famous or someone young and medal-hopeful, then it is a mistake and it is not reported.” He goes on to add: “I clearly could see that officials try to make sure that some athletes are not beeing tested.” That applied to athletes in the sports of swimming, cycling, biathlon, athletics, weightlifting and Nordic skiing. In an interview with the ARD, the current Director-General of RUSADA, Nikita Kamaev, who only came into office after Vitaliy Stepanov had left RUSADA, rejected all accusations. An e-mail in the possession of the ARD, however, sheds a dubious light on RUSADA. In it, RUSADA calls on Yuliya Stepanova, to pay for a drug test and to pay a visit for this to RUSADA. Doping tests with notice, however, are contrary to the principles of an effective fight against dop- ing. RUSADA refused to answer specific questions about this. The government influence on the apparent doping system is made clear, among other things, by a decree of the government in 2010 under the then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, which is in the possession of the ARD-Doping Editorial Group. This indicates that the transport and export of urine and blood samples by foreign inspectors must be approved by the authorities and such samples may be even opened at the borders by customs. How athletes pro- tect themselves against controls abroad, is described, for example, by Yuliya Stepanova: “In a training camp in Portugal, our athletes simply lived under false names. They have taken banned substances, they undertook a course of doping, and to ensure that foreign controllers did not come and test them, they provided false names”. The President of the Russian Athletics Federation, Valentin Balakhnichev, also left questions from the ARD unanswered and in an interview situation avoided any possible confrontation. Whereby, as treasurer of the World Ath- letics Federation IAAF, according to research by the ARD-Doping Editorial Group, he was personally probably even involved in the arguably biggest cor- ruption case in the history of athletics. According to her own evidence in the ARD documentary, Liliya Shobukhova, one of the world’s best marathon run- ners, bought herself the right to participate at the 2012 London Olympics in return for a payment of 450,000 Euros to Russian officials. At this time, the Russian Federation was already in possession of her extremely noticeable blood levels in the years 2009 to 2011, which the World Athletics Federation saw as a doping violation. Shobukhova claims that one of the Russian track and field head coaches, Alexey Melnikov, demanded the money. According to Liliya Shobukhova and her husband Igor Shobukhov, they paid the money and were being told “everything will be fine”. While research for the documentary was in progress, Liliya Shobukhova was suspended after all by the Russian Federation at the end of April 2014. The IAAF itself indicates that in the case of suspensions due to blood pass profiles sanctioning may take longer, but speaks in the case of Liliya Shobukhova also about a significant delay. According to Liliya Shobukhova and her husband 2 Igor Shobukhov they demanded the return of the money paid from the russian sport officials. 300,000 Euros were in fact paid back to them. In the ARD doc- umentary evidence is shown, proving that the President of the Russian Athlet- ics Federation, Valentin Balakhnichev, was apparently involved in this pro- cess. When questioned about it, Balakhnichev did not reply. The World Anti-Doping Agency is shocked in view of the available concrete and circumstantial evidence. WADA Director-General David Howman said, “Well, the combination of all is terribly shocking. Individual components are disappointing. When you combine everything and you look at the facts of this documentation and oft the other things, that I have heard and seen, of course it is shocking. What we’ve gotta do is to be fearless in approaching this issues and make sure that those who are fearless are protected.” Please, notice: The documentary (in German) can be seen still on stream at this link . We are working hard to produce an English skript. We let you know when it is online. Press Contact: Uwe-Jens Lindner WDR Press and Information Tel.: +49 (0) 221 220 7123 [email protected] 3.