{"id":23111,"date":"2016-05-12T08:00:31","date_gmt":"2016-05-12T15:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/whistleblower-changes-in-russian-system-fake-so-far\/"},"modified":"2016-05-12T08:00:31","modified_gmt":"2016-05-12T15:00:31","slug":"whistleblower-changes-in-russian-system-fake-so-far","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/sports\/whistleblower-changes-in-russian-system-fake-so-far\/","title":{"rendered":"Whistleblower: Changes in Russian system ‘fake’ so far"},"content":{"rendered":"

MONTREAL<\/strong> \u2014 In the opinion of a whistleblower who uncovered Russia\u2019s doping scourge, most of the changes in the country\u2019s track and anti-doping programs are \u201cjust fake,\u201d and not nearly extensive enough to allow the team into the Olympics this summer.<\/p>\n

Vitaly Stepanov, who along with his wife, Yulia, blew the lid off systemic doping in Russia, told The Associated Press that he estimated 80 percent of coaches in high-level Russian track had used doping to prepare athletes for the London Olympics. A decision on the track team\u2019s eligibility for the Rio de Janeiro Games is coming next month from the sport\u2019s international federation.<\/p>\n

But Stepanov told the AP he hasn\u2019t seen enough reform or penalties to make him believe the team could be clean by the time the Olympics start in August.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose 80 percent of coaches must be sanctioned,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve seen a few coaches facing lifetime bans, but others, they still prefer to hide everything. All the changes being shown are just fake ones.\u201d<\/p>\n

The World Anti-Doping Agency is meeting this week in Montreal, where Russia\u2019s issues will be discussed.<\/p>\n

An AP review of news reports and official documents announcing sanctions estimates fewer than a dozen high-level athletics coaches and other support personnel have been suspended since the German documentary about the scandal in Russia\u2019s track team aired in December 2014.<\/p>\n

Britian\u2019s Sky News television reported that the number of doping tests being conducted in Russia, which have been overseen by Britain\u2019s anti-doping agency since Russia\u2019s was suspended, has fallen dramatically. But Russian sport minister Vitaly Mutko told Sky News the Russians have been cooperating with testers and \u201cthere is no basis for our team to not be participating in the Olympic Games.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stepanov disagrees. He also has long been flustered by WADA\u2019s slow pace.<\/p>\n

The former high-level employee at the Russian anti-doping agency spent four years sending dozens of emails to WADA that laid out precise details about schemes to load up athletes with illegal drugs, then make sure they wouldn\u2019t get caught.<\/p>\n

Stepanov said he commonly received nothing more than a simple, three-word response to those emails: \u201cConfirmed. Message received.\u201d<\/p>\n

WADA officials say they did not have the authority to act until the anti-doping code was revised in 2015, and they didn\u2019t think turning the information over to Russian authorities would produce results. There are passages in the old code, however, that can be interpreted differently, including one that says WADA\u2019s roles and responsibilities include cooperating with \u201crelevant national and international organizations and agencies, including but not limited to, facilitating inquiries and investigations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWADA continues to obfuscate the issue,\u201d U.S. Biathlon president Max Cobb said. \u201cThey keep saying, \u2018Show us the evidence.\u2019 But evidence is what you get when you investigate.\u201d<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until Stepanov went to the media with his information that WADA finally called for an investigation, leaving a four-year gap \u2014 new evidence shows that gap may also include the Sochi Olympics \u2014 during which the world\u2019s highest authority on anti-doping knew there was trouble throughout the Russian system but did little.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was thinking, there\u2019s this huge structure that\u2019s been there since 2000 and they\u2019ve dealt with this kind of case many times and they have investigators,\u201d said Stepanov, who lives in the United States in a location he does not reveal. \u201cSo, I thought it was something that was usual for them. But I guess I was wrong on this one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year, WADA appointed an independent commission chaired by its former president, Dick Pound. Since Pound issued his first of two reports in November, WADA and track\u2019s governing body, the IAAF, have taken a number of steps, including:<\/p>\n

Suspending the Russian track team and declaring both Russia\u2019s anti-doping agency and the Moscow testing lab out of compliance.<\/p>\n

Putting the British anti-doping agency in charge of testing in Russia.<\/p>\n

Naming international experts to help rebuild Russia\u2019s anti-doping agency.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Proposing that TV networks pay a portion of their Olympic rights fees into an anti-doping fund, in part to improve WADA\u2019s ability to conduct investigations.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Naming an independent commission that set a comprehensive list of milestones the Russian track team must meet to have its suspension lifted.<\/p>\n

But efforts to clean up Russia\u2019s doping scourge was complicated this week by Stepanov\u2019s latest revelation \u2014 that four Russian gold-medal winners at the Sochi Games were using performance-enhancing drugs.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not all that surprising. Pound made clear in his report: \u201cThere is no reason to believe that athletics is the only sport in Russia to have been affected by the identified systemic failures.\u201d<\/p>\n

WADA announced Tuesday it was investigating the new claims, first by trying to access conversations Stepanov secretly recorded with Grigory Rodchenkov, who resigned as head of Moscow\u2019s anti-doping lab after Pound\u2019s commission issued its first report.<\/p>\n

Stepanov said Rodchenkov told him there was a \u201cSochi List\u201d of Russian athletes who had doped.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was really frustrating to learn, that this is what happened in competition that billions of people watch around the world,\u201d Stepanov said. \u201cSome of the competitions are decided not on the field, but in the lab. Obviously, I\u2019m really concerned.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP Sports Writer James Ellingworth in Moscow contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MONTREAL \u2014 In the opinion<\/a> of a whistleblower who uncovered Russia\u2019s doping scourge, most of the changes in the country\u2019s track and anti-doping programs are \u201cjust fake,\u201d and not nearly extensive enough to allow the team into the Olympics this summer. Vitaly Stepanov, who along with his wife, Yulia, blew the lid off systemic doping […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-23111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23111"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=23111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}