The history of doping in Russia

August 18, 2023

From the Moscow Summer Games in 1980 to Sochi in 2014, doping accusations have shadowed Russian sports.

In a Kremlin-sponsored forum of sportsmen and top officials, the President of the World Anti-Doping Agency – John Fahey said: “Testing needs to be conducted in a smart way”. And boy did the Russians take him up on that.

The secrecy of Soviet research laboratories made it difficult to substantiate any doping accusations. At the Moscow Summer Games in 1980, at the embryonic stage of drug testing, 645 anti-doping tests were conducted but no athletes were found to have consumed banned substances.

"Research on the medical and biological aspects of sport was an integral part of the athletic agenda in the Soviet Union," said Dr. Michael Kalinski to the Moscow Times.

Kalinski is a sport science scholar who served as the chairman of the department of exercise biochemistry at the Institute of Physical Culture in Kiev from 1972 to 1990. "All orders to organize and finance such research were given in a centralized and secretive system."

"Officials, team doctors and pharmacologists made drugs available to coaches, who were under enormous pressure from the Communist Party to produce winners," Dr. Kalinski said.

The Soviet Perspective

In a Soviet presentation at an anti-doping conference in Norway in 1991, it was stated that 44 percent of the Soviet Union's 240 top athletes considered doping "essential and even inevitable" for winning.

In a perpetual tug-of-war with the West in athletics, the Soviet Union resorted to extreme measures to ensure its athletes would succeed and, most importantly, not get caught doping.

In 1989, Smena magazine reported that the previous summer, the Soviet Union had kept a secret $2.5 million laboratory on a ship anchored 60 kilometers from Seoul, the site of that year's summer Olympics.

“Pre-emptive testing facilities and assistance were provided to ensure that athletes would escape detection," Dr. Kalinski said.

"If an athlete's pharmacological preparation was mismanaged, he or she would be withdrawn from an upcoming international competition with the public excuse of injury or illness," he said. At the 1988 Calgary Winter Games that just happened. Soviet skier Allar Levandi, an Estonian, was told by training staff that he had a "terrible stomachache" and was to drop out of the competition, according to Smena.

Doping was cleared by Soviet Authorities

Dr. Kalinski, however, said Soviet authorities were fully aware of the situation.

"Procedures in the USSR were highly centralized," he said. "It was mandatory that each annual and five-year research plan for all sport institutions in the country be included in an 'All-Union Plan,' which was approved by governmental officials prior to implementation."

"It is highly unlikely that crucial decisions about financing and implementing doping research programs by the State Central Institute of Physical Culture in Moscow were made without the knowledge and consent of governmental officials," he added.

Performance-Enhancing Supplements

During the 1970s and 1980s, the Soviet State Sport Committee ordered several research institutions to conduct studies on the effect of performance-enhancing supplements and their possible use by Soviet athletes preparing for Olympic Games.

According to Dr. Kalinski, research on the medical aspects of sport was conducted in 28 State Institutes of Physical Education and certain State Research Institutes of Physical Culture. Soviet scientists found that creatine, an organic acid that increases muscular capacity, improved runners' performance by 1 percent in the 100-meter dash and by 1.7 percent in the 200 meters, boosts that could make the difference between a gold and silver medal.

Perfected Blood Doping

But the Soviet Union did not stop at creatine, a non-banned substance that today is one of the world's most-consumed dietary supplements.

According to research by Nikolai Volkov, chairman of the department of biochemistry and bioenergetics at the Russian State University of Physical Education, Sport, Youth and Tourism, two state institutes conducted clandestine state-sponsored research to perfect blood doping, a medical procedure that increases the number of red blood cells in the bloodstream to enhance athletic performance.

Blood doping was, and remains, banned by the International Olympic Committee.

Swimmers, cyclists, rowers, skiers, biathletes and skaters systematically blood-doped for the 1976 Montreal and 1980 Moscow Games, according to Volkov's research.

Design steroids and other banned substances

Russia possesses probably the world’s most high-end anti-doping methods. In the article titled "Russian Doping of a Different Sort: Russian and Eastern European Drugs Hiding in Plain Sight as Alternative Doping Agents" the Catlin Perspective highlights five substances which originates from Russia.

  • Bromantan: Developed in the 1980s at the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences in Moscow. First found in an athlete sample during the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Summer Games. We have registered 18 cases involving this substance in the Anti-Doping Database.
  • Bemitil: Added to the WADA monitoring program list in 2018 (stil not prohibited). According to the website Bremintil was successfully imployed in preparing the athletes of the USSR's national team for the 1980 Moscow Olympic Summer Games. The website also states Bemitil is being used by Ukraine to prepare their athletes for international competitions.
  • Mescocarb: This substance is a central nervous system stimulant. It has been prohibited in sport since at least 1996. We have registered three doping cases involving this substance in the Anti-Doping Database
  • Carphedon: A racetams generally considered nootropic drugs. it was originally developed so Russian astronauts could be awake on long missions. The drug was never intended for medical use. In the Anti-Doping Database we have so far registered 40 cases involving this drug.
  • Meldonium: The newest product of the five presented here. It is developed in Latvia and is described as an "anti-ischemic drug". This banned drug has sidelined more than 200 athletes for years after testing positive, according to our database. The most prominent banned athlete is the Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova.

Russia possesses the most high-end anti-doping methods

Whether to better prevent the detection of steroids or to promote cleaner sports, Russia possesses some of the world's most high-end anti-doping methods, according to Moscow Times.

In 2013, German scientists presented their findings about a Russian-developed test that detects steroids in smaller quantities in athletes' biological samples months after drugs had entered their systems. The scientists revealed that 10 percent of the old samples tested contained steroids.

The new test method could for instance detect usage of Dehydrochloromethyltestosterone (sold under the name of Oral Turinabol). The result of the new test method was incredible. Before 2013 the normal suspension rate of athletes who had used Oral Turinabol was less than 10. After the new method the number of suspended athletes exploded. In 2012 alone more than 70 athletes has been banned for using the substance. Many of these positive tests are re-analysis of samples collected during the Olympic Games in London in 2012.

While equipped to detect sports' most cunning cheaters, Russia has struggled to rid itself of its Soviet doping heritage.

"When the Soviet Union came apart, thousands of sport bureaucrats, pharmacologists and coaches — 'trained to drug' their athletes — essentially remained in their positions," Dr. Kalinski said.

Lenient social attitudes toward doping in modern Russia also match trainers' Soviet upbringing.

"Russians are not that harsh with athletes who have taken banned substances," the executive director of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) Nikita Kamaev said to the Moscow Times. "In Europe or America, athletes on banned substances lose their 'hero status' right away."

The Birth of RUSADA

In 2008 RUSADA was set up. It is an Independent Anti-Doping Agency. The goal of RUSADA was to have the same structure as the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), the Russian News Agency TASS reports.

Therefor a delegation of senior Russian anti-doping officials traveled to USA to develop better ties with their American colleagues and learn more about the USADA's work.

“All the main work has been done already and early next month RUSADA will be officially registered and begin its operations. It'll be a fully independent body that will deal with all doping cases.”, said Sports Minister at the time, Vyacheslav Fetisov, to reporters at the press conference when the Agency was officially launched.

Before RUSADA's creation, doping cases in Russia had been handled by various sports federations, overseen jointly by Fetisov's agency and the Russian Olympic Committee.

How independent is RUSADA?

National Anti-Doping Organizations must be independent. Both from sports federations and from governments.

WADA Director General Olivier Niggli said when the new World Anti-Doping Code was presented in 2019 that: “Operational independence is crucial for NADOs as they seek to deliver anti-doping programs without undue influence from governments or sports”.

In a report The Sports Integrity Initiative writes that Supervisory board of RUSADA is – or was in 2019 when the article was written – far from as independent as the board expresses.

Many of the members had close ties to the Russian government. This situation has changed. In 2023 all the board members from years before having been replaced.

In 2023 the Chairman – or shall we rather say Chairwoman of the Supervisory Board is Natalia Sokolova who is a Doctor of Law. She is also the head of the Department of International Law, Scientific Director of the Research Institute of the Moscow State Law University named after O. E. Kutafin (MSLA). Vice Chairman is Evgeny Raschevsky. He is a partner at Egorov Puginsky Afanasiev & Partners, co-head of the International Arbitration and Litigation Practice, Candidate of Law.

Board-members are Evgeny Achkasov (head of the Department of Sports Medicine and Medical Rehabilitation of the First Moscow State Medical University), Marius Divyzis (Dispute Resolution Practice at Primus Vilnius. He is recognized as an expert in sports law.), Kirill Masliev (a candidate of Medical Sciences), Alexander Zamaziy (Managing Director and Head of the Office of the Arbitration Center at the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs), Leg Barabanov (a professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the Department of Global Problems and International Relations).

In 2021 Veronika Viktorovna Loginova was appointed as the new Director General of RUSADA. She was previously Head of Anti-Doping Support and the Interdepartmental Cooperation Department at the Department of Science and Education at Russia’s Ministry of Sport, according to Sports Integrity Initiative.

WADA : low trust in RUSADA independence

During the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations General Assembly in Swiss city Lausanne in 2023, the WADA president Witold Banka said he had little trust in independence of the anti-doping system in Russia.

"RUSADA will remain non-compliant until it fulfils each of the reinstatement conditions set by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. And until we have been able to verify them, we will continue to follow the agreed process. However, I must say that our trust in the independence of the anti-doping system remains very low."

Russia was as of 2023 still non-compliant with the World Anti-Doping Code and thus is not reinstated as a full National Anti-Doping Agency.

WADA is not alone when it comes to being concerned with its independence. During the Executive Board meeting of the International Olympic Committee, the president of the organisation – Thomas Bach – said he was “still concerned about the situation in the Russian anti-doping system”.

RUSADA director Loginova said to the Russia's official state news agency TASS, that “Neither the IOC nor the international sports federations have reason to doubt the quality of our testing program”. She added: “We are in dialogue with International Federations on the issues of doping samples from Russian athletes. We provide the necessary assistance to international agencies that collect samples in the country. We are as open as possible in dialogue with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), on a regular basis we provide all the necessary information. Now we are absolutely independent in our operations.”

Sochi – damaging for the anti-doping organization

In 2014 all eyes are on Russia and Sochi. The country is to organize the Winter Olympic Games. And the country was prepared. Not only sport wise, but also on how to cheat the world. More on that later.

The program Russia put in place to make sure none of their doped athletes would test positive would eventually backfire. And in November 2015 it did. WADA declared that RUSADA was non-compliant with the World Anti-Doping Code (Code). Reason: The program Russian authorities put in place before the Olympic Games in Sochi in 2014.

Since the revelation of the doping scheme, the Russian anti-doping agency has been under constant surveillance by the WADA Compliance Review Committee (CRC). The CRC is responsible for providing independent advice, guidance and recommendations to WADA Management and governing bodies on matters relating to Signatories' compliance with the Code.

With the upcoming FIFA World Cup in 2018 it was of best interest for Russia to have RUSADA being compliant. The climate between WADA and the Russian Sports Ministry was low after the Olympic Games. In 2015 Mutko told the Russian newspaper R-Sport that the Sports Ministry would consider stop financing WADA. Russia pays around USD 800.000 yearly to WADA.

“My belief is that our organization is not restored for another period of time, what’s the point of paying”, he said.

As of 2023 RUSADA was still declared non-complient.

Former RUSADA chief suddenly dies

In 2016 the news regarding the former head of RUSADA, Kamaev had died. According to RUSADA and Russian authorities, the 52-year-old died of a massive heart attack. His death comes just two months after he resigned his post following a doping scandal in Russian Athletics, BBC writes.

His death comes just two weeks after that of Rusada founding chairman, Vyacheslav Sinev. He also died of a massive heart attack.

Russian Sports Minister at the time, Vitaly Mutko, said: "It's a very unexpected death. Mr Kamaev seemed healthy, and everything was fine."

RUSADA's former director general, Ramil Khabriev, told the BBC: "I think he had a massive heart attack. His wife told me that he'd been cross-country skiing outside Moscow. He came home and felt ill, and she called an ambulance. But when the ambulance came, they couldn't restart his heart. He died at his mother's country house. I never heard him complain about his heart... but those close to him say that he got tired after physical exercise and felt unwell.”

Kamaev had been in the center of both the Sochi Sample Swapping program and the Doping problem in Athletics. According to BBC, Kamaev planned on writing a book where he exposed the doping regime in Russia. If someone had something to tell the world, it must have been Kamaev.

A year after Kamaevs passing, the new Director General of RUSADA, Yuri Ganus, expressed his thoughts to the Russian newspaper Pravda regarding the former head of the organization.

To the newspaper he said that he did not believe in natural causes of death of two former employees of the organization.

"It's clear that two people could not just die like this ... I do not have any facts, and as a lawyer I can say that until the opposite is proven, I cannot say anything. I understand that there was a situation, and the entire anti-doping organization was disqualified, and in this regard, this is an extraordinary fact," Yuri Ganus said.

Ganus – a protector of clean sport in Russia

Yuri Ganus was approved by the board of the founders of RUSADA on the post of the general director on August 31 in 2017. During his period, he was not afraid to speak openly about the problems with doping in Russia. In 2018 he made a public appeal on the RUSADA website to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Here he called for fundamental changes in the management system of Russian sports. In 2019 he told the Russian News Agency Interfax that unauthorized changes that were made to the database of the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory.

“Thousands of these changes, it's all very serious. They betrayed us, it's some kind of conspiracy. Changes were made, including literally on the eve of the transfer of the database in January 2019. They said that it was only Rodchenkov or someone else ... nonsense. The reputation of our supreme power is also at stake, a blow has been struck throughout the Russian Federation. Our president is talking about attracting as many people as possible to sports, forming a sports reserve, set the task of resolving the issue of athletics by December ... And these are actions (changes in the database of the laboratory) are aimed at destroying these tasks”, he told Interfax.

Ganus was removed from his position at RUSADA in August 2020. According to The Associated Press, Ganus was fired after alleged “financial irregularities” came to light and his agency’s board recommended that the Russian Olympic Committee and Russian Paralympic Committee consider his dismissal.

“In my view, this is a wrong decision, so let them enjoy their mistakes. The wanted to make this decision and they made it. In terms of the overall goals and all, it’s a mistake.”, Ganus told Interfax after he was told to go.

His removal didn’t go un-noticed.

WADA wrote in a statement that “The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) acknowledges the decision taken today by the Founders of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA), namely the Russian Olympic Committee and the Russian Paralympic Committee, to dismiss Yuriy Ganus from his position as RUSADA’s Director General. These developments reinforce the concerns expressed by WADA in its statement of 5 August in relation to the manner in which the Founders reached the decision regarding Mr. Ganus following a recommendation by RUSADA’s Supervisory Board; and, re-emphasize the critical importance for RUSADA to maintain its operational independence going forward.”

The Sochi Winter Games – The Games for the Clean Athletes

When the International Olympic Organization (IOC) promoted the Anti-Doping Program of the Winter Games in Sochi in 2014, it described it as «The Games for the Athletes. The Clean Athletes».

As history shows. Their conclusion after the Games couldn’t be further from the truth.

However, it was ambitious program the IOC had put in place. 2,667 tests were to be done. 477 of these were blood tests and the rest - 2,190 – were urine tests.

The program also included smarter and more targeted testing. Pre-competition tests numbered 1,421, an increase of about 60 per cent from Vancouver 2010. In total, the IOC had set aside more than USD 1 million for pre-competition testing, transport, storage and retesting for the Sochi Games. All this to make sure the Sochi Games would be the Games for the Clean Athletes.

The Russians, however, had some other ideas to make sure the Games was for the clean athletes – or their definition of clean athletes.

London Olympics Criticism – a warning of what to come?

In July in 2013 Sports Minister of Russia, Vitaly Mutko, claimed the British Olympic authorities didn’t follow best anti-doping practice during the 2012 London Games.

"In London, there was a little house behind barbed wire, and British athletes went there, but they didn't allow us in, and that's a breach," he said when asked about the Mail on Sunday's claims, according to the news agency RIA Novosti.

"If we did that at home in Sochi, we would just be ripped apart," he added.

Was this a heads up for what was about to happen in Sochi just six months later? Were Mutko telling the world what Russia is up to?

Drama as Moscow Anti-Doping Center were suspended before Sochi

Less than three months before the Olympic Games in Sochi the Anti-Doping Center in Moscow was provisionally suspended. The center is the only laboratory in Russia that is – or was – approved by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). The reason for the provisional suspension was that WADA had discovered some “problems” with the laboratory.

"There is a matter that is being looked into at the present time with respect of the Russian laboratory," said Fahey to the Associated Press. Fahey declined to give details on the exact nature of the issues.

WADA regularly checks that its accredited labs are working properly by sending them "blind samples," samples meant as tests to ensure the lab is giving correct findings and not false positives or false negatives.

RUSADA-head Kamaev wasn’t worried. He said to reporters its suspension was part of a standard review procedure and that he had no doubt the laboratory would be ready for the Sochi Games.

"The Moscow Anti-Doping Center conducts one of the world's largest quantity of tests. The laboratory is currently under much stress and working under difficult conditions. Under these circumstances, what is happening is completely normal”, Kamaev said to Moscow Times.

Sports Minister of Russia in 2013, Vitaly Mutko, was also not worried: “Reforms would be made to bring the lab in line with international standards. WADA systematically makes certain observations and proposals regarding anti-doping centers to improve the effectiveness of the laboratories”, he said according to the newspaper.

The Olympic Committee said in a statement the organization guaranteed the "integrity" of the drug-testing program at the Sochi Olympics:

"The IOC is confident that all the necessary measures will be taken, and the Sochi lab will be fully functioning during the Games. The integrity of the Games-time testing program will remain unaffected by these developments, indeed it will be strengthened”.

Like a James Bond Movie

In May 2016 the New York Times broke the news that dozens of Russian athletes who competed at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games were part of a state-run doping program.

The Russians denied the allegations. One of the directors of RUSADA at the time, Nikita Kamaev, said allegations about a secret second laboratory and the alleged role of Russia’s FSB Security Service in covering up doping were the stuff of fantasy, according to the news agency Reuters.

“It’s absolute rubbish, people have an over-active imagination,” he told a news conference. “The stuff about a secret lab in the basement of the Lubyanka (nickname for FSB headquarters) does not stand up. The people (who said this) are living in the era of James Bond films.”, Reuters writes.

This time, however, real life, came very close to a James Bond – or any other spy movie. It was the Russian Secret Service outsmarted the IOC and the rest of the world.

The Unbreakable Bottle

The Swiss company Berlinger had supplied the Olympic Games and other big events with secure anti-doping kits. The sample bottles were supposed to be impossible to open without breaking the sealing and by doing so, making the sample invalid.

The Russian Secret Service had found a way to open the kit without breaking the sealing or the bottle itself. And with the technique to open the bottles without breaking it, everything was in place to swap the content – which would have resulted in a positive test, with clean urine. For the Swiss company the disturbing news came as a chock:

Andrea Berlinger told the New York Times: «We're all a bit speechless. No one can believe it». Berlinger, is the sixth generation of her family to head up Berlinger.

She was not alone of being chocked.

“I tried to break into these bottles years ago and couldn’t do it,” Don Catlin, the former head of the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory, said to New York Times. “It’s shocking.”

Samples was swapped

So, how did the swapping scheme work?

Doctor Grigory Rodchenkov, who ran Russia’s antidoping laboratory in Moscow for a decade, explained the process to the New York Times: Each night at Sochi sealed bottles were passed through a hole in the wall of the storage closet that served as his shadow laboratory. The bottles were handed to a man who he believed worked for the Russian intelligence service, the F.S.B. Within two hours those same bottles were returned to Rodchenkov, their caps unlocked, writes the New York Times.

According to the newspaper, at least 15 Russian athletes who won medals at Sochi, both the A and B samples were substituted before they were tested. None of the bottles’ caps showed any signs of having been opened.

Normally the bottles were to be opened by a machine provided by Berlinger. The machine would crack the bottle’s cap in half, making it apparent that the sample has been touched.

After the 2014 Olympic Games the Berlinger bottles has been improved. Other manufacturers of anti-doping kits have also improved their sample bottles.

According to the same newspaper, Catlin he has been asked if the bottles could be outfitted with internal thermometers. They would show if the sample had been frozen or heated.

What is next for Russia and a clean sport

Let’s try and sum it all up. As we’ve written in this article. The history of doping in Russia is long. In some cases, the use of banned substances in Russia is similar to what we see in other countries. But Russia has some extreme doping scandals we’ve yet to see elsewhere.

What can Russia do to improve its image in the world of sport? There is no simple answer to this question. And we also know that Russia will never see zero doping cases yearly. If they do, other countries will be suspicious. No country has zero banned athletes. There will always be someone who takes a short cut.

Admit what happened in Sochi

First thing first. Russia has never admitted it ran a state-controlled doping program prior to and during the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi in 2014. In its document “National Anti-Doping Plan” (NADP) written by the Smirnov Commission (named after its chair Vitaly C. Smirnov) it states that “It should be noted, however, that the Russian Federation has never had an institutionalized and government-operated system of manipulating doping control processes.”

Until they change the stand on what really happened in the 2014 era, it is hard to see that anything will change.

For Russia it will most likely take a generation to improve its image. The doping scandals that have shocked the nation since 2000 are extraordinary. There is no scandal coming close to what we’ve seen in Russia. At least not since the Berlin wall came down in the 1990s.

Foster intolerance towards doping

Like in many other countries, sport is being used to build an image for a country. The Anti-Doping Database is based in Norway, and even here we relate our culture to sports like cross country skiing and soccer. When the elite athletes in this country do well, we as a nation feel well. Our self-esteem grows.

At the same time. When some of our elite athletes are caught for doping. Using prohibited substances to take a short cut. We get embarrassed. We don’t expect such actions from any of our elite athletes.

Also, in Norway. If you are caught. Your image is ruined. You will always have doping branded to your name.

As we’ve written in this article. This is different in Russia. The former executive director of RUSADA said that Russian athletes who has taken banned substances don’t lose their ‘hero status’. This attitude towards doping was one of many things Yuri Ganus tried to change during his period as head of RUSADA. This is also the first bullet point in the NADP – “foster public intolerance toward doping and raise social awareness of doping as a wrongful act”.

The only way to the top is the clean way

Former Minister of Sport Vitaly Mutko has been quoted saying: “Yes our athletes are doing doping, but so are everyone else”. When someone at the top use such words, it gives acceptance for others to think the same. It is then being acceptable for an athlete to use doping since “everyone else” do the same.

The fact is that the majority of elite athletes in the world do not use doping. They wake up every morning knowing they must put in the hours of hard training. They know their hardest competitors are doing the same. This is the mindset Russian athletes who are considering doping and coaches who believe doping is the only solution must have.

There is no shortcut to the top of the podium.

Any use of the information should quote the Anti-Doping Database and link to our website https://www.antidopingdatabase.com

Sources

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