3. Sample Swapping

Owned by NicolaAvery
Last updated: Aug 26, 2016
6 min read

WADA

IC2p11 all analytical positives appearing on the first sample screen at the Moscow laboratory were reported up to the Deputy Minister after the athlete's name had been added to the information to be supplied. The order would come back from the Deputy Minister 'SAVE' or 'QUARANTINE'. If the order was a SAVE the laboratory personnel were required to report the sample negative in WADA's Anti-Doping Management System (ADAMS). Then the laboratory personnel would falsify the screen result in the Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) to show a negative laboratory result.

p59 Dr. Rodchenkov's evidence is also that there was an FSB agent in each Sochi doping control station responsible for sending the DCFs for protected Russian athletes to Irina Rodionova to be forwarded to Dr. Rodchenkov or his secretary to ensure that the correct samples were swapped., p68 The athlete would seal the bottles, complete the DCF, and subsequently take a picture of the bottle sample number. The information was then transmitted to Rodionova. She would communicate this information by phone or text to Dr. Rodchenkov signaling to Dr. Rodchenkov that the urine needed to swapped out of that bottle.

P69 All athletes' samples were consolidated into shipment lots at the Olympic Village by RUSADAs Doping Control Manager, Evgeny Antilsky. Russian athletes' samples were always scheduled in the late day shipment to the Laboratory. Antilsky would notify Evgeny Kurdyatsev, Head of the Registration and Biological Sample Accounting Department in the Laboratory that the protected athletes' samples were being delivered to the Laboratory.

 

Critique

Rick Sterling http://theduran.com/heres-russian-athletes-unfairly-banned-olympics/  There are inconsistencies in the description of how urine sample bottles were associated with an individual athlete. As reported by Sports Integrity Initiative, The IP report appears to contain two different versions both from Rodchenkov about how 'protected' Russian athlete samples were made recognizable at the laboratory.

http://www.sportsintegrityinitiative.com/inconsistencies-highlighted-in-wada-ip-report/ On page 59 of the IP Report, it mentions evidence from Rodchenkov that there were Russian state police (FSB) agents at doping control stations who sent the DCFs for protected Russian athletes to Irina Rodionova, a Deputy Director of the Centre of Sports Preparation (CSP) of the national teams of Russia, a subordinate organisation to the Russian Ministry of Sport (MoS). Rodchenkov claims that Rodionova forwarded the information to him, or his secretary, in order that the correct samples were swapped.
However, on page 68 of the IP Report, under the heading 'identification of the incoming sample', it mentions that athletes were required to take a picture of the Screen Shot 2016-07-22 at 13.11.21 bottle sample number and send that information to Rodionova. She would then send the information to Rodchenkov in order that the correct samples were swapped. The IP Report also lists the source of this evidence as Rodchenkov. The IP Report appears to indicate that only the B samples were manipulated at the Sochi 2014 laboratory. The IP Report mentions that Evgeny Kurdyatsev, Head of the Registration and Biological Sample Accounting Department in the Laboratory, slipped the protected athletes B samples into his coat pocket (p70), while taking the A samples to the ˜aliquoting room (i.e. the laboratory's sample analysis room). He would then wait until a 'convenient moment' to pass both the A and B samples through the 'mouse hole' into the operations room, where Rodchenkov and FSB agents were waiting. However, the IP Report found that FSB agents would only take the B sample away, remove its cap and replace its contents. The report then states that both the Screen Shot 2016-07-22 at 13.53.06A and B samples would then be passed back through the 'mouse hole', Why pass the A sample through the 'mouse hole' at all, given that nothing was done to it? Why did Kurdyatsev feel the need to put the B sample in his coat pocket, given that he would be passing both the A and B samples through the 'mouse hole' later? How would manipulating the B sample protect the Russian athletes, given that A samples are used to indicate an AAF?

The report claims to have evidence but does not reveal it. For example, on page 14 the report states Dr. Rodchenkov provided credible evidence that the A and B bottles would pass through the ˜mouse hole  into an adjacent room, outside the security perimeter.  We are left to wonder where is this credible evidence. The culprits would have to:

  • conduct an 'initial analytical screen' of the athlete;
  • if it is a positive result, match the screen with the athlete;
  • communicate the information to the Russian Deputy Minister of Sports;
  • the Deputy Minister responds with coded message indicating either œsave or œquarantine;
  • if the response is œsave, the test result should be manipulated to become negative;
  • if the response is œquarantine the test can proceed normally.

This description raises questions. Can an officially mandated test be delayed to conduct an ˜initial analytical screen?  Can a scientifically determined positive result be manipulated and later put on record as a negative result? The report does not explain the time limits during which the presumable illegal operations were conducted. In this situation a very substantial doubt could the culprits operate fast enough not to arouse suspicions? that doubt is left unanswered

http://orientalreview.org/2016/07/21/the-olympics-as-a-tool-of-the-new-cold-war/  We have witnesses, but the defense team cannot subject them to cross-examination.  We cannot prove that Blokhin is an FSB agent, but we believe it.  We do not possess any of the original documents not a single photograph or affidavit from the official examination but we have sufficient evidence from a single criminal who has already confessed to his crime.  We did not submit the emails provided by Rodchenkov to any experts to be examined, but we assert that the emails are genuine, that all the facts they contain are accurate, and that the names of the senders are correct.

 

Marknesop: There are inconsistencies in the description of how ˜protected Russian athlete samples were identified, separated and then delayed in shipping to the laboratory.  As identified by Sports Integrity Initiative, The IP Report and IO Report contain conflicting accounts of how samples taken at the Sochi 2014 Olympics were consolidated for shipment to the laboratory.  One of the descriptions stretches credulity.  In a tightly monitored environment, under supervision of international authorities, would it really be possible to identify Russian test samples among the hundreds being processed, separate them out, then delay their shipment till the end of the day? All of these actions would be necessary if the plan indeed was to make a manipulation in the middle of the night.

Rodchenkov is all alone in the lab, after midnight. He slips the bottles through a hole, and some guy who has never been identified (because presumably Rodchenkov never saw him, hes on the other side of a wall) takes them away and gives him back bottles of clean pee from the athletes themselves, which they have stockpiled in plastic bottles. How does he know this? He doesnt even know who the guy is whos doing it! except he thinks he might be FSB. Look at the graphic in the Times article. Room 124 has a door in it. Why does he need to pass bottles through the wall? Its supposed to be outside the secure area, but theres an open corridor right there. Hows that secured? A guard? And he doesnt notice some guy regularly coming out of an empty storage room, returning two hours later and going back in again? If theres no guard, why all the hole-in-the-wall stuff? Why not just walk next door and hand him the bottle? Comes to that, if Rodchenkov is masterminding the state doping program he claims to have so much knowledge of, why isnt he just switching the samples himself?

Oh, right; because he doesnt know how to get the bottles open. But somebody he cant identify, because he never saw him, does. Some guy who then had to walk the whole length of the first floor to leave the building, and again when he came back with the clean pee. Didnt anyone notice that Rodchenkov stayed there all night every night? After he had already been fingered for doping-related skullduggery and his sister had gone to jail for peddling drugs to athletes? Lets not forget that WADA knew of the suspicions against him years before Sochi, because Vitaly Stepanov had been feeding them secrets for a long time, years. Yet they declined to do anything, then steered the Stepanovs to a German TV journalist, then pounced on the resulting documentary as a reason to start the investigation.  After all that painstaking double-blind secrecy, the Russians blew it by keeping a database from which spreadsheet (which outlined the governments doping plan, they sure were confident they wouldnt get caught) the investigators were able to determine 33 medals were won by Russian cheats.

JT RussiaReviewed -It did not provide the source for quantitative measurements.