8. Media Involvement

WADA

ICrpt1 p55 In retrospect, it is evident to the Independent Commission (IC) that the media became caught up in the swirl of accusations, replies and denials, and counter assertions. While the IC has no intention of commenting on the appropriate function of the media, it must be understood that, ultimately, key stakeholders at the heart of the allegations, namely the Russian Federation, International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), coaches and athletes controlled the content and timing of information provided to the
Media.

Critique

https://www.wada-ama.org/en/media/news/2016-05/foundation-board-media-release-12-may-2016  During the Board Meeting itself, a New York Times article came out alleging that dozens of Russian athletes at the Sochi Games, including at least 15 medal winners, were part of a state-run doping program, according to the director of the country’s anti-doping laboratory at the time, Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov. “You can be sure that WADA will immediately look into these additional allegations” said Reedie.

It is possible that WADA either saw an embargoed copy of the NYT article prior to the meeting or contributed to it.

https://openparachute.wordpress.com/2016/07/26/84-wada-sports-doping-stats-sorted-not-by-me-nina-kouprianova/ I presented the most recent official data from WADA in my article . This showed that the proportion of positive doping tests for Russian athletes was just less than average for the whole world. More importantly, there are a number of nations with a higher proportion of positive doping tests than the Russian Federation – including India, France, Belgium, Mexico and Turkey. Yes, the data was for 2014. It did not (could not) cover the current Russian doping scandal or the McLaren report.

Mark: A graphic which appears in open parachute demonstrates using WADA data that doping in the Russian Federation in 2014 was only marginally worse than that recorded for the United States, about half what was recorded for France, and nearly identical to that recorded for Australia, while Belgium with at least four times the offenses recorded for Russia. But for its New York Times report, hard-hitting and influential, editors chose 2013 data, which made Russia look much, much worse. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/10/sports/russian-athletes-part-of-state-sponsored-doping-program-report-finds.html  I don’t have any way of knowing how WADA compiles its statistics, but this graphic was plainly cherry-picked to inflame readers. That shows you that Russia’s higher number of positives likely results from Russia’s being tested more frequently than any other country except China. But when you resort the data as Nina Kouprianova did, by % positive, Russia is 19th in the world, after Norway, Poland, France and Sweden and just above Australia and Canada. This suggests the way the data are displayed is also being used to push the reader to a conclusion.

On May 8, 2016 the CBS program 60 Minutes aired a broadcast about doping in Russia.  The interviews featured recorded conversations between a former staffer with the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA), Vitaly Stepanov, and the ex-director of Russia’s anti-doping laboratory in Moscow, Grigory Rodchenkov.  That program was just the fourth installment in a lengthy series about the alleged existence of a system to support doping in Russian sports. A few days later the New York Times published an interview with Rodchenkov.  There that former official claims that a state-supported doping program was active at the Sochi Olympics, and that the orders for that program had come almost directly from the Russian president.

One important fact that escaped most international observers was that a media campaign, which had begun shortly after the 2014 deep freeze in Russian-Western relations, was constructed around the “testimonies” of three Russian citizens who were all interconnected and complicit in a string of doping scandals, and who later left Russia and are trying to make new lives in the West. Stepanova’s career went off the rails in 2013, when the Russian Athletic Federation’s Anti-Doping Commission disqualified her for two years based on “blood fluctuations in her Athlete Biological Passport.” Such fluctuations are considered evidence of doping.  All of Stepanova’s results since 2011 have been invalidated.  In addition, she had to return the prize money she had won running in professional races in 2011-2012.  Stepanova, who had been suspended for doping, acted as the primary informant for ARD journalist Hajo Seppelt, who had begun filming a documentary about misconduct in Russian sports.  After the release of ARD’s first documentary in December 2014, Stepanova left Russia along with her husband and son.  In 2015 she requested political asylum in Canada.  Even after her suspension ended in 2015, Stepanova told the WADA Commission (p.142 of the Nov. 2015 WADA Report) that she had tested positive for doping during the Russian Track and Field Championships in Saransk in July 2010 and paid 30,000 rubles (approximately $1,000 USD at that time) to the director of the Russian anti-doping laboratory in Moscow, Gregory Rodchenkov, in exchange for concealing those test results.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/13/sports/russia-doping-sochi-olympics-2014.html According to yet another Times article – they really hyped this case hard – Rodchenkov was actually in the room with this guy, who he assumed to be a Russian intelligence officer. Because he had a badge that said “Russian Intelligence” on his jacket, or something. Or Rodchenkov used to be Russian intelligence himself, and knows the type. Anyway. So it’s a colleague of Rodchenkov’s who is passing the sample bottles through a hole in the wall, and Rodchenkov takes the bottle and hands it to the guy. He goes away to a nearby building, and returns in a couple of hours with the bottle opened and the cap undamaged. Then Rodchenkov and his colleague (who is not named) clean the bottle with filter paper and refill it with clean pee which they have in storage. Right there on the premises, evidently. they supposedly collected clean pee in abundance from the chosen cheater athletes months before the games. But pee doesn’t keep that long unless you freeze it. http://www.bd.com/vacutainer/labnotes/Volume14Number2/

According to NCCLS (National Committee on Clinical Laboratory Standards; they changed their name in 2005 to the Clinical Laboratory Standards Institute) standards, testing within 2 hours of collection is recommended. Unless you’re going to add a preservative such as boric acid (which presumably would be detected), the envelope maxes out at 72 hours. We know the samples from various Olympics have been preserved by freezing, but a soda bottle of piss in the freezer would look a little suspicious, don’t you think? Not to mention the difficulty of shoehorning frozen piss into one of those little sample bottles at 2:00 AM.