Recent Russian Doping Controversies at the Olympics
In 2007, Russia had been awarded hosting rights for the 2014 Olympics. The next Winter Games in Vancouver were meant showcase Russia's competitiveness.Russia won only three gold medals. As Moscow anti-doping lab director — and future whistleblower — Grigory Rodchenkov wrote in his 2020 autobiography, “it became obvious that Putin had much higher expectations for Sochi.”Even before the London Olympics began, Russia was working to undermine them.
The athletes, he said, had been using a cocktail known as “Duchess” of different steroids dissolved in whisky for the men, and vermouth for the women. After he fled to the United States in November 2015, he detailed years of doping and cover-ups over dozens of sports. It was also at odds with the World Anti-Doping Agency, which demanded a blanket ban on the Russian team after Rodchenkov went public with his allegations in May 2016. The International Olympic Committee refused to go that far — prompting criticism it had sold out to Russia — but it allowed individual sports to impose their own vetting and restrictions.
A failed legal challenge to overturn the IOC's system of vetting athletes dominated the build-up to the Olympics, and there was another legal battle when curler Alexander Krushelnitsky failed a doping test. He lost a bronze medal and was banned four years.The new acronym, short for Russian Olympic Committee, came amid new restrictions after WADA found data from the Moscow lab had been tampered with to stop it from clearing up old doping cases.