He is back. Refugee under a new identity in the United States since 2015 and his shattering revelations on state doping in Russia, Grigory Rodchenkov, former director of the Moscow anti-doping laboratory, makes new revelations in his autobiography published on Thursday. The book was scheduled to be released during the Tokyo Olympics, postponed for a year due to the Covid, which would have amplified its impact. He should still make some noise. In The Rodchenkov Affair : How I Brought Down Putin’s Secret Doping Empire (“The Rodchenkov affair: how I brought down Putin’s secret doping empire”), he reveals some crunchy information.
“Urines”. In addition to his past as an athletic student, a middle distance runner with no great future despite his doping with steroids, “Which was common at the time in the USSR”, Rodchenkov reveals with precision the workings of the organization set up by his country to fool the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
“When I was appointed director of the Moscow anti-doping laboratory in 2005, my job was to ensure that Russian athletes participating in international competitions were never caught. We had no limits. The urine samples impregnated with doping products came out negative from my laboratory. During my ten years as director covering five winter and summer Olympics, no athlete has tested positive in competition ”, he writes in his book, excerpts from which have been published by the English weekly The Mail on Sunday.
According to the whistleblower, the extent of Soviet and then Russian doping was such that, in some training camps, “Finding clean urine to secretly replace infected samples was a problem given the number of doped athletes.” If Rodchenkov details, by riddling them with anecdotes, facts already established by journalistic investigations or in the documentary dedicated to him in 2017, he drops two light bulbs that shed light on the history of the sport, when Eastern countries and the West continued their Cold War in the stadiums.
Among the revelations, an unprecedented explanation for the boycott by the USSR and its satellite countries of the Los Angeles Summer Olympics in 1984. Officially, it was a response to that initiated by the United States at the 1980 Games in Moscow, to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Unofficially, it’s a little more complicated, reveals Rodchenkov: “The Soviets planned to hide a doping control laboratory on board a ship in the port of Los Angeles during the Games, after Manfred Donike [responsable antidopage du CIO, ndlr] and Don Catlin, of the University of Los Angeles Olympic testing lab, announced they would be able to detect all steroids – including stanozolol and testosterone – at the Games, he writes. Testing the athletes before they left Moscow was not enough – Soviet sports czars had to have their own lab on site to make sure no dirty athlete made it to the start lines [au risque d’être attrapé]. When Los Angeles didn’t allow our ship to enter port, it was the last straw. The Politburo dropped everything and boycotted the Olympics entirely. ”
On the other hand, a laboratory “Top secret and hermetically sealed” would have been set up during the Seoul Games in 1988, continues Rodchenkov: «Semenov [son supérieur] instructed me to hide our laboratory instruments on board the luxury liner Mikhaïl-Sholokhov, according to a famous Soviet writer who won the Nobel Prize in 1965. “
Sanctions. Another revelation: before the explosion caused by the loss of his 100-meter Olympic champion title at the Seoul Olympics following a positive test, the Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson had already been caught by the patrol. It was two years earlier in Moscow, during the Goodwill Games (an international sports meeting on the sidelines of the Olympics created by American television mogul Ted Turner in reaction to the boycotts of 1980 and 1984). “The doping control at the Goodwill Games turned out to be a formality, raconte Rodchenkov. Our lab found fourteen positive results, but the apparatchiks from Goskomsport [le ministère soviétique des Sports] chose not to report them – no one wanted to taint Turner’s “Alternative Games”. Ben Johnson beat Carl Lewis, but then tested positive for stanozolol [le même produit qui provoquera sa chute à Séoul]. I did his analysis. The result was never reported. ”
Fearing for his life following the sudden deaths of Nikita Kamaïev and Vyacheslav Sinev, who succeeded him at the head of the Russian anti-doping agency Rusada, after his revelations, Grigory Rodchenkov moved to the United States, where he benefits from the witness protection program.
Last winter, the World Anti-Doping Agency suspended Russia for four years from all international competition, including the Tokyo Olympics (1), postponed to 2021. Only ten athletes could prove that they were not part of the system doping state were to participate under neutral banner. But this reinstatement is threatened due to the non-payment before July of the Russian Athletics Federation of the fine of 5 million dollars (4.2 million euros) imposed by the International Federation.
In an interview with the BBC on Monday, Grigory Rodchenkov, face covered, opposes the reintroduction of Russian athletes to the next Olympics, believing that Russia has not put an end to its almost systematic doping despite the sanctions: “The officials suspended in December for falsifying doping control results provided to WADA are the same who during the Sochi Winter Games [en 2014], exchanged urine samples . This shows that the country is learning absolutely nothing. ”
(1) Moscow denies these allegations outright and says the four-year suspension was politically motivated. Russia has appealed the suspension to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and will be heard in November.
Julie renson miquel
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