New documents obtained by journalists for ARD are alleged to show that Russia operated a ‘doping protocol’ at the Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Olympics, detailing prohibited substances to be used on athletes and urine swapping processes to avoid positive tests. In the documentary, Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov – former Director of the Moscow Laboratory – alleges how the command chain behind the ‘doping protocol’ documents leads back to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“I am aware that Putin knows full and sharp details from [Vitaly] Mutko”, said Dr. Rodchenkov in ‘Doping Top Secret – Olympic Conspiracy’, the first of a two part documentary published on 29 January. “Mutko told me that Putin remember, knew my name very well. And again, he was knowing everything, because it was a very small chain. I am reporting to [Yuri] Nagornykh, Nagornykh reporting to Mutko, Mutko reporting to Putin. 

“Putin would like to know everything and Putin’s approach was, don’t hide your problem. Open your problem and threats and we will do everything to solve your problems. This was his approach.”

Full ARD VIDEO in English coming soon: How it worked to open+close bottles of the newest generation of sealed Berlinger doping sample bottles without any trace + and how it worked to copy bottles (OLD+NEW) within a few days – and no expert in WADA labs could see the difference

— Hajo Seppelt (@hajoseppelt) January 31, 2018

Vitaly Mutko was Russia’s Minister of Sport until 2016, whilst Dr. Rodchenkov was head of the Moscow Laboratory and during the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics. Mutko was appointed as Deputy Prime Minister on 19 October 2016 and until December last year, was President of the Football Union of Russia and Chairman of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia.

Yuri Nagornykh was Mutko’s Deputy Minister of Sport, who resigned in October 2016. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has banned both Mutko and Nagornykh from all future editions of the Olympic Games. Both headed Russia’s Ministry of Sport during the Sochi 2014 Olympics, where it is alleged that an efficient sample swapping scheme led to Russia reporting no adverse analytical findings (AAF). As of 22 December 2017, retests of Sochi 2014 samples by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have identified 46 Russian positives from the Sochi Games.

In his affidavit provided to the IOC’s Schmid Commission, Dr. Rodchenkov has already outlined the role of Nagornykh in supervising the Federal Security Service (FSB) Command Centre, adjacent to the Sochi 2014 Laboratory, which stored banks of ‘clean’ frozen urine for swapping. The FSB is the modern successor of the KGB, and the role of FSB agent Evgeny Blokhin in opening sample bottle caps was highlighted by Richard McLaren in his Independent Person (IP) Reports for the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

In the documentary, Dr. Rodchenkov also alleges that Putin ordered the FSB’s involvement in the Sochi 2014 operation. “Of course it came from the very top, from the President”, he says. “Because only the President could engage FSB for such specific task”. A Kremlin spokesperson told Russian journalists that the allegations are “baseless slander”.

‘Clean’ samples in Moscow Laboratory

Dr. Rodchenkov also alleges that the samples remaining in the Moscow Laboratory may not reveal any further anti-doping rule violations (ADRVs), but DNA within the samples could indicate tampering. He estimates around 2,000 urine samples remain in the Laboratory. “But, the most important thing, all samples which are retained in Moscow are analytically clean”, he said.

The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation (SKR) has not released the remaining urine samples in the Laboratory to WADA, which is one of the criteria which it requires for the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) to be reinstated. As previously reported by The Sports Integrity Initiative, there are questions as to how many of the samples would remain useful in terms of detecting ADRVs.

Part 2 of the WADA IP Report revealed that after receiving a December 2014 letter from WADA announcing a ‘surprise’ inspection, 8,000 samples dating from prior to 10 September 2014 of the 10,000 samples held at the Moscow laboratory were destroyed. WADA did not suspend the Moscow laboratory until 10 November 2015. If the samples under the protection of the SKR are from between December 2014 and November 2015, it is questionable how many of them will be useful, as systemic Russian doping had been exposed by then.

The SKR has been investigating Dr. Rodchenkov since 8 June 2016. On 28 November 2017, it dismissed the affidavit he provided to the IOC’s Schmid Commission as ‘unfounded’, and said that interviews with over 700 people refuted the allegation that Russian doping was state orchestrated. The SKR investigating Dr. Rodchenkov is State controlled as is the FSB, which is alleged to be behind the urine swapping operation at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics.

“The very important thing is to check DNA for elite athletes”, said Dr. Rodchenkov. “Who might substitute their urine in collection sites. This is the most important reason to check urine in our Moscow storage. Because, you know, Moscow Anti-Doping Centre, we were the last line of defence. And the major part of protection athletes was substitution at collection stage. Substitution for top level athlete should be done with urine from freezer. But, very often, urine from freezer was not available or athletes were not ready. Sometimes, some other clean athletes or coaches gave urine instead of athletes.”

Claudia Bokel

It has also been alleged that the IOC Executive Committee did not permit discussion about excluding Russia from the Rio 2016 Olympics. Claudia Bokel is the former Chair of the IOC Athletes Commission and former member of the three person IOC Review Panel that assessed if Russians had met the criteria to be eligible for Rio. The Panel was created after an initial decision to require international federations to carry out such an assessment created chaos.

“We wanted tough consequences for Russia and that Russia be excluded from the Games in Rio or PyeongChang”, she said. “But the Executive Committee said that could not be discussed. So, the possible consequences were just not discussed, and the issue was swept from the table.”

Bokel said that she considered resignation over the IOC’s decision, which reduced her to tears. “I do not present myself as being for against somebody, but for and against one thing. If I am convinced of the contrary, that’s fine with me. If discussion is not allowed, I find that difficult.”

Political Games

The allegations in the latest documentary produced by the investigative team led by German journalist Hajo Seppelt are not entirely new, but they do provide further proof of State control of Russian doping stretching back over three editions of the Olympic Games. In the Icarus documentary, Dr. Rodchenkov alleged that State Russian doping dates back to the 1980 Moscow Olympics, a claim he repeats in the full transcript of his interview with Seppelt, published by Deutschlandfunk.

The alleged existence of ‘doping protocol’ documents obtained by ARD further supports the idea that Russian doping was orchestrated, as does the SKR’s protection of samples stored in the Moscow Laboratory from WADA investigators. Any evidence of tampering with the samples, as Dr. Rodchekov has alleged, would further support the idea that Russian doping was planned and not the activity of a single man motivated by monetary gain, as the SKR alleges.

Meticulous attention to which samples were to be swapped was required, requiring athletes to take photographs of numbers on doping control forms (DCFs) which had to be matched to samples, with zero room for human error. Following the successful swapping of samples, entries into the Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) had to be correctly entered and not attract scrutiny. Put simply, there was a great deal that could go wrong. Such a system could not be operated by a single person.

Russia will continue to deny any State involvement in Russian doping. The FSB allegedly controlled the Command Centre adjacent to the Sochi 2014 Laboratory that stored clean athlete urine. The SKR is investigating Dr. Rodchenkov. Both organisations are State controlled. A State organisation is attempting to prosecute a whistleblower for alleging that the State orchestrated a doping programme, despite the existence of a National Anti-Doping Plan (NADP) promising to protect such whistleblowers. Conflicts of interest aside, any involvement of the FSB suggests an element of State control.

Richard McLaren has previously told The Sports Integrity Initiative that he changed his definition from ‘State sponsored’ to ‘systemic’ because he needed certain information at the time. “Many people would take the definition of State sponsored just as the fact that the Minster of Sport is involved, which he clearly was”, said McLaren. “There are other conflicting definitions of State sponsored, but if you use the Russian definition, or version, then it’s not State sponsored, but it is certainly institutional”.

Mutko was implicated in the IP Reports produced by McLaren as covering up the positive test of a Russian footballer. Mutko and the Russian Ministry of Sport are alleged to have orchestrated and financed Russian State doping in Dr. Rodchenkov’s affidavit. Mutko is also implicated in Dr. Rodcehenkov’s extensive diaries, as chronicled in the New York Times.

Yet despite the weight of evidence against him and his department, Putin promoted Mutko to Deputy Prime Minister in October 2016. This was after WADA had published three Reports alleging that him and his Ministry had supervised State doping. To take Russia’s definition of ‘State’ to its logical conclusion, the State may not have been involved, but the President of the State was prepared to promote a man who was.