Russia: Doping

More than 1000 Russian Olympic athletes from more than 30 sports federations have benefited from manipulations to hide their positive doping tests. This is stated by the World Anti-Doping Agency on State doping in Russia. They had a system for handling urine bottles, which was put into practice by the anti-doping laboratory of the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi.

The Russian Federation was suspended since November 2015 by state doping. His goals were not in the Olympic Games of Rio 2016 and have no competition in the Europeans on track, nor in the World Championships. At the end, the COI, let more than 270 Russian athletes participate in the Olympic Games.

This prompted, for example, the International Athletics Federation (IAAF) that the Russian Federation should remain suspended for doping because it "is not yet ready" for reading at the London World Championships. All the changes of nationality of athletes were also stopped, and to suspend the current system of candidacies to host championships, including the world ones, from 2021.


The IAAF authorizes Russian athletes to compete individually if they have undergone independent doping controls, and their case-by-case case is assessed by their respective federations for each sport.

CITE: EL PAÍS. (2016). Thomas Bach: “Tenemos que ir más allá del Informe McLaren”. [online] Available at: http://deportes.elpais.com/deportes/2016/12/11/actualidad/1481455308_696047.html

Author: Bloomberg (2016). Russia's Olympics Doping Scandal, Explained. YouTube