Doping at the Olympic Games
The use of performance-enhancing tactics or more formally known as PEDs, and more broadly, the use of any external device to nefariously influence the outcome of a sporting event has been a part of the Olympics since its inception in Ancient Greece.
No clear evidence was discovered until after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when the aforementioned documents proved that East Germany had embarked on a state-sponsored drug regimen to dramatically improve their competitiveness at the Olympic Games and other international sporting events.
[13] According to British journalist Andrew Jennings, a KGB colonel stated that the agency's officers had posed as anti-doping authorities from the International Olympic Committee to undermine doping tests and that Soviet athletes were "rescued with [these] tremendous efforts".
"[14][15] Documents obtained in 2016 revealed the Soviet Union's plans for a statewide doping system in track and field in preparation for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
He originally won the gold medal in the men's 400-meter freestyle, but following the race, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) disqualified DeMont[26] after his post-race urinalysis tested positive for traces of the banned substance ephedrine contained in his prescription asthma medication, Marax.
According to British journalist Andrew Jennings, a KGB colonel stated that the agency's officers had posed as anti-doping authorities from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to undermine doping tests and that Soviet athletes were "rescued with [these] tremendous efforts".
[35][36] A member of the IOC Medical Commission, Manfred Donike, privately ran additional tests with a new technique for identifying abnormal levels of testosterone by measuring its ratio to epitestosterone in urine.
[35] A 1994 letter from IOC Medical Commission chair Alexandre de Mérode claimed that Tony Daly, a member of the Los Angeles organizing committee had destroyed the records.
[39] Five athletes tested positive for the stimulant bromantan and were disqualified by the IOC, but later reinstated after an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport: swimmers Andrey Korneyev and Nina Zhivanevskaya, Greco-Roman wrestler Zafar Guliev and sprinter Marina Trandenkova, all from Russia, and the Lithuanian track cyclist Rita Razmaitė.
[90] On 24 August 2016, the IWF reported that as a consequence of the IOC's reanalyses of samples from the 2008 Olympic Games, the samples of the following athletes had returned positive results: Nizami Pashayev (Azerbaijan), Iryna Kulesha, Nastassia Novikava, Andrei Rybakou (all from Belarus), Cao Lei, Chen Xiexia, Liu Chunhong (all from China), Mariya Grabovetskaya, Maya Maneza, Irina Nekrassova, Vladimir Sedov (all from Kazakhstan), Khadzhimurat Akkaev, Dmitry Lapikov (both from Russia), and Natalya Davydova and Olha Korobka (both from Ukraine).
[91] On 29 August 2016, some non-official reports indicated that Artur Taymazov of Uzbekistan had been stripped of the 2008 Olympic gold medal in the freestyle wrestling 120 kg event due to a positive test for doping.
[95] On 23 September 2016, some non-official reports indicate wrestler Vasyl Fedoryshyn of Ukraine has been stripped of the 2008 Olympic silver medal in the freestyle 60 kg event due to a positive test for doping.
Among them were six medal winners: weightlifters Andrei Rybakou and Nastassia Novikava, both from Belarus, and Olha Korobka of Ukraine; women's steeplechase bronze medalist Ekaterina Volkova of Russia; and freestyle wrestlers Soslan Tigiev of Uzbekistan and Taimuraz Tigiyev of Kazakhstan.
[102] On 25 January 2017, the IOC stripped Jamaica of the athletics gold medal in the men's 4 × 100 m relay due to Nesta Carter testing positive for the prohibited substance methylhexaneamine.
[137][138] Other competitors at the Summer games involved in previous doping cases included American athletes Justin Gatlin and LaShawn Merritt,[139] and Jamaican sprinter Yohan Blake.
It also recommended lifetime bans for five coaches and five athletes from the country, including runners Mariya Savinova, Ekaterina Poistogova, Anastasiya Bazdyreva, Kristina Ugarova, and Tatjana Myazina.
[162] On 9 August 2016, the IOC announced that Oleksandr Pyatnytsya of Ukraine would be stripped of his silver medal in the javelin throw after he tested positive for the prohibited substance dehydrochlormethyltestosterone (turinabol).
On 29 August 2016, a report indicated that a retested sample for Besik Kudukhov of Russia, the silver medalist in the men's 60 kg freestyle wrestling event, had returned a positive result (later disclosed as dehydrochlormethyltestosterone).
Through 6 October 2016, the IOC had reported Adverse Analytical Findings for 23 weightlifters from its 2016 retests of samples from the 2012 London Olympic Games, all of whom tested positive for anabolic agents.
[101] On 29 November 2016 the Court of Arbitration for Sport issued a decision that all results achieved by 2012 Olympic heptathlon bronze medalist Tatyana Chernova of Russia between 15 August 2011 and 22 July 2013 are annulled.
[175] In November 2015, Savinova was one of five Russian runners the World Anti-Doping Agency recommended to receive a lifetime ban for doping during the London Olympics, along with 800m bronze medalist Ekaterina Poistogova.
The Canadian snowboarder Ross Rebagliati, winner of the men's giant slalom, was initially disqualified and stripped of his gold medal by the International Olympic Committee's executive board after testing positive for marijuana.
The Austrians were found guilty of possessing doping substances and taking part in a conspiracy, based on materials seized by Italian police during a raid on the athletes' living quarters.
[328] On 13 February 2006, the Brazilian Olympic Committee announced that Armando dos Santos' preventive antidoping test, which had been done in Brazil on 4 January 2006, was positive for the forbidden substance nandrolone.
[334] According to the director of the country's antidoping laboratory at the time, Grigory Rodchenkov, dozens of Russian athletes at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, including at least 15 medal winners, were part of a state-run doping program, meticulously planned for years to ensure dominance at the Games.
[343] Six cross-country skiers were suspended from competition on the basis of the McLaren Report: Evgeniy Belov, Alexander Legkov, Alexey Petukhov, Maxim Vylegzhanin, Yulia Ivanova and Evgenia Shapovalova.
[345] On 24 November 2017, the IOC imposed life bans on bobsledder Alexandr Zubkov and speed skater Olga Fatkulina who won a combined 3 medals (2 gold, 1 silver).
[356] Speed skaters Ivan Skobrev and Artyom Kuznetsov, lugers Albert Demchenko and Tatiana Ivanova, and bobsledders Liudmila Udobkina and Maxim Belugin were disqualified on 22 December 2017, bringing the total to 43.
[391][392] Due to Valieva being a minor at the time, as well as being classified as a "protected person" under WADA guidelines, RUSADA and the IOC announced on 12 February that they would broaden the scope of their respective investigations to include members of her entourage (e.g. coaches, team doctors, etc.).
The CAS decided that preventing her from competing "would cause her irreparable harm in the circumstances", while noting that any medals won by Valieva at the Beijing Olympics would be withheld pending the results of the continuing investigation into her doping violation.
