Sports Medicine, Russian Style

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) recently reported that Russia’s secret service intimidated workers at a drug-testing lab and impersonated lab engineers, and a Russian drug test lab destroyed 1,400 samples, all to cover up positive drug tests by the country’s athletes. Russia’s athletes paid to make doping violations disappear, bribed anti-doping authorities to ensure favorable results, and Russian sports officials submitted bogus urine samples for doping team athletes. This was documented at the London Olympics, at Sochi, and during other athletic competitions. Given this long-term, state-sponsored, systemic culture of corruption, WADA called for banning Russian athletes from international competition, including the 2016 Rio Olympics.

The evidence is so strong that the council of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) suspended Russia from all international track and field competition by a vote of 22 to 1. Even Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for an internal investigation of his nation’s sports teams to identify individual culprits and pledged cooperation with international anti-doping sports bodies.

Do Not Pass Go, Lance Armstrong. Pay $10 Million.

“Disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong has been ordered to pay $10 million to a promotions company after an arbitration panel found he conducted an ‘unparalleled pageant of international perjury, fraud and conspiracy’ during his career.” —  Austin Knoblauch, Los Angeles Times

Armstrong is also being sued by his whistle-blowing teammate Floyd Landis and the U.S. Government for defrauding the cycling team’s sponsor, the U.S. Postal Service, by using performance-enhancing drugs.