Russian Government Helped Their Athletes Cheat In 2014 Winter Olympics Because Russia Is A Sketchy Country

WJ Cope10 years ago

It looks like we might not get the pleasure of dominating one of our favorite opponents in this year’s Olympic games. It has now been confirmed that the Russian government ordered the doping of its athletes in Sochi back in 2014, and this will likely result in severe sanctions or even disqualification for Russia.

From The New York Times:

Grigory Rodchenkov, Russia’s former antidoping lab director, told The New York Times in May that he covered up the use of performance-enhancing drugs by Russian Olympians at the 2014 Sochi Games and that he did so under orders from Russian officials for the ministry of sport, tourism and youth policy. A report published by the global antidoping agency on Monday morning concluded that his claims were true and that evidence indicated the state-run doping program was executed before and after the Sochi Games.

Dr. Rodchenkov said the government wanted to “win at any cost” and that it enlisted Russia’s intelligence service to break into the supposedly tamper-proof bottles that are the standard at international sports competitions and set to be used in Rio.

I’m not even worried about whether any of Russia’s 33 medals from Sochi will be vacated, but I don’t care. Even if the U.S. is retroactively given the number 1 spot for Sochi by default, that doesn’t change anything. There’s no fun in winning by default, and I barely know anyone who watched much of the action in Sochi. The funniest thing about this for me is that it displays an ineptitude at cheating on the part of the Russian government. If you’re going to cheat, at least do a good job of it.

Hopefully we still get to pound you into submission in Rio, Russia. If not, we’ll see you in Tokyo. Also…

Get all the patriotic gear you need for the Summer games at RowdyGentleman.com.

[via The New York Times]

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