anti-doping – Declan Hill – Investigative Journalist & Academic

Sports and the Russian Mafia

On the news that the Russian track and field athletes are banned from the Rio Olympics. Good decision. Two points, five lessons and the links between sports and the Russian Mafia. The Russian anti-doping system in sport was largely a sham: a Potemkin village of a program designed to give the appearance of an effective fight but in reality enabling widespread doping among their athletes. At the very heart of athleticism and the IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) that was a...

The Wrong People using the Wrong Tools in the Wrong Way

It is a tale of two reports. The first was released last month by the investigators of the Cycling International Report Commission (CIRI). They examined the actions of Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) who govern elite cycling. Their report is a review of the colossal failure of anti-doping efforts in cycling over the last twenty-years. This failure came about despite tens-of-millions of dollars being spent on anti-doping and the deaths of a number of riders. The former cyclist Nicole Cooke brilliantly described...