It took only three years for world anti-doping officials to reinstate Russia’s drug-testing program – three years and the total capitulation of the World Anti-Doping Agency to Russian deceit.

Reports of Russian athletes’ widespread cheating emerged in 2014. The former head of the Russian testing laboratory revealed that he had helped dope dozens of athletes in the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi and that the FSB, the KGB successor agency, assisted. A landmark 2016 report found that an FSB agent disguised as a sewer worker helped remove supposedly tamper-proof bottles from a testing lab, open them without breaking their seal and refill them with clean urine.

This brazen cheating got Russia banned from the 2018 Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea. Well, sort of. Dozens of Russian athletes were still allowed to compete under a cloud of suspicion, as they did in the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro.

Now, following a vote this past Thursday, the country’s drug-testing program is back, although Russian officials refused to submit to two key requirements. First, they declined to accept guilt for state-sponsored doping, embracing only the conclusions of a report that did not detail the full scale of Russian state involvement. Second, the Russians still have not given world anti-doping authorities access to their infamous Moscow laboratory.

Athletes across the globe, including the chairman of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, are dismayed at WADA’s capitulation. And they should be. So should honest Russian athletes, whose performances will be tainted by their government’s doping conspiracy and lack of contrition. Given that the U.S. is the single largest contributor to WADA, giving $2.3 million annually, Congress should also consider slapping criminal penalties on those involved in international sports doping.

If and when Russian athletes are once again caught cheating, it will reflect not only on a single corrupt government, but also on the global sports authorities who are now complicit in letting Russian authorities escape full accountability.


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