Why the Russian team was not allowed for the Olympics?

     So why did Russia was really punished for and why its’ national team was not allowed for the 2018 Winter Olympics in Korea?

     The article of the English “Guardian” details the report of the Head of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) commission to investigate the facts of the use and concealment of doping in Russia by Mr. McLaren.

     It says that the Russian Ministry of Sport has decided in advance and purposefully to introduce a “disappearing positive methodology” plan after the failure of the Russian team at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

     Since the end of 2011, all the positive doping results found by the Moscow laboratory were reported to the deputy minister of sports, who instructed the laboratory to deceive WADA and call them negative.

     After Grigory Rodchenko became the director of the Moscow laboratory, he developed a steroid cocktail, selected to better conceal the traces of drugs. The bottom line was that the steroids dissolved in alcoholic beverages (Chivas for men and Vermuth for women). Athletes typed it in their mouths, rinsed and spit out. During this time, steroids managed to penetrate the body through the mucous membrane of the mouth. This cocktail was even coined by the name “The Duchess”.

     The above technique worked well, but not at international competitions, where foreign experts were present. Therefore, the Federal Security Service (formerly the KGB) came up with new tricks for application at the World Athletics Championships in Moscow in 2013 and at the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi in 2014. “Clean” analyses of Russian athletes were gathered in advance and stored by Irina Rodionova (Deputy Sports Training Center) in freezers. During the competition, they were taken to an adjacent office with an anti-doping laboratory, which contained fresh analyzes of athletes. A Russian laboratory employee passed the test tubes to the next room through a thin hole, specially drilled by FSB officers. On the other side, the test tube was taken by FSB agents and the Russian anti-doping agency and replaced them with frozen old tests. All this scheme was revealed by Gregory Rodchenko to WADA staff, for which later was called “traitor” by many Russians.

     Scales of machinations were huge, says McLaren. The sports department of Russia had “clean” samples prepared for the 577 sportsmen in the freezer, including 139 athletes, 100 weightlifters, 40 Paraolympians, etc.