A German documentary “
Geheimsache Doping” about the the systematic doping in Russia is now making its rounds through the internet.
Unfortunately it is only available in German and only watchable with a German IP address.
Use a proxy service of your choice to
watch it here. Maybe someone can leak it to youtube or vid.me?
TL;DW: The documentary uncovers nationwide systematic doping. It involves names that are pretty high up the food chain, such as the president of the All-Russia Athletics Federation, Director of the WADA lab in Moscow and the Track and Field Head Coach, just to name a few. In fact it goes up to Mutko (Minister of sports) and even Putin gets a mention.
This is a state wide effort much like it was in the
GDR with corruption as far as the eye can see.
It’s mainly about about track and field but don’t think for a second that it stops there. Other sports like weightlifting get a mention too. So expect the same to be true here as well.
I put my German to use and made a transcript / summary of the entire film.
Protagonists
- Vitaliy Stepanov – wanted to fight doping at RUSADA, worked there for three years as controller and consultant to the director of RUSADA
- Yuliya Rosanova (Stepanova) – Vitaliy’s wife, 800m sprinter, currently banned
- Valentin Balakhnichev – the president of the All-Russia Athletics Federation and treasurer of the IAAF
- Alexey Melnikov – one of the two head coaches of the Russian athletics federation
- Sergej Portugalov – gives anti-doping seminars, central figure in Olympic preparation, had the same position during soviet era of high doping
- Grigory Rodchenkov – the director of Moscow’s doping control lab, he gave drugs to athletes, administered injections, gets paid
- Liliya Shobukhova – Russian Marathon Super Star
- Evgenia Pecherina – Thrower
- Mariya Savinova - 800m runner who’s test got covered up
- Hajo Seppelt – The journalist who made the documentary
Translation / Summary
The documentary starts with Hajo Seppelt getting information after the Sochi winter Olympics. Seppelt had done reporting on doping practices before.
Yuliya, 28, confessed everything to her husband. “All athletes in Russia are using. For medals you need help, prohibited substances”, she says.
At first Vitaliy helps her get substances. They decide to write to WADA but were ignored.
Yuliya says that she or her coach bought the prohibited substances. To test this they call a pharmacy and order EPO, which is then delivered to their home, no questions asked. 3925 rubles (60 euros).
For years this was a fundamental part of Yuliya’s life.
Yuliya: “Russian officials went to doping officials, were bribed with money and food. In a training camp in Portugal our athletes were living under false names to avoid foreign controllers, and took prohibited substances.
In a training camp in Kyrgyzstan she was told to keep clean urine in the freezer before she started a new cycle.
Seppelt took a closer look at the yearly report from RUSADA. Officially it shows 23110 tests with 2.2 % positive cases (over 500 cases).
He gets more and more material from different sources. Among them audio files of conversations of high ranked athletes with coaches.
“What did you bring? EPO. Those are prohibited substances. Don’t call it that, call it a special means of preparation. That’s how it will work during winter.”
Now we are introduced to
Alexey Melnikov, one of two national coaches. He is shown on camera saying “we don’t need high hemoglobin values, what do we need EPO for?”.
Cut back to Yuliya, who talks about the complete disregard for the athletes.
“They take a girl. Feed her pills. She gets popped. They throw away the athlete and get a new one.”
Meanwhile Seppelt, gets contacted by more and more people.
In Krasnodar
They interview, thrower, Evgenia Pecherina.
“Most of them, the majority, 99%. And you can get absolutely everything. Everything the athlete wants. The shorter the detectability of the substance, the more expensive it is”.
In Samara
Here they first mention the doping procurement system.
An anonymous coach: “It’s a procurement system that has established itself over the years. If you want to improve on a result, you call a number and introduce yourself. That way you get the substances. Not everybody gets this number though. You have to undergo background checks. If the officials agree you get the stuff you want.”
Oleg Popov, throwing coach: “Athletes have no choice. Either you prepare in the national team and take the stuff or if you don’t agree with the methods, you’re out quickly”.
Everyone they interviewed so far did so under oath.
Next we hear about Sergej Portugalov who lives in Moscow. Even this year he gave anti-doping seminars. He is supposed to be a leading anti doping expert.
He is one of the central figures in the Olympic preparation of Russia, and also has been in this position during the soviet era, when doping was at a peak during the 70s and 80s.
Anonymous coach: “He personally gave it to athletes, he even gave the injections. People say ‘I went to Portugal and got X or Y'”.
Seppelt has proof of all this. He shows an email sent to Yuliya by Portugalov, which says:
“your testosterone levels are low, we’ll fix that in the preparation week.” … “start your cycle after that”.
To another athlete Portugalov recommends: “start with EPO and Dynatrope, testosterone, 2 ampules starting next week”.
Yuliya went to his office where she was given substances by him. She secretly filmed this visit. Video and audio are available in original, uncut form.
He told her “You reacted so wonderfully to the “helpers”, as if someone installed a turbo in you”, “the whole world prepares like this”, “don’t look at me like this. You don’t need to be afraid. If you listen to me everything will be okay”.
In the interview Yuliya says:
“When you take first place at a competition, you pay him 50000 rubles when you get first, 30000 for second and 20000 when you get third place. That means I had to pay him pay for a medal.”
In addition to that she had to pay him 5% of prize money she won, and of course she had to pay for the substances themselves.
Also in the office during her visit is National head coach Alexey Melnikov.
Melnikov says: “we’ll find a way, so we don’t repeat out mistakes. We have to be careful now.”
Yuliya tells about how she saw other athletes in his queue during her visits in the office. Athletes from various disciplines. Swim trainers, medalists from world and european championships.
Seppelt encounters more and more adversity in Russia. At the national Olympic committee he is told that German TV is not allowed to film here.
Next he flies to Kazan, to the Russian track & field nationals.
Yuliya says that when she competed at Russian nationals, she knew she was doped. She had to go to the RUSADA control.
Portugalov told her that she is very likely to get tested since she will be in the top 3.
“After control you get a pink form with with a number on it. Portugalov told her to send him a SMS with that number, “then you can sleep without worries”.
President of Russian track & field and 2nd in charge, Valentin Maslakov, won’t talk about doping on camera.
Cut to Vitaliy talking about how RUSADA works.
“Ministry people from the anti doping called RUSADA and wanted to know which athlete had a positive test. If it was an unknown athlete, then his or her test remained positive. If it was someone famous or a young medal hopeful, then it was a mistake and not investigated further”.
[23:40]
Vitaliy: “Officials tried to make sure some athletes were not tested.”
Seppelt: “Which disciplines?”
Vitaliy: “Swimming, cycling, biathlon, track and field, weightlifting, Nordic skiing.”
Next Seppelt visits the new general director, Nikita Kamaev. He now has the job Vitaliy used to have at RUSADA, but he denies everything. Instead he blames the athletes who tested positive, “they go to reporters and spread lies”. That is of course not true for Vitaliy, who is not even an athlete.
Russian anti-doping agencies are almost to 100% financed and controlled by the state. Ministry of sports and anti-doping work together hand in hand.
The minister of sports is Vitaly Mutko, who by the way also is on the board of directors in the one of the most corrupt agencies there is – FIFA. He is also friends with president Putin.
Vitaliy remembers conversations with someone from the ministry of sports. He was told that that the ministry doesn’t like that WADA tries to interfere with Russian practices.
Seppelt gets his hands on a paper that was signed by none other than Vladimir Putin in 2010 (then Prime minister of Russia).
This paper is a decree for foreign doping controllers. It explicitly states that transport and export of urine and blood out of Russia, need special permissions and probe can even be opened at border. This of course implies that they want to make sure that nothing gets out to WADA.
Supposedly to make sure that athletes don’t test positive at big events there was another order from the ministry.
Valentin Kruglyakov 400m sprinter: “They test athletes before they go to other countries to compete, so that nobody gets caught during the competitoins”.
Oleg Popov – Throwing coach: “Those who don’t pass those pre-tests, cant’t go to competitions even though they were already on the start lists. All that doesn’t mean they will get banned though.”
This by the way is exactly what David Rigert said about weightlifters in
his interview here.
The investigation has now been going on for months. Seppelt gets hints that he should take a closer look Mariya Savinova, a 800m runner.
He gets a video from fall 2014, in which Mariya is seen. She says the following: “What shall we do? How else can it work? That is our system and an in Russia it only works with pharma. Luckily my coach works with Melnikov and he helps to hush up the tests. They let him change the dates on the tests and Oxandrolone disappeared very quickly from my body. Takes less than 20 days. We had it tested, my husband has very good connections to the [anti-doping] control lab”.
Here too Seppelt has the original, full length, uncut audio and video files as proof.
Next he visits WADA in Montreal. WADA is not surprised about his questions. Even they observed irregularities along they way.
Oliver Rabin, science director at WADA, talks about results that were not reported as positive, names corruption, “Why have there been positive results that have not been reported as such? We tried to find technical flaws, but those could not explain the reports. That leads one to think that there is corruption involved.”
The Russian lab was close to being shut down before the Sochi winter Olympics. WADA threatened to revoke accreditation. Seppelt visits them.
Here we meet Grigory Rodchenkov, the director of Moscow’s doping control lab and head scientist.
Cut to Vitaliy. He says that Rodchenkov does the same as Portugalov.
Vitaliy: “He sells doping to athletes. He writes doping use plans for athletes. When controllers come, he makes sure his athletes don’t test positive. And of course he does that for money.”.
Oleg Popov, throwing coach: “If someone took prohibited substance during preparation then the lab found out. If it’s one of the most famous, one of the top ten athletes, then results were exchanged.”
Evgenia Pecherina: “Rodchenkov is informed about everything. He knows about what substances take how long to be undetectable. He gives orders. He is the most important “specialist”.
Grigory Rodchenkov: “you should be careful about trusting cheats”. He denies everything.
3 years ago he was under suspicion to have traded prohibited substances, but was not investigated further by the state.
Zurich – European Athletic Championships
Here Seppelt tries to confront Valentin Balakhnichev, the president of the All-Russia Athletics Federation and treasurer of the IAAF, and honory member of the European federation.
Of course he denies everything. “I am the president and not involved in anything.”
Again Seppelt receives new documents from an anonymous informant. This time blood test results that supposedly stem from one of the best marathon runners of all time.
They show these results to Professor Mario Thevis from the WADA lab in Cologne. He says: “These values are way out of the norm and it would be absolutely understandable if a person would be banned based on these results.”
Stockholm
Seppelt meets the anonymous informant who works in the surroundings of IAAF. He is afraid and wants to remain anonymous. They talk about the corruption within the IAAF.
Source: “How can we trust IAAF if I have to assume that in case of positive tests bribes are being paid.”
Seppelt: “Do you say there is someone inside of IAAF who does these things?”
Source: “Yes, in at least one case, I assume that is the case”.
Seppelt: “You think someone takes money to hide positive tests?”
Source: “That is correct.”
In the meantime Seppelt found out that those blood tests were taken during the Chicago marathon.
Seppelt: “Are those the results of Russian marathon superstar Liliya Shobukhova?”
Source: “Yes”.
Coincidentally Liliya was banned in summer 2014 when this documentary was produced. So he tries contact her and after weeks she agrees to meet him.
How was it possible that even with such high test results she was never investigated further? IAAF claims that with such high values everything takes a bit longer, but also admits that there was a considerable delay from the Russian authorities.
Liliya: “It started in dec 2011, when the Russian federation told her ‘you might get into trouble, the London games are in danger’.”
She was told to pay 150000 Euros to solve this problem. Then she could take part in the Olympics.
In January 2012 she and her husband flew to Moscow to meet with the officials in the house of the Olympic committee. Here they dropped of the cash and were assured that everything is going to be OK. The next day they flew of to the training camp to Portugal.
Seppelt gets a new document. The IAAF send the blood levels to the Russian track and field federation, shortly before the games in june 2012, almost 3 years after the first auffäligen values. Suddenly they are treated as doping violation. Shortly after, head coach Alexey Melnikov contacts Liliya again. He wants more money, double of what she paid previously – 300000 Euros, to be paid in 2 rates.
So all in all she paid almost 450000 Euros (600000 US) to start in London. Her story doesn’t end here.
Although she has very specious test results the IAAF doesn’t seem to be interested in it. Control statistics don’t show her name. The IAAF says “What? She was tested once in competition”.
In 2013 she gets pregnant and is supposed to get banned, because some persistent doping controllers won’t stop investigating.
Again the officials want her to fly to Moscow. In early 2014 Melnikov says they need to sign a paper from IAAF. Naturally they didn’t want to sign that paper (presumably acknowledging a ban). “what did we pay the 450000 Euros for?” they ask.
Liliya says that Valentin Balakhnichev got nervous because she refused to sign that paper. That’s when Balakhnichev, who earlier in Zurich claimed to know nothing about doping, ordered to pay them back the money.
As proof they show the bank transfer receipt. It shows that they received back 300000 from a company called “Black Tidings”, a company registered in Singapore.
Singapore
So Seppelt travels to Singapore to check out that company. The address leads them to an apartment building. Just as he assumed this company only existed on paper and was closed down shortly after the payment to the Shokokhov’s.
Later he also receives an Email that was forwarded from Balakhnichev to Melnikov, confirming the bank transfer of the 300000 Euros.
Next he receives an internal IAAF document from their ethics commission who now investigates Liliya for bribery (and not Balakhnichev or Melnikov). It should be added that Balakhnichev is also the treasurer of the IAAF.
All in all this is the biggest corruption scandal in track and field history.
In the end they show people who are very afraid of the mafia like structures. One informants says they were intimidated and even received death threats already.
Russia wants to give the appearance to be working on that problem . In August at there was an anti-doping summit . Six coaches were banned. Their names remain secret.
Kyrgyzstan
Yuliya is shown at a training camp. Her ban ends soon.
She is coached by Vladimir Kasarin, who also coached Sarynova (who talked about the doping in the secretly filmed video above) .
After the first training session, Yuliya is asked to come to the coaches office. She secretly films it.
Coach: “we can still work with
oxandrolone and primobulan, and of course EPO in the beginning. But we need to stay within limits in case of a test”.
He then gives her all the stuff, which will later be tested in the WADA lab in Cologne. It is indeed the anabolic steroid, Oxandrolone.
This is where the documentary comes to an end. Vitaliy and Yuliya became the most important whistleblowers in anti-doping history.
Because they made some very powerful men very angry they think that “Russia won’t forgive them”. That’s why days before this documentary aired on German TV the two left Russia for good.
Meanwhile Seppelt received more hints, that he should look in other countries too…
