Lengths Countries go to Avoid Drug Testing

Russia has been under scrutiny recently, due to athletes on their Olympic team drug tests coming back positive. But what about the athletes who haven’t been caught, how have they been evading the truth? According to the New York Times members of Russia’s secret service went as far as to intimidate workers at the drug-testing lab to cover up any positive test results. They also impersonated lab engineers at the SoChi Winter Olympics. They then had their athletes adopt false identities in order to avoid drug testing.

The Russian government is heavily supportive of the actions being taken by coaches and athletes as they have helped procure drugs and cover up positive test results. Russia, among other countries, have been known to go to dramatic lengths to avoid drug testing, such as:

-Intimate workers at the labs

-Impersonate lab engineers

-Adopt new identities, to prevent being randomly drug tested

-Pay to make doping violations disappear completely

-Bribe anti-doping authorities

-Access clean urine samples and submit as own

These are just a few of the measures taken by professional athletes in order to prevent being caught doping.