‘I was just 15 when I was first accused of doping,’ says anonymous Russian athlete

The blanket ban on Russian athletes from competing globally was imposed by the International Association of Athletics Federations last week in a bid to eradicate what the World Anti-Doping Agency’s Dick Pound called “state-sponsored doping”. It means that clean athletes have been denied a chance to compete on the world stage, with their chances of going to next year’s Olympics hanging in the balance. The Independent on Sunday’s Matt Majendie spoke to one “clean” Russian athlete, who has asked to remain anonymous...

(Getty Images)

“I’m clean but no one believes me. I’m a Russian athlete so everyone’s view outside my country is that I must be cheating.

“When I go to international events I want the other athletes to be my friends. I admire some of them, but they treat me like I’m an enemy of athletics. That’s what it’s like being a Russian athlete in 2015.

“I was in high school when I was first accused of doping. It was a season of big progression for me, having raised my training a lot, and one of my rivals told everyone I must be doping. Imagine that at just 15 years of age. That for me was when the accusations began.

“We are not all cheats and I have never once been offered to dope by any coach, by another athlete, by anyone in fact.

“When the story broke with the World Anti-Doping Agency [Wada] independent commission report at the start of last week, it was shocking. However, I think many of the Russian athletes genuinely didn’t believe that Russia would actually get banned by the IAAF as a result of the investigation.

“But now that has happened, and I have to admit that waking up to the news was a real shock.

“Take the team for the European Cross Country Championships in France next month, for example. They had put in months of preparation for that and obviously now there’s great sadness that they are not allowed to compete because of this ruling. Many marathon runners are in the same situation too.

“One problem here is that there’s a lot of misinformation on the subject. In Russia, you don’t hear all the reports of the world’s media.

“The young athletes in particular don’t understand what’s happening. Most of them don’t speak English, so they have not been able to read properly through the 323 pages of the Wada report and get a clearer idea of what it is that’s stopped them competing outside Russia in the sport that they love.

“Similarly, those young athletes still hope that it will be no problem come the Olympics and that the federation will do whatever they need to do to ensure that they fix these problems in time for Russia to be eligible to compete. But for me it seems that it will be a hard work to uncover everything wrong.

“What happens even if the ban is lifted just before the Olympic Games? Russian athletes won’t have had the chance at international events to compete against the best, so it will be that much tougher to achieve the required qualifying standard in Rio.

“Competing for my country in Rio de Janeiro was my dream. Is it fair that I’m denied that chance? I won’t get another opportunity.

“I don’t know how many Russian athletes have been doping – how could I? – but it’s clear from the commission report it’s been a problem for a long while, and we should start solving it now.

“It’s very clear to me that changes need to be made, that coaches of a younger generation, with clear view on clean athletics, have to be pushed forward to help rebuild Russian athletics.

“Only a properly open Russia can make things better and I don’t think I’m being naïve in saying they can do it – but it’s going to be a hard fix.

“At last year’s World Championships in Beijing, I don’t think the Russian team was cheating – definitely not the whole of it, as some suspect. I believe the big names, like pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva [left] and long jumper Darya Klishina, for example, are competing clean. Like many clean athletes, they’re victims of the circumstances in Russia and they’re being punished because of it. I also really believe if you are clean and show good results, nobody will force you to dope or try to blackmail you, saying you’ll be out of the team, despite what the Wada report claims.

“So what do I do? Do I keep on training every single day, not knowing what the future is? Or do I quit and think about doing something else? Maybe one day I’d like to be a coach, and I’d like to travel around the world to learn that profession.

“But can I do that in the UK or the United States, for example? I don’t think so. The reaction will be the same, it’s always the same. They’ll say, ‘That’s a Russian, they can’t be trusted.’

“Is banning us the right course of action by the governing body? I don’t know yet, but I know right now the effect it’s had on me.

“I’ll keep on repeating it, but I’ve done nothing wrong at all. What else can I say? I’m clean but no one believes me. If I speak out, the world just says, ‘Shut up, doper’. That’s sad.”