A German TV documentary “Geheimsache Doping” by ARD about the the systematic doping in Russia is making its rounds through the internet.

The Guardian wrote a piece about it here, the BBC here and WADA also released a statement.

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.

(Originally published 04.12.2014)

Update 15.06.2016: WADA has released a report collated in partnership with UKAD which says that the Russian Weightlifting Championships, for Olympic Qualification, was supposedly untested. (via)

Update 08.06.2016: We are now on part 4 of the documentary series. The latest episode shows Mutko’s involvement in covering up a positive test from a football player as well as banned coaches still training national athletes. Also available in English.

Update 07.03.2016: Another German ARD documentary is out alleging that so far nothing much has changed in Russia. Banned coaches still coach. PEDs are still easy to get (they recorded a phone call with a doctor) etx/. Wada released a statement here.

Update 14.01.2016: Part 2 o the WADA report is out (pdf)

Update 18.11.2015:

And to recap: Belgium, Brazil, France, Greece, Mexico and Spain on compliance “watch list”. Conditions to be met by 18 March 2016.

(via)

WADA confirms that with immediate effect the following countries are declared non-compliant: Andorra,Israel,Argentina, Bolivia & Ukraine

(via)

Unanimous decision by WADA Board:WADA confirm Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) is declared non-compliant w/ immediate effect #WadaReport

(via)

WADA Compliance Review Committee “unanimous in its view that RUSADA should be declared non-compliant with immediate effect” #WadaReport

(via)

Update 13.11.2015: The IAAF has provisionally banned Russia (via). Ruling on if RUSADA gets their accreditation stripped likely comes on the 18th (via), Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko says he’s ready to liquidate it and create a new body (via).

I’ve written down some of the questions from Mondays press conference:

The press conference was held by Richard Pound, Professor Richard McLaren and Gunter Younger.

7:20 – The report is limited to athletics and to Russia, not to other sports or other countries.

08:15 – There are two portions of the report which have not been made public, a portion on the IAAF, possible criminal actions were found and forwarded to Interpol for review.

09:30 – Interpol referred them to the French Authorities to take up the matter and decide whether or not there will be a prosecution.

10:00 – After the whole report will be released, they don’t want to compromise any investigations.

10:30 – The leak about the undisclosed report did not come from their investigation or WADA.

11:00 – The second missing portion of the report deals with allegations made by ARD and other media organisations regarding suspicious test results which may or may not have been illegitimately pursued by the IAAF.

11:30 – A list of several thousand athletes are being reviewed by their experts.

12:00 – An overwhelming portion of the allegations made by the ARD program have been found to be true.

14:20 – They have identified possible criminal violations, suspicious cases, possible suspects and forwarded them to the authorities.

14:50 – They have reported on interference with doping controls, including well after when this investigation was known to be publicly in process.

15:05 – They have found cover ups, obstruction of samples in laboratories, payments of money to conceal doping tests, among others.

19:22 – They reached a conclusion that it could not possibly have happened without everyone knowing about it or consenting to it. It’s worse than they thought.

20:30 – Q: How does this affect Rio; are the athletes victims or part of the problem? A: For 2016 their recommendation is that the Russian federation has to be suspended. They hope that they will volunteer it, so that they can undertake the remedial work to make sure the Russian athletes are under new framework. If that doesn’t happen the outcome could be that there are no Russian athletes in Rio. Technically the athletes are always the ones which get caught, usually with the doping substances in their systems, often it’s part of the program that you have to follow that regime or you are left out under prejudice.

22:00 – Q: What would be the perception or the fallout if Russia was allowed to compete in Rio? A: If they do the therapy we hope they can get there. This is an opportunity to get rid of the old system.

24:00 – Q: The report shows that RUSADA, the Russian Laboratory and the Russian federation were involved in this conspiracy. How can this not be described as state supported doping? A: All of this couldn’t have happened without the state authorities knowing. Yes, in terms of them knowing and consenting about it, there’s not any other possible conclusion.

25:30 – Q: If Russia doesn’t step forward and act voluntarily, what would you like to see the IOC and IAAF do next? A: The IOC will suspend the Russian federation and if they do their jobs no athletes will be allowed to enter.

26:50 – Q: How can we be confident that the samples at Sochi are true and how do we know there weren’t cover ups there? A: Can’t be confident but there is no hard evidence. It’s hard to imagine what the Russian State’s interest in athlete’s urine is.

27:30 – Q: Who do you trust to rebuild the Russian Federation? A: We would have to trust but verify. They all knew the coaches were out of control and the coaches view was that the anti-doping organisation and federation was to protect their athletes, rather than make sure they were doping free. They will carefully monitor what is being done, they will remove the director of the laboratory, they’ll have to start from scratch and all the samples will have to be analysed. There’s going to be a lot of supervision from top to bottom to make sure they are code complaint.

30:15 – Q: What about the involvement of the sports minister, do you believe he knew what was going on? A: It was so prevalent that it is their opinion that it was not possible without him knowing. That is their inference from all the evidence they had the chance to examine.

31:15 – Q: When you were president did you receive any evidence from whistle blowers from up to 2009? A: When I was president we were just getting started. Since then they’ve installed a call in help line and they want to improve how they deal with the information that they get.

33:30 – Q: What about the retaliation against the athletes for whistleblowing, and what do they do with the information and where does it go? A: It needs to be assessed in a case by case basis but you don’t want to encourage retaliation, the power of a federation versus a single athlete is enormous, that’s part of the reluctance for the whistleblowers and often the system tends to be harder on the whistleblower than the perpetrators.

35:20 – Q: It looks like this is the tip of the iceberg, should you tackle other federations and other countries? A: You are probably right, we do not think Russia is the only country with a doping problem nor is athletics the only sport.

36:50 – Q: There’s a wave of positive tests in Russian athletics this year. Do you think that was because of your involvement? A: Yes, probably.

37:00 – Q: Would these tests be positive without your involvement? A: Can’t answer that question. We don’t know if they would have or not. One of the big concerns about the tests was the 1400 that were destroyed by the director of the moscow laboratory, despite the specific request from WADA for those to be retained and that WADA was about to visit. They arrived to find that all of them were destroyed.

38:10 – Q: What about the credibility of sport? A: It’s taken a lot of blows since FIFA and now the IAAF. These are the two most important sports in the world. The public opinion is going to move towards thinking that all sport is corrupt. The effect on the results of competitions are serious.

40:20 – Q: When you talk about the director of the moscow laboratory, is that only for athletics? What will happen after the report? A: The samples were likely spread across many sports. Meetings are going to happen urgently in the forthcoming days to decide what is going to have to be done. These are open to the public if you want to follow along.

42:00 – Q: When were the samples destroyed? When have you been to meet the Russian Minister? A: December 2014. 1417 were destroyed. The minister was met on neutral territory, Switzerland in September. He came without the usual staff. It was a candid discussion.

43:40 – Q: You’ve said Russia is non-complaint. Where is the punishment? A: If they are suspended they can’t compete.

44:20 – Q: If they come back in 3 months time and say everything’s in order and it has been verified. Will they be entitled to come back in 3 months? A: Yes.

45:00 – Q: What is the minimal amount of time that you think that would take? A: Several months. This is not easy. It’s not a free ride.

46:00 – Q: Were you able to identify how long this was going on for? A: No, but I would guess this was an inherited attitude from the cold war days.

46:40 – Q: Will results from previous international sports events be effected? A: They already have. The tough thing is with prize money, where it is already gone.

47:00 – Q: How has this effected london 2012 in Track and Field. How should fans look at results over the last 10-20 years? A: A lot of these things leave questions. In Sydney they had the top 25 performances of all time. In some respects there has been an impact. In throwing for example you can see the national records, world records and olympic records to see how short the throws are now coming.

49:00 – Q: Anything in the report which holds Russia holding the 2018 world cup into question? Do they still deserve to go ahead with that? A: We had narrow mandate. It’s not for us to extrapolate into other sports, Fifa has to do that.

50:00 – Q: What was the scale or number of that the IOC identified as doping, can you surely say there is no more going on right now in russia? A: 8 new sanctions and a lot of suspicious things which need to be followed up and no.

51:00 – Q: How far and how deep are samples going to be retested? A: There is no plan yet. Except the IOC most other testing agencies only keep samples for months.

53:00 – Q: What number will be found? A: Hard to say, the advantage is knowing who the athletes were and what sports.

54:10 – Q: What about Kenya and Ethiopia who haven’t developed testing? A: It’s become clear Kenya has a problem. If they don’t do a good job someone else will.

55:00 – Q: How would you grade WADA’s work over the last few years? A: If you haven’t become code complaint over the last 10-11 years then that indicates they should declare non code compliance with more confidence.

57:00 – Q: Will anyone outside be able to contribute to the recommendations? A: There’s no monopoly on good ideas, anyone who has ideas are most welcome to enquire.

58:00 – Q: How did this scandal compare with the Salt Lake city scandal and the FIFA scandal? Should Russia be prevented from bidding in sports events? A: Yes, there are rules to stop them from bidding for events. The salt lake city scandal is different, that was a governance problem but did not have an impact on the public perception or on the athletes or sports.

59:00 – Q: Blackmail, what do you know about it? A: We don’t know, we know it was a problem and it’s being investigated by the French authorities.

1:00:30 – Q: What about other sports like cross country skiing and biathlon? A: In the sport we examined the coaching aspect was evident and complicit. It amounted to denying athletes were present at specific training facilities to using false identities when travelling abroad.

1:02:00 – Q: When will you publish the proof. A: We’ve seen enough evidence to reach the conclusion.

1:03:00 – Q: Does this investigation show how little funding there is in anti-doping? Is this a game changer? A: We’ll see.

1:04:30 – Q: A lot of people are going to think that Russia is going to be banned until just before the Olympics, because the IOC’s commercial interests transcends its values. What’s your feeling about this perception? A: The problem is you have government and corporate corruption which can change the outcomes on the field. This commission does not have the authority to pursue any of the recommendations in the report. It’s up to others to do that. A: Our commercial interests do not transcend the underlying values. If they are non compliant they can’t enter athletes.

1:06:30 – Q: If the magnitude of this is so deep, why not suspend Russia from the Olympics? A: Why go for that if you can achieve compliance? We did that with Ben Johnson for example. The idea is to get people competing under the right conditions.

1:07:45 – Q: Could other countries be judged to be non compliant? A: There might be. If so we will say so. The IAAF acted improperly.

1:08:30 – Q: How embarrassing is this to the IOC that this information did not come from inside? In the run up to Rio, do you think Brazil is preparing itself for good ranking? A: The laboratory in Brazil which was not performing had its accreditation revoked. There will be more targeting. The IOC only controls from the opening to the closing ceremony.

1:11:00 – Q: Does this report confirm that the hardest thing about anti doping is the human aspect? A: The science was not bad, we found very few analytical problems. Apart from one test in summer where the A and B didn’t match, the problem was the people substituting samples, hiding or altering in return for cash. The system didn’t break down, people broke down.

1:12:30 – Q: Is this the peak of the iceberg? Will this lead to groundbreaking changes to other sports globally? A: WADA has been far too easy for agencies to self access. Entire teams managed to avoid OOC testing.

1:14:00 – Q: How can we be sure athletes coming back after this and Russia being code complaint haven’t benefited from it? How much of this is an indictment on the organisation? Q: Very damaging. The IAAF was good in the beginning but didn’t follow up. With major steroid doping, probably. With blood doping, minor, it goes up and down.

1:17:00 – Q: ??? A: We have a problem with the explanation for how these samples were destroyed. We don’t believe it. There wasn’t evidence of complicity but we don’t believe the explanation.

1:18:00 – Q: Why are the IAAF not non complaint but Russia is? A: It was some rogue individuals in the IAAF but it was probably policy in Russia.

1:19:00 – Q:??? A: WADA will do what it wants.

1:20:00 – Q: How come more athletes from Russia aren’t positive in international events? A: The suspicions are that before athletes leave the country they are tested, there were reports of athletes in London going back to Moscow to be tested then going back to London. This is a feature starting from old soviet days where they would never test positive in international competition, this is an indication which you have to watch out for is reported injuries and illnesses which might not be the real explanation for why an athlete is not participating.

1:21:00 – Q: ??? A: If you fail in competition doping test, you fail the doping test and an IQ test.

Update: 09.11.2015: WADA has released a report here in PDF format.

Update 03.08.2015: The documentary is now in English, thanks to Fabricio for submitting to Facebook.



Update 16.04.2015: Following up on this WADA set up an online whistleblower submission form.

Update 23.12.2014: WADA wants to reexamine 3,000 doping tests of Russian athletes. (via)

Update 16.12.2014: WADA announced a three-person Independent Commission that will investigate the case.

Update 10.12.2014: WADA will do a full investigation.

Updates 05.15.2014:

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 translated the entire film below.

Protagonists

Vitaliy Stepanov – wanted to fight doping at RUSADA, worked there for three years as controller and consultant to the director of RUSADA

– 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

– Vitaliy’s wife, 800m sprinter, currently banned Valentin Balakhnichev – the president of the All-Russia Athletics Federation and treasurer of the IAAF

– 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

– 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

– 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

– the director of Moscow’s doping control lab, he gave drugs to athletes, administered injections, gets paid Liliya Shobukhova – Russian Marathon Super Star

– Russian Marathon Super Star Evgenia Pecherina – Thrower

– Thrower Mariya Savinova – 800m runner who’s test got covered up

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”.

She is given Oxandrolone (an anabolic steroid) pills.

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…