Meanwhile, Russia has prospered on the snowy fields of sport. In the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010, the Russians claimed only three gold medals. At Sochi in 2014, they won 13 gold medals. In the final race of that Olympics, the 50-kilometer cross-country race, three midlevel Russian athletes unexpectedly took the hat trick, winning the gold, silver and bronze medals.

That was brilliant.

Conflicting Outlooks

I asked a spokesman for WADA about the investigative outlook, as the antidoping agency and the I.O.C. consider whether to ban Russia from the Summer Olympics. Just last week, The Times of London reported on the case of Sergei Portugalov. He is a prominent Russian doctor who was chief of the Russian Athletic Federation’s Medical Commission. WADA accused him of personally injecting athletes and levied a lifetime ban on him. Now, he is reported to be working with Russia’s Olympic swimmers; for the best results, The Times of London has reported, he recommended the swimmers embrace a rigorous doping program.

As with winter sports, the world antidoping agency so far has declined to start an investigation of swimming.

The WADA spokesman emailed me Reedie’s statement in Switzerland: “If seemingly solid allegations/intelligence is brought forward to WADA, and/or by whistle-blowers, then we would seriously evaluate the need for further investigations.”

That is a fierce watchdog.

On my last morning in Oslo, I sat atop that mountain with Susan Dunklee, a 30-year-old who came to biathlon after a career as an all-American cross-country skier at Dartmouth. Her material rewards are small. “A lot of it for me is cultivating my hunger,” she says, “and my joy.”

She had watched that German documentary, and read the doping agency reports, and felt that shadow creeping over all of them.

“I’ve been shocked to learn that the system is not in place to enforce a genuine competition,” she says. “We need to strongly encourage WADA to grow teeth.”

That doesn’t seem to be a lot to ask.