Sport has endured any number of "black days" since the advent of professionalism, but none quite as dark or sinister as that visited on Olympic athletics by the World Anti-Doping Agency on Monday. In a report based on an 11-month investigation into allegations that Russian athletes were involved in systematic doping before the London 2012 Olympics, an independent WADA commission claims there is "a deeply rooted culture of cheating" within the All-Russia Athletics Federation, that the Russian state has been complicit in efforts to cover up the cheating, and that the 2012 London Olympics was effectively "sabotaged". Worryingly, commission chairman and former WADA president Dick Pound has warned that the report is "the tip of the iceberg" and that other countries, including Kenya, have similar problems.
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Mr Pound has recommended, as a first step, that the ARAF be suspended until Russian authorities (working with anti-doping agencies) clean up the sport. With the Rio de Janeiro Olympics less than 10 months away, this potentially puts Russia's attendance at risk, though there are already indications that the Putin government may pull out in protest if the International Association of Athletics Federations acts on the WADA recommendation.
The commission has already prevailed on the International Olympic Committee to strip Russian cheats of their London medals, meaning champion Australian walker Jared Tallent will now be retrospectively awarded a gold medal. Tallent's anger at being robbed of his moment of Olympic glory in 2012 is entirely justified, as is his observation that it "shouldn't have taken this long".
In fact, Olympic track and field, swimming, weight-lifting and other events have been plagued by cheating for decades, with many of the offenders receiving official or state backing in their efforts to win medals. Even the arrival of new or improved drug detection tests failed to halt the widespread cheating, with athletes timing their drug regimens to the day to avoid detection, blood or urine samples being swapped or tipped down the sink, and positive tests being covered up by administrators for fear of sullying the Olympic tradition and reputation.
That numerous national Olympic committees, athletics federations and the IOC itself should have been implicated in deception of this magnitude, and for so long, bodes ill for quick and effective reform. The inability of international football and cycling to shake off ingrained cultures of corruption and drug-taking virtually guarantees it – as does the Russian government's disputatious and belligerent attitude to Monday's revelations.
The first, necessary act – that of suspending the ARAF until it cleans up its house – will require the IAAF to ignore Russian denials and bluster about an Olympic boycott in 2016. It will be no easy task given that Lamine Diack, a former IAAF president, is alleged to have taken Russian bribes. The larger task of reducing cheating in professional sport (it will never be eliminated entirely) ultimately rests with those who finance and profit from it, the broadcasters and the sponsors. Until and unless the people who pay the piper call a different tune, then more "black days" are probably assured.
