Can Russia Clean Up in Time for Rio?

Even at a time when new scandals erupt with dismaying regularity in big-money sports, the revelations about Russia’s elaborate doping scheme at the Winter Olympics in Sochi in 2014 are breathtaking. In a plot straight out of a spy thriller, Russian antidoping experts and government agents worked through the night passing urine samples through a hole in the wall, replacing drug-tainted samples with clean ones taken months before from the same athletes and somehow replacing tamper-proof caps.

The whistle-blower was no less than the Russian who ran the lab, Grigory Rodchenkov, who is now self-exiled to Los Angeles — for good reason, it would seem, as two of his close colleagues died unexpectedly in February.

Obviously, Dr. Rodchenkov’s story, as told to Rebecca R. Ruiz and Michael Schwirtz of The Times, needs to be carefully checked by the World Anti-Doping Agency, the International Olympic Committee and the various sports federations involved. But Dr. Rodchenkov played a central and longstanding role in Russia’s doping program, and his story is broadly consistent with what the antidoping agency had previously reported.

The sordid details he provided only further confirm a history of pervasive cheating among Russian teams, involving athletes, coaches, doctors and government officials. It is hard to imagine how Russian athletes can be allowed to compete in the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro or other international tournaments until there is tangible and convincing proof that Russia has cleaned up its act.

The Times report comes after a report by the antidoping agency in November, which described cheating that rivals the state-sponsored doping programs of East Germany decades ago. That investigation led to Russia’s suspension from world track and field competition. But whether Russia will be allowed to compete in those events in Rio remains an open question.

Those accusations followed scandals that have collectively cast a dark cloud over international sports. Charges of corruption in the international soccer federation, FIFA, raised serious questions about whether Russia had won the right to host the 2018 soccer World Cup tournament honestly. Then the tennis star Maria Sharapova tested positive for the recently banned drug meldonium, leading to revelations of its widespread use in Russia and elsewhere.

Following the familiar Kremlin script, Russian officials and athletes loudly deny all the accusations. They will no doubt focus on corruption and doping elsewhere to demonstrate that Russia is being unfairly singled out for something everybody does.

But no other country systematically deploys intelligence services and state resources on a massive scale to dope, bribe and cheat in sports. The International Olympic Committee and other sports federations would obviously prefer to keep a sports power like Russia on the field if possible. But if athletic competition is to retain any credibility, if athletes are ever to be convinced that a drug-free playing field is possible, sports officials will need to take action against Russia before its athletes take part in the Summer Olympics or any major competition.

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