Threats, Intimidation Hamper Russia’s Return to World Sport

(Bloomberg) -- The threatening phone calls started after he posted a YouTube appeal to President Vladimir Putin. But Yuriy Ganus, the head of the embattled anti-doping agency trying to clean up Russian sports says he wasn’t deterred.

“It would be strange if I didn’t worry about my security,” Ganus, 55, said in an interview at his Moscow office. “I told them it’s absolutely not in their interests for anything to happen to me,” he said, referring to Russian authorities.

Ganus is fighting a lonely battle to restore Russia’s reputation in international sports, badly tarnished after the exposure in 2016 of a massive state-sponsored doping program that led the country to be banned from most major competitions for almost three years and lose 13 of the 33 medals won at the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

Now, Russia’s facing almost total exclusion from international sport for another four years when the World Anti-Doping Agency’s executive committee meets in Lausanne Monday after evidence of yet more manipulation of doping tests. The expected ruling, which will keep the Russian team out of the next Summer and Winter Olympics and World Cup, prolongs a crisis that forced the the country’s athletes to compete without their national flag at the last Olympics.

Ganus holds the key to Russia’s return to international sports after these years of isolation.

Ban Threat

Appointed in 2017, he was tasked with repairing the damage at Russia’s discredited RUSADA anti-doping agency following an internationally directed overhaul. But he says it quickly became clear that there were powerful forces inside Russia that didn’t want to come clean about the history of violations.

That’s why he took to YouTube late last year to warn Putin that the deal to return Russia to international sports was at risk because officials were withholding access to the electronic database with years of records from the Moscow laboratory that they were required to submit to WADA.

Within two hours, he received an anonymous call warning him to withdraw the statement.

In May, prosecutors in Russia started to probe RUSADA after the agency helped an international anti-doping inquiry that ended in the suspension of top officials at the Russian Athletics Federation.

The persistent scandal is a personal humiliation for Putin, who has championed efforts to restore the country’s Soviet-era image as a sporting superpower. The Kremlin has so far ignored Ganus’ warnings and now Russia faces renewed pariah status.

Ganus accuses former athletes who are now top officials of being behind the database deletion and tampering with test results. “The people who were capable of doing this must be in very powerful positions,” he said. A number of former Olympians now hold seats in parliament or senior government posts.

Many Enemies

The anti-doping chief had already earned plenty of enemies for his public defense of the whistle-blower reviled as a traitor for revealing the doping operation. Grigory Rodchenkov, director of the Moscow testing lab, fled to the U.S. in 2016 after two of his close colleagues died in mysterious circumstances within a short time. Russian officials have charged him with abuse of office and drug-trafficking and Putin denounced him as a mentally unstable criminal.

But Ganus has nothing but praise for Rodchenkov’s decision to go public. “What he did to reveal this information was a good thing,” he said. “I support the actions of whistle-blowers.”

That’s not a view shared in the Russian sports establishment, which publicly admits some doping but dismisses the allegations of a sweeping state-run effort as anti-Russian hysteria.

In February, after Ganus spoke positively of Rodchenkov on Russian television, another anonymous caller told him he was a traitor who needed to be “dealt with.” Ganus says he has evidence of eavesdropping on his communications.

Last month, Sports Minister Pavel Kolobkov blasted Ganus after he said publicly that thousands of tests had been altered and warned Russia risked a sweeping ban, telling him to “stick to his job.”

Foreign Support

So far, Ganus is relying mainly on support from abroad. RUSADA, whose office walls are plastered with testimonials encouraging its work from international anti-doping officials, has won the full endorsement of the Montreal-based global watchdog.

Despite the looming sanctions, the Russian agency’s work is judged “effective” and will continue to have responsibility for tests, WADA experts have recommended. And crucially, Russia can only win reinstatement if RUSADA is able to operate independently free of “improper” outside interference.

“Ganus is doing a pretty good job,” despite the challenge of being “not part of the system,” said Rob Koehler, ex-deputy director of WADA.

Ganus said he took a big pay cut after giving up lucrative company directorships to take on the high-stakes RUSADA position. He earns about $3500 a month.

“For me, it’s not just a job, it’s my mission,” he said. “I irritate the decision-makers but I have our national interests at heart because the nightmare about to unfold will be a blow to the reputation of Russia and the president.”

--With assistance from Stepan Kravchenko.

To contact the reporters on this story: Henry Meyer in Moscow at hmeyer4@bloomberg.net;Ilya Arkhipov in Moscow at iarkhipov@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Gregory L. White at gwhite64@bloomberg.net, Torrey Clark

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