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Law professor Richard McLaren talks Russian doping, future of Olympic Games

Since being highlighted for his contributions in "Icarus," the Academy Award-winning documentary surrounding the Russian doping scandal that has spanned several Olympic Games, Canadian law professor Richard McLaren has lectured at several different venues.

One of those places was inside the UNC Student Union on Thursday afternoon about the lasting implications that this controversy could have on the future of international sports.

Globally renowned as a specialist in arbitration and sports law, McLaren has been a notable figure in the international sporting community over the last several years. This has been primarily due to his involvement with the investigation that ultimately resulted in Russia getting banned from the 2018 Winter Olympics. 

In response to a German-produced documentary released in 2014 — which accused numerous members of the Russian track and field team of using performance enhancing drugs — the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) appointed McLaren as one of three members of an independent commission that investigated the initial allegations.

“This caused such a furor that WADA had to respond," McLaren said. "Our examination was focused narrowly on athletics in track and field. (The independent commission) uncovered Russian athletics doping being overseen by coaches, officials and doctors. They knew how long the detection periods were, what substances to use, how to evade the testing.”

Shortly after The New York Times published an article in May 2016 that detailed a first-hand account that exposed a systematic doping issue which stretched across multiple Olympic sports, WADA hired McLaren once again to examine the claims.

“When I first read The New York Times article, I said, ‘This can’t be possible,’” McLaren said. “This is a deep rooted cultural sense of cheating. The whole system was designed to deceive the international sporting community.”

McLaren noted that this enormous scale of bribery and extortion was imprinted throughout the entire Russian government. Heavily swayed from governmental influence, these state-sponsored doping programs were orchestrated through the leaders of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency, the Moscow Laboratory, the Russian Ministry of Sport and even the Russian Intelligence Service.

“The system that was going on in Russia included participants at all levels,” McLaren said. “What has been going on in Russia is massive sporting fraud around the world.”

Through his findings that were published through two parts in the McLaren Report, the law professor from Western University in Ontario, Canada, believes that many external factors played into the eventualities that occurred during the Olympics, like governance of structure and the lack of international standards.

“There are a number of weaknesses that allow the culture of cheating to grow up and become prevalent,” McLaren said. “Institutional and structural weaknesses are a major part of Russian problems.”

The reasoning behind Russia’s direct tampering with drug tests powerfully stems from more than just the typical win-at-all-costs mentality. According to McLaren, the Olympic Games can be used for more than just a bunch of athletes winning gold medals. For instance, every time a marathon runner or a swimmer crosses the finish line, international relations can play a major part by being disguised in the form of athletics.

“It is a part of the prowess for the political structure and the international image of the country, particularly the other countries that (Russia is) interested in persuading,” McLaren said. “So there’s a political and geopolitical culture overriding what the athletes are doing.”

Although the Russians have dominated a massive amount of the Olympic spotlight in recent years, McLaren clearly expressed that Russia is not the only country that is hindered by corruption. 

“This deception and manipulation is not exclusively in Russia," McLaren said. "It’s a problem we all have throughout the world. Corruption is in our society at all levels, so we’ll also find it in sports.

"Sport is, after all, just a microcosm of society at large.”

@keberly1996

@DTHSports | sports@dailytarheel.com

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