WADA to probe Russia doping claims from "60 Minutes"
Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko on Monday dismissed as speculation new allegations of doping raised by a "60 Minutes" interview with a former Russian track star and her husband.
The report by "60 Minutes" focused on Yuliya Stepanov, who was not long ago one of Russia's elite runners, and her husband Vitaly, who worked as a low-level employee with Russia's national anti-doping agency RUSADA.
Together, as Armen Keteyian reports, they decided to bring down the systemic doping in Russia's athletic program by exposing it to the world. It cost them both their jobs and forced them to move into hiding in the United States.
One of the most explosive revelations came as Vitaly Stepanov detailed his contacts with the former director of Russia's anti-doping lab, Grigory Rodchenkov.
Rodchenkov, who ran the drug-testing lab in Sochi, bragged he was in possession of what he called "the Sochi list" -- the names of Russian athletes who competed dirty at the games. The conversations Stepanov recorded secretly with Rodchenkov suggest multiple Russian gold medal winners were among those on performance enhanching drugs.
He also said the Russian equivalent of the FBI -- the FSB -- was directly involved.
The allegations over Sochi are new, and could influence the governing body of track and field when it meets next month to decide whether to lift its suspension of the Russian track team and allow it to compete in Rio this summer.
"Stepanov is back on his hobby horse," Mutko told Russia's state TASS news agency over the weekend, dismissing the report.
In a separate statement Monday, the Russian sports ministry said it was "certain" about the transparency of doping controls during the Sochi Games.
"In addition to Russian specialists, doping control stations also employed foreign experts," the statement said. "Furthermore, a team of independent observers managed the doping control operations on a daily basis during the games."
The ministry said that, since the Stepanovs' original statements last year, investigations have been carried out and Russia agreed on a road map with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to reform the doping control system.
WADA spokesman Ben Nichols said officials from the agency watched the "60 Minutes" report, "which revealed new and very disturbing allegations regarding Russian doping in sport. We will look into these without delay."