The World Anti-Doping Agency was told by a whistle-blower in recent months that the current head of Russia’s antidoping agency had participated in the government-sponsored doping scheme uncovered after the 2014 Sochi Olympics, according to two people with knowledge of the accusation.
The Russian agency’s director general, Veronika Loginova, was directly involved in the attempted cover-up of drug test results from the 2014 Winter Games, according to the whistle-blower, who claimed to have firsthand knowledge of Ms. Loginova’s role. The accusation has surfaced as Russia tries to re-establish its Olympic eligibility and prepares to field a small team at next month’s Paralympics after more than a decade of bans and sanctions.
The claims about the Russian agency could not be independently verified by The Times. The agency and Ms. Loginova did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A spokesman for WADA, the body responsible for ensuring fair competition in Olympic sports, confirmed on Thursday that the agency had received a tip from “a known source who made a new and serious allegation.” He did not name the person who had been accused but said the agency had passed the information to its intelligence and investigations department to follow up on the claim.
The spokesman, James Fitzgerald, said WADA’s management did not have details about the status of the investigation. He added that the claim had initially been provided without supporting evidence and that no corroborating evidence had been produced.
If true, the accusations against Ms. Loginova suggest that Russia handed the reins of its antidoping watchdog to someone who was involved with the execution of one of the most elaborate doping schemes in history.
Russia is still trying to prove its legitimacy in the sports world after a scandal that stemmed from the 2014 Games, when a state-sponsored doping program boosted the performance of its athletes. WADA in 2019 discovered that Russia had systematically deleted or altered the drug testing data of more than 200 Russian athletes to protect them from testing positive and to enable them to compete.
The 2014 Games were the last time Russia competed with a full Olympic team, under its own flag. Since then it has been barred from the Summer and Winter Games, first for the doping violations and more recently for its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. (Some Russians have been allowed to compete as neutral athletes.)
But Russia, whose antidoping agency has officially not complied with WADA rules for the better part of 10 years, is now poised to re-enter the Olympic fold at next month’s Paralympic Games in Italy. The Paralympians’ inclusion could pave the way for Russia to bring a full team to the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
“They’re getting back into competition, now people are starting to put them under a lens and saying, ‘What’s going over there?” said Travis Tygart, the chief executive of the United States Anti-Doping Agency. “Because of the state program there, and continued noncompliance, they’ve lost any benefit of doubt that they otherwise would be entitled to.”
At the 2014 Sochi Games, Russia carried out a meticulously planned doping scheme involving the country’s antidoping officials and agents of the Federal Security Service, the successor agency to the K.G.B. They tampered with the urine samples provided by Russian athletes.
In 2021, Ms. Loginova was chosen as the new director of RUSADA, the Russian antidoping agency, in a process overseen by WADA. An independent observer had been assigned to monitor that election process.
According to the RUSADA website, she began her antidoping career in 2010 while working there. She also worked in antidoping at the Federal Medical-Biological Agency and the Russian Ministry of Sport and represented Russia in official delegations at the Olympics from 2014 to 2020, according to the website. For her work in sports, the Russian government awarded her the Medal of the Order “For Merit to the Fatherland.”
Juliet Macur is a national reporter at The Times, based in Washington, D.C., who often writes about America through the lens of sports.
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