Russia and Doping at the Olympics Doping has been a big issue in many sporting events. There are many athletes that get away with it and there are many who don’t. The Olympics is one of many examples where doping is a big issue. These athletes risk their careers when they use performance enhancing drugs. If they are caught before the event, they are not allowed to compete. If they are caught after the event, they must forfeit their medals and their records are erased. Sometimes, countries are banned from the Olympic. Because of the doping in the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), decided last month, that the Russian Olympic team is not allowed to compete in the 2018 Winter Olympics, taking place in Pyeongchang, South Korea. This is the harshest punishment in Olympic history. There have been many instances of doping at the Olympics. The IOC began drug tests at the 1968 Games and since then, several individual athletes and teams have been disqualified and stripped of their medals. For years, Russia has been accused of doping their athletes. “Whistleblowers have alleged that up to 99 percent of Russian athletes have taken performance-enhancing drugs, with one explaining, ‘You can’t be on the national team without using [performance-enhancing drugs]. If you don’t take them, you have no future in sport.’” (Genser).
Many Russian athletes were stripped of their medals after the Rio Olympics in 2016 because they were caught