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Winter Sports Research Paper

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Some people may have noticed that the Russian flag was missing from the February Olympics. They were banned because during the last Winter Games Russia’s government engineered a doping scheme that cheated clean athletes. In the seventies, the Berlin wall was part of a fortified border that split Germany in two. Officially, it kept the West out, but in reality, it kept East German citizens in. The government sought ways to demonstrate the superiority of communism to the rest of the world. One of the only positive things that came from this oppression was a type of sports revolution. Talented children were handpicked for special sports schools, and coaches as well as doctors were employed full-time to train them. Sports festivals became highly …show more content…

This was the communist equivalent of fame and fortune – they became the public face of the German Democratic Republic (CBS.com).
In the 1976 Montreal Summer Olympics, the world took notice as East Germany, a relatively small country with few previous Olympic wins, triumphed with an impressive 40 gold medals. In an unprecedented feat, the women’s swim team alone won 11 of 13 swim events. The U.S. swimmer, Wendy Boglioli, described her opponents performance at the Montreal Olympics, “They were very strong women; they were very fast; we thought they were machines. Here (we) were, four of America’s best athletes ever put together on a team, and every single day the East German women were winning every, every event (PBS.com).” Little did the world know, the East German’s secret to success was not necessarily because of the natural skill of their athletes, but rather a state sponsored doping program. The systematic doping began in 1974 when Party leaders met with the East German Sports Performance Committee to decide how best to guarantee gold medals and international glory. What they came up with was “state plan theme 14-25.” The protocol was …show more content…

When the Winter Olympics came to Russia for the first time since the 1980s, this gave what Vladimir Putin saw as a prime reason to dope Russian athletes to insure that Russia dominated. Russia began to develop a program after its athletes finished in 11th place with just three gold medals at the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver. This was devastating to the country because it was its worst performance since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Grigory Rodchenkov, the man who orchestrated the whole operation under the orders of Putin, told the world in February of 2018. He was the director of Russia's anti-doping lab in Moscow. He was also a former college athlete with a degree in chemistry and a lifelong interest in performance-enhancing drugs. When asked about whether his job was to catch or prevent cheaters in an interview he replied, “It was dual, you know. Of course, as each accredited laboratory, we have to report certain percentile of positives, 1% to 2% of positives. But on the other hand, we have to protect Russian National Team and the ultimate goal was, ‘Win at any cost at World Championships and Olympics’”(CBSnews.com). Rodchenkov formulated an illicit performance-enhancing prescription that contained three banned drugs. He told us the bobsled team was among those using his concoction. At the end of the games, Russia came out on top with 33 medals.When asked which sports,

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