Vlasov and Soviet Drugs

[Guest guest]

Some of you may recall that I posted an article by the renowned soviet

weightlifter, Yuri Vlasov, exposing past excesses in soviet sport. Here is

another article which also quotes some more outspoken material by the same

intrepid lifter.

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Rewriting Soviet Sports History

Jim Riordan

J of Sports History, (20) 3 (Winter 1993)

........ The last-ever Soviet Sports Minister, Nikolai Rusak, had to admit

that " our sports ministry was oriented primarily on gaining prestigious

victories in international tournaments. "

Time ran out for Rusak and his ministry which was shut down in January 1992.

It should come as no surprise that, given the " win at all costs " mentality

that dominated the upper echelons of the sports administration, there had

been long-term state production, testing, monitoring, and administering of

performance-enhancing drugs in regard to athletes as young as 7-8. It is

this mendacity of members of the old regime - loudly condemning drug abuse in

the West as a typical excess of capitalism, while concealing its own

involvement in a far more extensive program of state manufacture and

distribution of drugs - from growth stimulants to growth retardants, anabolic

steroids to blood doping - that has so tarnished the image of " Olympism " with

many former Soviet people.

Back in 1986, Yuri Vlasov, then Chairman of the USSR Weightlifting Federation

(and one-time world and Olympic champion in 1960 at Rome) declared that

immense damage had been done to Soviet sport in general, and weightlifting in

particular, by the " coach-pharmacologist " who worked alongside the sports

coach. Not only did Vlasov accuse athletes of using anabolic steroids after

1968, but he named names. specifically that of senior coach and USSR Sports

Committee functionary Arkady Vorobyev, " who was the first to distribute

anabolic steroids to members of our national team. "

Vlasov had to pay for his boldness: " The Party Central Committee instructed

that no one was to publish my work: all my books were returned to me. Of

course, the public was utterly unaware of what was going on. " At that time,

Vlasov had launched a new career as a writer of poetry and prose; he had even

written a biography of his father, a Soviet spy in China whom the security

forces had executed, but no one would or could publish this.

All mention of Vlasov's victory at the Rome Olympics was cut from a film on

the Rome Olympics, even though Vlasov had carried the Soviet flag in the

opening ceremony. He was told by the sports minister Gramov that he " would

never travel abroad again. "

What was even worse and more shameful was that his revelations about the use

of anabolic steroids in weightlifting got him into trouble with the

international federation; that made him realize " that the entire

international [weightlifting] federation was implicated. " He reported to

Gramov that " some of its leading officials were taking huge backhanders for

enabling whole teams, let alone individual weightlifters, to avoid drug

testing. " Gramov did nothing, but the international federation leaders

effectively " held a court to try me - with threats of fining our national

federation several hundred thousand dollars and banning Soviet lifters from

the world championships. "

Vlasov concludes that as far as Soviet sports bureaucrats were concerned,

" gold medals have always been the yardstick of their work and, at the same

time, a shield concealing their idleness and easy life. What was important

was medals; how you got them - whether fattening athletes up on chemicals or

swallowing white-hot coals - was a secondary matter. "

Although Vlasov and others mention the late 1960s as the arrival of anabolic

steroids, other drugs were used much earlier. " Steroids were preceded by

psychotropic amphetamines. With my own ears in 1959, I heard our senior

cycling coach, Leonid Sheleshnev, tell the sports minister Romanov that if we

didn't have them, we could expect no victories. Romanov replied that " the

matter would be resolved positively " ; and our team received the first packet

of tablets before the 1960 Games in Rome. " As a result, they very nearly

killed ei Petrov in the 100 km race (in the same race the Danish rider

Enemark-Ensen died from taking drugs).

It has long been known by those familiar with communist sport that drug

taking was organized at the top and that no athlete was allowed overseas

unless he or she had a clearance test before departing. A TV report in late

1989 revealed a document, signed in 1982 by two deputy sports ministers,

prescribing anabolic steroids as part of the preparation for Soviet

cross-country skiers. The document set out a program to test the effects of

steroids and for research into ways of avoiding detection.

At the Olympics at Montreal (1976) and Seoul (1988) it has now been revealed,

the Soviet squad had a " hospitality " boat used as a medical centre to ensure

that Soviet competitors were " clean " before competition.

Soviet coach Sergei Vaichekhovsky, who was in charge of Soviet swimming from

1973 to 1982, admitted that the use of drugs was widespread in his sport:

" From 1974 all Soviet swimmers were using banned substances. I've personally

administered the drugs and advised swimmers individually on how to avoid

getting caught. "

Following the Seoul Olympics and the Ben drug scandal, Soviet senior

track and field coach Igor Ter-Ovanesyan launched a well-publicized campaign

against drug taking. Admitting that " many of our athletes " take drugs, he

conceded that even several school athletes had been caught taking steroids;

and he advised that " society needs proper legislation to combat this evil,

seriously punishing both athletes and doctors. coaches, and drug-suppliers. "

Many reports in the Soviet Press reveal cases of schoolchildren being given

drugs to enhance their performance: among those named was the coach V.

Yatsyn, who " fattened up his 15-year-old athletes with anabolic steroids. "

Yuri Vlasov has also raised the issue of physical abuse of children in sport.

The problem is probably greatest in women's (girls'?) gymnastics owing to

the sharp fall in age of competitors in recent years. As a Soviet writer has

put it, this " has made it a barbarically difficult and dangerous sport in

respect of a young girl's body. " .......

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Dr Mel C Siff

Denver, USA

Supertraining/

[Guest guest]

Vlasov's statement of Russian weighlifters starting to use AAS in the

late 60s doesn't seem credible. There are reports of Russian

weighlifters using testosterone at the 1954 World Championship.

bol was available and in use in the west in the late 1950s

(wide-spread a few years after that) - is it plausible that the

Russians were a decade late on this?

Hakan Millroth

Saratoga, CA, USA