The Schmid report goes on to say, in typical bland report-ese: “Mr. President Vladimir Putin and Vitaly Mutko, his former deputy and minister of sport at the peak of the doping scandal, can continue to insist that they were shocked — shocked! Russian officials dodged doping-control officers, they stashed athletes on guarded military bases, they destroyed thousands of urine samples and refused to hand over thousands more. Along the way they spread the message at home that Russian athletes were being unfairly targeted by a Western campaign to discredit Russia’s success at Sochi 2014. In the end, the story of the Russian doping scandal is simple.

Source: National Post September 20, 2018 18:00 UTC