For those of us who may have harboured a hope that clean athletes may be able to compete in Rio, the chances seem to fade away with the almost daily news of the murky recent past of Russian track and field.
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Whilst the Sochi revelations of two weeks ago don’t relate directly to athletics and no-one really has any idea whether there is any basis to them just yet, they seem awfully believable in an emerging embedded culture of systematic doping.
Those seedy tales come from Grigoriy Rodchenkov, the former head of the Moscow laboratory previously accredited, but now with its doors firmly closed, by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
Whether he is a crooked scientist intent on cleansing his soul or a bitter former employee with his eyes set on revenge, we know not yet.
But the announcement this week that 14 Russians have tested positive, mostly in athletics, during re-tests from the 2008 Beijing Olympics seems to be reliable, given it came from the Russian Olympic Committee.
The country’s track and field team won 18 medals in Beijing – six gold, five silver and seven bronze. This week’s announcement disposes of one of the golds, two of the silvers and four of the bronze.
But that might not be the end of the story.
So far WADA, the IAAF and the IOC are only re-testing the samples of athletes who competed in Beijing or in London four years later, if they are potential competitors in Rio this year.
This is fair enough in a way as there is only limited laboratory time and budget available for retesting at any given moment.
Yet it leaves a very dark cloud hanging over many of the other Russian medallists from 2008.
It should be assumed that pole vault queen Yelena Isinbayeva, who is desperate to be in Rio, would have had her Beijing-winning sample re-analysed and that it has returned negative.
But not so in the case of those who may have not been re-assessed in the belief that they have retired like men’s high jump champion Andrey Silnov or women’s 3000m steeple winner Gulnara Galkina.
The situation is even more worrying in the cases of the two 20km walk winners Valeriy Borchin and Olga Kaniskina and heptathlon bronze medallist Tatyana Chernova – three known dopers who have served periods of disqualification for later infringements.
There needs to be clarity on whether they and others have had their samples re-tested – even if there is no likelihood of them being in Rio.
Keeping dopers out of the Rio may be the immediate priority, but ensuring justice for those cheated out of medals from past Games is surely even more important.
