Nothing earth-shattering to come out of Wada’s report on alleged doping in Russia

if it has not already, then it should now be accepted that the war against doping cannot ever be fully won. The pattern of doping in sport is that doping methods have evolved far quicker than anti-doping processes, writes Osman Samiuddin.

A view of the doping control area at the 2014 Russia Winter Olympics. In a devastatingly critical report, a World Anti-Doping Agency panel accused the Russian government on Monday of complicity in widShow more

Are we at that stage yet where the instinctive reaction to the latest unwrapping of the shrouds of virtue with which professional sport covers itself is to just shrug our shoulders? That this is all a little meh? Or that of course it is because how can it not be given what is at stake?

We really might be.

Who really is surprised by the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (Wada) investigation that has found what appears to be systemic and widespread doping in Russian athletics? Or the conclusion that the problem is unlikely to be limited to athletics or Russia, that this is just the tip of the iceberg?

Sure all through the details of Dick Pound’s report we can do little double takes. The report said agents from Russia’s secret service infiltrated Russia’s anti-doping work at the Sochi Olympics, a witness telling the inquiry that “in Sochi, we had some guys pretending to be engineers in the lab but actually they were from the federal security service.”

And that the head of the Wada lab in Russia, Grigory Rodchenko admitted to intentionally destroying 1417 blood samples ahead of a visit by auditors.

Sure, we can gasp a little at the finding that the London Olympics were “sabotaged” by the “widespread inaction” against Russian athletes with suspicious doping profiles, by the Russian federation and the IAAF, the global ruling athletics body.

But come on. Look around you. Given Armstrong, given FIFA, given N Srinivasan (bye, by the way) and the International Cricket Council, given cricket match-fixing, given the El Classico referee who alleges he was approached to fix the game, given almost the entire boxing oeuvre, given, well, years and years of this (hello East Germany and the White Sox); can anyone who follows sport to any degree claim to be surprised a sports federation, probably working in cahoots with the state, is crooked? That we are talking not only of doping, but corruption, even extortion?

This is what professional sport tends to.

And if it has not already, then it should now be accepted that the war against doping cannot ever be fully won. The pattern of doping in sport is that doping methods have evolved far quicker than anti-doping processes.

Once we accept this – and the current IAAF head Sebastian Coe is one of those who does, as is the former anti-doping head John Fahey – then the only question is this: need it be lost so comprehensively? Can the degree of it be controlled?

Much now will fall on Coe though, a little like Michel Platini over at FIFA, he finds himself trying to play the knight in shining armour only that he is neither so shiny or knightly.

Coe has been vice-president at the IAAF since 2007, so this happened on his watch. His first reaction to investigations that uncovered suspicions blood samples a couple of months ago was to fume that journalists were “declaring war on my sport”. He has referred to Lamine Diack, his predecessor now under investigation for accepting money to cover up doping, as his “spiritual leader”. It is not a good look.

Pound warned there is worse to come, but you should know that anyway.

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