Published by the new york times. Pressure to win

  • 17.07.2019

And former banker George Jones. They soon sold the paper for pennies (the equivalent today is 28 cents).

The newspaper shortened its name to The New-York Times in 1857. In the 1890s, the hyphen was removed from the city's name. On April 21, 1861, The New York Times moved away from its original Monday-Saturday publication schedule and joined other major dailies in adding a Sunday circulation and offering daily coverage of the Civil War.

The New York Times headquarters was attacked during a draft riot in New York City, sparked by the start of compulsory military service for Northerners at the height of the Civil War on July 13, 1863.

The newspaper's influence grew between 1870 and 1871, when it published a series of articles exposing William Tweed, head of the city's Democratic Party—known in the city as Tammany Hall— which led to the end of Tweed Rings' reign at New York City Hall. In the 1880s, the New York Times gradually moved away from editorially supporting Republican Party candidates to become a more politically independent and analytical newspaper; In 1884, Democrat Grover Cleveland (former mayor of Buffalo and governor of New York) supported the newspaper in his first presidential campaign. Although the transition cost The New York Times a loss of readers, including conservatives, business-oriented readers, and upper-class readers, the paper eventually regained its readership within a few years and slowly gained a reputation for fairness and impartiality, especially in the 1890s. years under the direction of a new owner, publisher, Adolph Ochs of Chattanooga, Tennessee.

The New York Times was acquired by Adolph Ochs, publisher of the Chattanooga Times, in 1896. The following year, he came up with the newspaper's slogan: "We have all the news that can be printed." All the News That's Fit to Print), which appears in the upper left corner of the front page of the newspaper for the next 120 years. This was a blow to rival newspapers such as Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and William Randolph's New York Journal, which were known at the time as dark, sensationalist, and riddled with erroneous opinions and facts, known at the end of the century as "tabloids" "(yellow journalism). Under Ochs' leadership, continuing and expanding the tradition of Henry Raymond (which dates back to the days of James Gordon Bennett at the New York Herald, which predated the arrival of Pulitzer and Hearst in New York), the New York Times achieved international influence, strengthened its reputation and increased its circulation. In 1904, the New York Times received the first radiotelegraph report from the press ship Haimoon, a report on the destruction of the Imperial Russian Baltic Fleet at the Battle of Port Arthur in the Strait of Tsushima - (one of the most important, history-changing, military naval battles). In 1910, the New York Times began to be airlifted to Philadelphia. The first transatlantic delivery by air - by airship to London - occurred in 1919. In 1920 special issue 4 A.M. The Airplane Edition was flown to Chicago for Republican Party delegates to receive them later that evening.

In the 1940s The New York Times continued to expand its reach and scope. In 1942, crossword puzzles began appearing regularly, and in 1946 a fashion section also appeared. The international version of The New York Times began publication in 1946. In 1967, the International Edition ceased publication due to the fact that The New York Times joined the owners of the New York Herald Tribune and The Washington Post, and became part owner International Herald Tribune in Paris. In 2007, The Washington Post sold its stake and the New York Times Company became the sole owner of the newspaper (which since 2007 has been called the International New York Times). In 1946, the newspaper bought AM radio station WQXR (1560 kHz, sold to New York Public Radio in 2007), and WQXR, which broadcast as WQXR-FM on 96.3 MHz. Radio stations under the general name “The Radio Station of The New York Times broadcast classical music on both frequencies until December 1992, when WNEW-AM's (now WBBR/Bloomberg Radio) big band and standard music formats moved from 1130 kHz to 1560 kHz. Radio station WQXR became WQEW. By the early 21st century, The New York Times leased WQEW to ABC Radio with its Radio Disney format. Disney finally took ownership of WQEW in 2007. On July 14, 2009, it was announced that WQXR-FM had been sold to WNYC (English) Russian , which on October 8, 2009 moved the station to 105.9 FM and began using it as a non-profit.

In 2009, the New York Times was the third most circulated newspaper in the United States after USA Today and The Wall Street Journal. The newspaper is owned by The New York Times Company, in which the descendants of Adolph Ochs (especially the Sulzberger family) play a dominant role. In 2009, the newspaper's circulation fell 7.3 percent to 928,000; this is the first time since 1980 that circulation has dropped below one million. On December 26, 2010, it was reported that the newspaper had a weekday circulation of 906,100 and a Sunday circulation of 1,356,800. In the New York metropolitan area, a newspaper costs $2.50 Monday through Saturday and $5 on Sunday. The New York Times has not only its headquarters, but also 16 news bureaus in the New York metropolitan area, 11 national news bureaus and 26 foreign news bureaus. The New York Times reduced its page width to 12 inches (300 mm) from 13.5 inches (340 mm), adopting a width on August 6, 2007 that became the standard format for all U.S. newspapers. Due to a steady decline in print sales and the growth of online and social media options, the newspaper has been experiencing staff cuts for the past several years.

Headquarters building

The newspaper's first building was located at 113 Nassau Street in New York City. In 1854, the newspaper moved to 138 Nassau Street, and in 1858, it moved to 41 Park Row, making The New York Times the first newspaper to be located in a building built specifically for that purpose. In 1904, the newspaper moved to the Times Tower, located at 1475 Broadway, in an area called Longacre Square, which was later renamed the famous Times Square in honor of the newspaper.

The building also features an electronic news feed, popularly known as "The Zipper", on which various headlines appear on the outside of the building. This method is still in use, but is now managed by the Reuters news agency. After nine years of office space in the Times Square newspaper tower, an additional structure was built at 229 West 43rd Street. After several expansions, the 43rd Street building became the newspaper's main headquarters in 1960, and the Times Tower on Broadway was sold the following year. It served as the newspaper's main printing house until 1997.

Ten years later, The New York Times moved its newsroom and headquarters from West 43rd Street to a gleaming new tower at 620 Eighth Avenue between West 40th and 41st Streets, in Manhattan - just across the street from the family continues to control the newspaper, owning a controlling interest in Class B shares. Owners of Class A shares have limited voting rights. This dual system allows owners to continue to control the company after it has gone public. The Ochs-Sulzberger family owns 88% of the Class B shares. Any change made to the structure of the newspaper company must be carried out and ratified by 6 of the 8 directors who enjoy the confidence of the family. The board members are: Daniel H. Cohen, James M. Cohen, Lynn G. Dolnick, Susan W. Dryfoos, Michael Golden, Eric M. A. Lax, Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr. and Cathy J. Sulzberger.

Turner Catledge, editor-in-chief of The New York Times from 1952 to 1968, wanted to hide the influence of the owners. Arthur Sulzberger regularly wrote memos to his editor, each containing suggestions, instructions, complaints and orders. If Catledge had received these notes, he could have erased the publisher's identity into dust before passing them on to his subordinates. Catledge thought that if he removed the publisher's name from the notes, it would protect journalists from feeling pressured by the owner.

Loans and investments

On January 20, 2009, The New York Times announced that Carlos Slim, a Mexican telecommunications magnate and the 2nd richest man in the world, had given a $250 million loan to the newspaper "to help the newspaper finance his business." Since then, Slim has made additional investments in Times stock; citing Reuters, his position on October 6, 2011 reached 8.1% ownership of Class A shares.

The newspaper's influence grew between 1870 and 1871, when it published a series of articles exposing William Tweed, head of the city's Democratic Party—known in the city as Tammany Hall - which led to the end of the reign of New York City Hall Tweed Rings. In the 1880s, the New York Times gradually moved away from editorially supporting Republican Party candidates to become a more politically independent and analytical newspaper; In 1884, Democrat Grover Cleveland (former mayor of Buffalo and governor of New York) supported the newspaper in his first presidential campaign. Although this transition was worth The New York Times losses of readers, including conservatives, business-oriented readers, and upper-class readers, but the paper eventually regained its readership within a few years and slowly gained a reputation as a fair and impartial newspaper, especially in the 1890s under the leadership of a new owner, the publisher, Adolph Ochs from Chattanooga, Tennessee.

The New York Times was acquired by Adolph Ochs, publisher Chattanooga Times, in 1896. The following year, he came up with the newspaper's slogan: "We have all the news that can be printed." All the News That's Fit to Print ), which appears in the upper left corner of the front page of the newspaper for the next 120 years. This was a blow to rival newspapers such as Joseph Pulitzer's newspaper New York World and William Randolph New York Journal, which were known at the time as dark, sensational and riddled with erroneous opinions and facts, known at the end of the century as "yellow press" (yellow journalism). Under the leadership of Ochs, continuing and expanding the traditions of Henry Raymond (which had been around since the time of James Gordon Bennett in New York Herald, which preceded the appearance of Pulitzer and Hearst in New York) The New York Times achieved international influence, strengthened its reputation and increased its circulation. In 1904, the New York Times received the first radiotelegraph report from the press ship Haimoon, a report on the destruction of the Imperial Russian Baltic Fleet at the Battle of Port Arthur in the Strait of Tsushima - (one of the most important, history-changing, military naval battles). In 1910, the New York Times began to be airlifted to Philadelphia. The first transatlantic delivery by air - by airship to London - occurred in 1919. In 1920 special issue numbers 4 A.M. Airplane Edition were flown to Chicago for Republican Party delegates to receive them that evening.

In the 1940s The New York Times continued to expand its reach and scope. In 1942, crossword puzzles began appearing regularly, and in 1946 a fashion section also appeared. The international version of The New York Times began publication in 1946. In 1967, the International Edition ceased publication due to the New York Times joining the ownership New York Herald Tribune And The Washington Post, and became a co-owner International Herald Tribune in Paris. In 2007, The Washington Post sold its stake and the New York Times Company became the sole owner of the newspaper (which since 2007 has been called the International New York Times). In 1946, the newspaper bought AM radio station WQXR (1560 kHz, sold New York Public Radio in 2007), and the station WQXR, which broadcast under the name WQXR-FM on a frequency of 96.3 MHz. Radio stations under the general name “The Radio Station of The New York Times broadcast classical music on both frequencies until December 1992, when WNEW-AM's (now WBBR/Bloomberg Radio) big band and standard music formats moved from 1130 kHz to 1560 kHz. Radio station WQXR became WQEW. By the early 21st century, The New York Times leased WQEW to ABC Radio with its Radio Disney format. Disney finally took ownership of WQEW in 2007. On July 14, 2009, it was announced that WQXR-FM had been sold to WNYC (English) Russian , which on October 8, 2009 moved the station to 105.9 FM and began using it as a non-commercial.

In 2009 New York Times, the third largest newspaper in the United States after USA Today And The Wall Street Journal. The newspaper belongs The New York Times Company, in which the descendants of Adolf Ochs (especially the Sulzberger family) play a dominant role. In 2009, the newspaper's circulation fell 7.3 percent to 928,000; this is the first time since 1980 that circulation has dropped below one million. On December 26, 2010, it was reported that the newspaper had a weekday circulation of 906,100 and a Sunday circulation of 1,356,800. In the New York metropolitan area, a newspaper costs $2.50 Monday through Saturday and $5 on Sunday. The New York Times has not only its headquarters, but also 16 news bureaus in the New York metropolitan area, 11 national news bureaus and 26 foreign news bureaus. The New York Times reduced its page width to 12 inches (300 mm) from 13.5 inches (340 mm), adopting a width on August 6, 2007 that became the standard format for all U.S. newspapers. Due to a steady decline in print sales and the growth of online and social media options, the newspaper has been experiencing staff cuts for the past several years.

Headquarters building

The newspaper's first building was located at 113 Nassau Street in New York City. In 1854, the newspaper moved to 138 Nassau Street, and in 1858, it moved to 41 Park Row, making The New York Times the first newspaper to be located in a building built specifically for that purpose. In 1904, the newspaper moved to the Times Tower, located at 1475 Broadway, in an area called Longacre Square, which was later renamed the famous Times Square in honor of the newspaper.

The building also features an electronic news feed, known and popularly referred to as "Lightning" ( The Zipper) on which various headings appear on the outside of the building. This method is still in use, but is now managed by the Reuters news agency. After nine years of office space in the Times Square newspaper tower, an additional structure was built at 229 West 43rd Street. After several expansions, the building on 43rd Street became the newspaper's main headquarters in 1960, and Times Tower on Broadway and sold out the following year. It served as the newspaper's main printing house until 1997.

Ten years later, The New York Times moved its newsroom and headquarters from West 43rd Street to a gleaming new tower at 620 Eighth Avenue between West 40th and 41st Streets, in Manhattan - directly across from Eighth Avenue . The new headquarters for the newspaper, officially known as " The New York Times Building", but is informally referred to by many New Yorkers as the new " Times Tower", is a skyscraper that was built according to the design of Renzo Piano.

Owner

Turner Catledge, editor-in-chief of The New York Times from 1952 to 1968, wanted to hide the influence of the owners. Arthur Sulzberger regularly wrote memos to his editor, each containing suggestions, instructions, complaints and orders. If Catledge had received these notes, he could have erased the publisher's identity into dust before passing them on to his subordinates. Catledge thought that if he removed the publisher's name from the notes, it would protect journalists from feeling pressured by the owner.

Loans and investments

On January 20, 2009, The New York Times announced that Carlos Slim, a Mexican telecommunications magnate and the 2nd richest man in the world, had given a $250 million loan to the newspaper "to help the newspaper finance his business." Since then, Slim has made additional investments in Times stock; citing Reuters, his position on October 6, 2011 reached 8.1% ownership of Class A shares.

Print stops

Due to the strike, the regularly published New York Times was not printed during the following periods: December 9, 1962 to March 31, 1963, only the Western edition was published due to the 1962–63 strike in New York City.

From August 10, 1978 to November 5, 1978, strikers struck and closed three major New York newspapers. Not a single edition of The New York Times was printed. During the two-month strike, a parody of The New York Times appeared and was published in New York, called "Not The New York Times", with the help of such personalities as Carl Bernstein, Christopher Cerf, Tony Hendra and George Plimpton.

Awards

New York Times has received 117 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper. The award recognizes outstanding achievements in journalism in various categories.

Political preferences

According to a 2007 Rasmussen Reports poll on media political leanings: 40% of respondents believe the New York Times has liberal leanings; 20% of respondents believe that the newspaper has no political overtones; 11% of people believe the newspaper has a conservative bias. In December 2004, the University of California, in a study, gave The New York Times a score of 63.5 on a 100-point scale (0 being the most conservative bias and 100 being the most liberal bias). Special Report, a late-night program on Fox News, received a 39.7 rating in comparison. In mid-2004, public editor of the newspaper Okrent, Daniel (English) Russian wrote an opinion piece in which he said The New York Times had a liberal bias in its news coverage of certain social issues, such as abortion and gay marriage. He also stated that this bias is reflected in the newspaper's cosmopolitanism. Okrent did not comment in detail on questions about bias in its coverage of other "major political news" such as fiscal policy, foreign policy or civil liberties issues, but said the paper's coverage of the Iraq War was not critical enough by the Bush administration.

Iraq War

Israeli-Palestinian conflict

A 2003 study by the Harvard International Journal of Politics concluded that New York Times articles were more favorable to Israelis than to Palestinians. Some claim and classify the newspaper as pro-Palestinian, while others believe that it is pro-Israel, covering news of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Political scientists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt argue that The New York Times sometimes criticizes Israeli policies, but not always objectively, but nevertheless remains pro-Israel. On the other hand, the Simon Wiesenthal Center criticized The New York Times for publishing cartoons regarding the Israeli–Palestinian conflict that were said to be anti-Semitic. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected an offer to write an article for the newspaper on the grounds of lack of objectivity. New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt concluded and published it in a column on January 10, 2009: “While the most vocal supporters of Israel and Palestine would disagree, I think the New York Times largely degree, being removed from the battle and typing against the backdrop of the chaos of war, she tried to do her job as best as possible, balanced and complete - which she largely succeeded in.

Balkan and anti-Serb bias

Former New York Times journalist Daniel Simpson criticized the newspaper's bias in its portrayal of the war in Yugoslavia in 1990. He was particularly critical of the newspaper's anti-Serb slant and published a book, A Rough Guide to the Dark Side: Or Why I Left My Job at the New York Times, in which he explains the issues involved. He also claimed that he was asked to report on alleged trade in weapons of mass destruction between Serbia and Iraq, which turned out to be false, and his attempts to write more neutral articles were rejected.

The Second World War

On November 4, 2001, the New York Times' 150th anniversary, former executive editor Max Fraenkel wrote that before and during World War II, the Times had a consistent policy of minimizing coverage of the Holocaust in its news pages. Laurel Leff, an assistant professor of journalism at Northeastern University, concluded that the Times newspaper downplayed the Third Reich's role in the genocide of the Jewish people. Her book Buried by the Times (2005) documents and shows the New York Times' tendency before, during, and after World War II to suppress news in its daily newspapers about the ongoing persecution and extermination of Jews. Laurel Leff attributes this fact and flaw due in part to the newspaper's Jewish publisher, Arthur Hayes Sulzberger,'s complex personal and political views regarding Jews, anti-Semitism, and Zionism.

During the war, New York Times journalist William L. Lawrence was "on the War Department's payroll."

Denial of hunger in Ukraine

The New York Times was criticized for the work of reporter Walter Duranty, who served as New York Times Moscow bureau chief from 1922 to 1936. Duranty wrote a series of short stories and articles in 1931 in the Soviet Union and received a Pulitzer Prize for his work during that time; however, he has been criticized for his denial of mass starvation, particularly the Ukrainian famine of the 1930s. In 2003, after the Pulitzer Prize board meeting reopened the investigation, The New York Times hired Mark von Hagen, a professor of Russian history at Columbia University, to reexamine Duranty's work. Von Hagen concluded that Duranty's work was unbalanced and unreasoned, and that support for Stalinist propaganda was too often seen. In comments to the press, he said: “For the honor of the New York Times, they should give the prize back.”

Plagiarism

In May 2003, Times reporter Jason Blair was forced to resign from the newspaper after he was caught plagiarizing and fabricating elements of his stories. Some critics argue that Blair's background was a major factor in his hiring and the New York Times' initial reluctance to fire him.

see also

Notes

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  4. Cornwell, 2004, p. 151.
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  7. Blumenthal, Ralph. WQEW-AM: All Kids, All the Time, The New York Times(December 2, 1998)
  8. Family Radio Returns To New York - RadioInsight November 21, 2014
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Russian insider says Olympic gold was achieved thanks to state-level doping

The director of the Russian anti-doping laboratory during the Sochi Olympics said that urine samples were secretly replaced somehow in tamper-evident bottles. Photo - Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

LOS ANGELES — Dozens of Russian athletes at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, including at least 15 who won medals, were part of a government doping program carefully planned for years to ensure dominance at the Games, according to the director of the country's doping laboratory at the time.

That director, Grigory Rodchenkov, who ran a laboratory that tested thousands of Olympians, said he developed a cocktail of three banned doping drugs that he mixed with an alcoholic drink and provided to dozens of Russian athletes, contributing to one of the world's most complex—and successful - doping tricks in the history of sports.

Some of the biggest Russian sporting stars of the Olympic Games took part, including 14 members of the cross-country skiing team and two accomplished gold medal-winning bobsledders.

As part of the cover of darkness operation, Russian anti-doping experts and intelligence officials secretly swapped doped urine samples with clean urine collected months earlier, somehow sneaking into tamper-evident bottles that are standard internationally. competitions, said Dr. Rodchenkov. For hours each night, they worked in a secret laboratory lit by a single lamp, passing bottles of urine through a hand-sized hole in the wall so they would be ready for testing the next day, he said.



Grigory Rodchenkov, who ran the Sochi laboratory, said he developed a cocktail of three banned doping drugs that he gave to dozens of Russian athletes. Photo - Emily Berle for The New York Times

By the end of the Olympics, Dr. Rodchenkov estimates that up to 100 “dirty” urine samples had been cleaned up.

None of the athletes were caught cheating. More importantly, Russia won the highest number of medals at the Olympics, easily beating archrival the United States and damaging the impeccable reputation of one of the world's most prestigious sporting events.

“People celebrate the victorious Olympic champions, and we sit and change their urine like crazy,” Dr. Rodchenkov said. “Can you imagine how Olympic sports are organized?”

After The New York Times asked Russian officials to respond to the allegations, Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko released a statement to the media, calling the revelation "a continuation of the information attack on Russian sports."

Dr Rodchenkov outlined the details of the operation in several interviews over three days, which were arranged by American director Brian Fogel, who is working on a documentary film featuring Dr Rodchenkov.

Dr Rodchenkov's account could not be independently verified, but it confirms the general conclusions of a report published last year by the World Anti-Doping Agency. He provided The New York Times with emails detailing the doping efforts and a summary sheet he said the sports department sent him before the Sochi games. The table named the athletes who participated in the doping program.

Dr Rodchenkov described his own work in Sochi as a "great achievement", the culmination of a decade of efforts to improve Russia's doping strategy in international competition.

“We were fully equipped, we were competent, experienced and perfectly prepared for Sochi like never before,” he said. “It worked like a Swiss watch.”

After Sochi, Dr. Rodchenkov was awarded the prestigious "Order of Friendship" by President Vladimir V. Putin.

However, six months ago his fate changed dramatically.

In November, the World Anti-Doping Agency found that Dr. Rodchenkov was at the center of what the agency described as a vast state doping program in Russia, accusing him of extorting money from athletes—the only charge he denies—and of covering up doping tests. tests and destruction of hundreds of urine samples.

After the report appeared, Dr. Rodchenkov said, Russian officials forced him to resign. Fearing for his safety, he moved to Los Angeles with the help of Mr. Vogel.

In Russia itself, two of Dr. Rodchenkov's close colleagues died unexpectedly in February, within weeks of each other; both of them were former anti-doping officials. The one who quit shortly after Dr. Rodchenkov fled the country.

The November report focused largely on athletics, but Dr. Rodchenkov described the entire spectrum of Russian sports as tainted by the use of banned substances. Having confessed to b O worse violations than WADA investigators accused him of, he said he destroyed not hundreds of urine samples but several thousand in a last-ditch attempt to disguise the extent of doping in the country.

Dr. Rodchenkov said he received a spreadsheet containing the names of athletes in the doping program on January 21, 2014, two weeks before the Games, and shortly after he arrived in Sochi to begin work in the Olympic laboratory. The table was to be used for comparison during competitions, Dr. Rodchenkov said, and it gave a quick overview of each athlete's competition schedule. If any of them received a medal, their urine samples had to be replaced.

Until today, the exact story of how Russian officials were able to carry out such a complex doping operation was not known to the public.

Pressure to win

Dr. Rodchenkov's revelations, his first statements after his escape, come at an important moment for Russia. In November, following the WADA report, the country was temporarily excluded from athletics competition; Leaders of the sport's global governing body will decide in the coming weeks whether to lift the ban ahead of this summer's Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

Russia is also preparing to host the next FIFA World Cup in 2018.

Reacting to the spate of allegations, Mr. Putin called for an investigation, but Russian officials have been largely dismissive of allegations of widespread doping among the country's athletes.

The New York Times referred questions about the revelations to the sports department and its six sports federations whose athletes were named as participants in the doping program. Instead of answering directly, Mr Mutko, the minister, held a press conference with journalists from the state news agency TASS, calling the New York Times investigation unfounded and making it clear that it was part of an attempt to discredit Russian sports ahead of the Rio Olympics .

“The system for organizing the Olympic Games was completely transparent,” Mr. Mutko told TASS. “Everything was under the control of international experts - from collecting samples to analyzing them.”

Dr. Rodchenkov said the Ministry of Sports actively directed doping activities. In the six months before the Olympics, he said, he met with Mr. Mutko's deputy, Yuri Nagornykh, in an office on the second floor of the ministry's luxury building in Moscow at least once a week.

In an email, Mr. Nagornykh denied the existence of a doping program. “I have nothing to hide,” he wrote.

Russian officials were under enormous pressure ahead of the Olympic Games. Sochi was to become a showcase for Russia's rebirth as a global power, and the entire country was involved in the project. Billions of dollars have been spent transforming the neglected subtropical resort town into a winter sports paradise. Mr Putin himself was involved in the bid to host the Olympic Games in Russia and was personally involved in much of the planning.

Looming over it all was Russia's disastrous sixth-place finish in medals at the previous Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia. It didn't matter whether the world would be amazed by the opening ceremony or whether the ski lifts were working properly.

Dr. Rodchenkov said that he had to ensure that Russian athletes received O Most of the medals, preferably gold.

He had been director of the Russian anti-doping laboratory in Moscow since 2005 and was considered by many to be one of the world's leading experts on performance-enhancing drugs for athletes. He often experimented with such stimulants on himself, he said.

He published articles in peer-reviewed journals, traveled to scientific conferences, and was a frequent guest at the annual symposium sponsored by the United States Anti-Doping Agency, most recently in October in Landsown, Virginia, just a month before he was forced to resign. .

By his own admission, Dr. Rodchenkov, who has a PhD in analytical chemistry, used his knowledge to help athletes properly use banned substances and get away with it, which he says was done at the behest of the Russian government. After years of trial and error, he said, he developed a cocktail of three anabolic steroids - methenolone, trenbolone and oxandrolone - which he claims were used by many Russian elite athletes before the 2012 London Olympics and during the 2012 London Olympics. Sochi.

He said that he did not administer the drugs himself, but provided them to the sports ministry.

These stimulants, Dr. Rodchenkov said, helped athletes quickly recover from grueling workouts, allowing them to compete at their peak in the days following.

To speed up the absorption of steroids and reduce the possibility of their detection, he dissolved the drugs in alcohol - Chivas whiskey for men and Martini vermouth for women.

Dr. Rodchenkov's formula was precise: one milligram of steroid mixture for every milliliter of alcohol. Athletes were instructed to rinse the liquid in the mouth, under the tongue, to absorb the stimulants.

In an interview, Dr. Rodchenkov boasted of his ability to protect doping athletes from detection. Even so, Russia had the highest number of athletes caught for doping in 2014, according to WADA statistics.

Dr. Rodchenkov said some of his athletes sometimes took drugs he did not approve, making them vulnerable to detection. “All athletes are like little children,” he said. “They put everything you give them in their mouth.”

A good illustration, he said, is Elena Lashmanova, the gold medalist in race walking at the London 2012 Olympics. She tested positive for banned substances when international observers checked his laboratory, and hiding her results would have jeopardized the entire operation, he said.

In an email to Mr Nagornykh, the deputy sports minister, dated April 18, 2014, he wrote that there was nothing he could do to protect Ms Lashmanova without jeopardizing the laboratory's accreditation.

“To be honest, this chaos has reached its logical end,” he wrote. “There cannot be another opinion on this matter.”

Three months later, Ms. Lashmanova was suspended from international competition for two years.

Plans for Sochi

For Dr. Rodchenkov, preparations for Sochi began in earnest in the fall of 2013. Around this time, he said, a man he believed to be working for Russia's internal security service, the FSB, began showing up at a laboratory in Moscow, asking about bottles used to store urine samples that tested positive for illegal substances.

The man took a special interest in the jagged metal rings that seal the bottles when the cap is screwed on. He collected hundreds of such rings, Dr. Rodchenkov said.

One lab employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from authorities, said that at one point staff were told the man was there “to protect the lab.” He peppered people with questions about the bottles, the employee said, but always in a friendly way. Although his motivation was not clearly expressed, it became clear over time to those who worked in the laboratory.

“It was clear he was trying to get into the bottles,” the employee said.

At all major international sporting events, athletes are required to provide a urine sample for testing. The sample is placed in two bottles. One, bottle A, is tested immediately; the other, bottle B, is sealed and stored for up to 10 years, in case the athlete's past achievements are called into question. The Swiss company Berlinger produces self-closing glass bottles that are used in international competitions, including the Olympic Games.

Because of strict competition testing protocols, Dr. Rodchenkov said, athletes typically have to stop using banned substances before a sporting event to avoid testing positive for doping. But in holding the Games in Sochi, Russian sports officials saw an opportunity: They could monitor anti-doping lab results, he said, and allow athletes to use doping throughout the competition.

The deciding factor was bottle penetration.

How exactly this was done is still a mystery. Dr. Rodchenkov claims that at some point in the weeks before the Games, a man he believes to be an FSB agent gave him a previously sealed bottle that had been opened and its uniquely numbered cap intact.

“When I first saw this bottle open, I couldn’t believe my eyes,” he said, adding, “I actually thought they were tamper-proof.”

Replacing “dirty” urine

In the months leading up to the Sochi Games, according to a November WADA report, international doping officials threatened to revoke Dr. Rodchenkov's laboratory's accreditation due to suspicious discrepancies between sample results and complaints of "external interference" in the laboratory's work. In November 2013, a disciplinary committee met in Johannesburg to consider the matter.

“Despite the laboratory's poor performance, there was a clear desire to revoke the laboratory's accreditation ahead of the Sochi Olympic Games,” WADA said in a report last year.



A hole in the wall (covered by a removable lid) through which "dirty" urine samples were passed in and replaced with "clean" samples during the Sochi Games, according to Dr. Rodchenkov. Photo - Grigory Rodchenkov, via Brian Vogel, ICARUS DOCUMENTARY FILM

The testing laboratory for the Sochi Games had a staff of nearly 100 people, including members of Dr. Rodchenkov's laboratory in Moscow, as well as dozens of international anti-doping experts who flew in from cities such as Beijing; Doha, Qatar; and Lausanne, Switzerland.

Security measures were strict. There were numerous surveillance cameras, and anyone who wanted to enter the laboratory had to have a pass. An independent observer monitored the laboratory at random times of day, WADA said, but rarely worked at night during the approximately two weeks of competition.

Dr. Rodchenkov said that every evening a sports ministry official sent him a list of athletes whose samples needed to be replaced. To match the athletes with their anonymous samples - which are coded using a seven-digit number - Dr. Rodchenkov said the athletes took photographs of their sample forms, including the code, and sent them via SMS to the ministry, conveying forbidden information about whose it was urine.

After receiving the signal that “the urine is ready,” he would swap his lab coat for a Russian team sweatshirt and leave his fourth-floor office, usually after midnight. He made sure his robe was clean and walked to room 124, which was officially the storage room that he and his team had turned into a secret laboratory.

There, he said, where the only window was covered with film, a substitution took place.

A colleague in the sample collection room next door would find the required bottles and pass them to the storage room through a circular hole in the wall near the floor, Dr. Rodchenkov said. During the day, he said, the hole was hidden by a small wood-like cabinet.

The unopened B bottles were handed over to a man whom Dr. Rodchenkov believed to be a Russian intelligence officer, who took them to a nearby building. After a few hours, Dr. Rodchenkov said, the bottles were returned to the storeroom with the caps on.

The man also supplied "clean" urine collected from each of the athletes in the months leading up to the Olympics before they began doping, Dr. Rodchenkov said. It came in soda bottles, baby food bottles and other miscellaneous containers, he said.

Taking care to ensure that the overhead lights did not turn on, Dr. Rodchenkov and his colleague poured the contaminated urine into a nearby toilet, washed the bottles, dried them with filter paper, and filled them with “clean” urine.

He then added table salt or water to balance out any discrepancies in the recorded characteristics of the samples. Depending on what the athlete consumed, the two urine samples taken at different times could be different.

Usually this small team worked until dawn, sometimes taking a break for instant coffee and cigarettes.

Victory

At the Sochi Olympics, Russian athletes won 33 medals - including 13 gold, 10 more than at the previous Olympics.

A third of all medals were awarded to athletes whose names appeared on a table that outlined the government's doping plan, which Dr. Rodchenkov said was provided by the sports ministry ahead of the Games.

Among them were Alexander Zubkov, an experienced bobsledder who won two medals; Alexander Legkov, ski racer who won gold and silver; and Alexander Tretyakov, who received gold in the skeleton competition.

Yet not all athletes on the list received medals. The entire women's hockey team doped throughout the Games, Dr. Rodchenkov said. She took sixth place.

Attempts to contact these athletes and others through their sports federations in Russia were unsuccessful. Several federations responded and denied any wrongdoing by their athletes. A spokesman for the Russian bobsleigh federation said that all of their athletes "have undergone doping control procedures in accordance with the rules."

“They were all ‘clean’ and not a single positive test was found.”

The International Olympic Committee on Thursday called Dr. Rodchenkov's account "very detailed and very disturbing." “We are asking the World Anti-Doping Agency to open an investigation immediately,” the spokesman said.

WADA officials were at board meetings Thursday and were not available for interviews. The agency previously said it was looking into these allegations of Russian doping at the Sochi laboratory, and did not add anything to that in an emailed response.

Southern California

After the Olympic Games, there was much praise for Dr. Rodchenkov. He received thanks not only from Mr Putin, but also from the International Olympic Committee and the World Anti-Doping Agency.

A subsequent WADA report called Sochi "an important milestone in the development of the Olympic Games anti-doping program."

The following year, however, WADA published a very different report, which said that the investigation had discovered systematic doping among Russian athletes. This investigation, prompted by allegations from two whistleblowers in Russian athletics - first revealed by the German state broadcaster ARD - clearly placed Dr. Rodchenkov at the center of a nationwide conspiracy.

He was forced to resign a few days later, he said, and, fearing for his safety, fled to Los Angeles. His trip was organized by Mr Vogel, whom he first met immediately after the Sochi Games in 2014. Mr. Vogel was working on a documentary that seeks to expose the shortcomings of doping control in international sport - creating his own table of results for competitions with and without the use of banned substances - and Dr. Rodchenkov became his consultant.

During his six months in Los Angeles, Dr. Rodchenkov took a more active role in the documentary, Icarus, due out in September. He spent the rest of his time working in the garden, cooking borscht and writing in his diary.

Reflecting on his career, he said he had no intention of making excuses for his role in the Russian doping program, considering it a condition of his employment. To obtain funds and support for his laboratory, he had to follow the orders of the Kremlin.

He was, however, at times at odds with Russian authorities regarding his work. He was investigated in 2011 for trafficking banned doping drugs and said he expected to be jailed. His sister was convicted and sent to prison on the same charges.

But the investigation into Dr. Rodchenkov evaporated.

He said he is not sure why this happened, but suspects he escaped punishment so he could play an important role at the Sochi Games.

“This is my redemption: success in Sochi,” he said. “Instead of being in jail, win at all costs.”

Rebecca R. Ruiz and Michael Schwirtz

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