Doped and disclosed

Abstract

In this article, we scrutinize a policy area in which the Russian government has had to react to negative publicity in the last few years, namely, the doping scandal surrounding the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. This scandal uncovered important aspects of Russia’s vulnerability in the global sports milieu, yet so far, it has remained almost unnoticed in the literature on mega sports events in Russia. Our analysis is premised on the convergence of two types and techniques of control and regulation: anatomopolitics, which presupposes, in Michel Foucault’s interpretation of the term, measures of control over individual bodies, and biopolitics, which refers to policy practices that target and concern the entire population. Their conflation in the Russian context results in a controversial effect: it strengthens relations of hegemony yet also exposes the sovereign power to the regulations of global sports organizations.

Doping Sanctions in Sport: Knowledge and Perception of (Legal) Consequences of Doping—An Explorative Study in Austria

“…It should also be considered from a meso and macro level perspective as it also poses a risk for the respective sport (federation) and (major) event organizers as doping cases in a certain sport and/or during a specific event can also negatively affect the public image and perceived trustworthiness of that sport (Engelberg et al 2012) and/or event. In this context, risk management plays a major role for stakeholders in terms of identification, evaluation and prioritization of the risks to avoid cases like that, for example, during the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, when a doping scandal resulted in Russia's credibility for hosting future sport events being questioned on an international level (Makarychev and Medvedev 2019).…”