By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed – with no evidence – that the FBI is drugging the former head of Russia’s anti-doping lab so he’ll blow the whistle on a massive state-run doping program.
Putin said the former head of the lab, Grigory Rodchenkov, who is now in a witness-protection program in the U.S., is under the influence of some kind of drug to get him to cooperate with the investigation, Bloomberg reports.
The whistleblower led to Russia being barred from the 2018 Winter Olympics.
“He’s working under the control of the American special services, what kind of substances are they giving him so he says what they need?” Putin said at his annual press conference on Thursday in Moscow.
Despite Putin’s claims, Rodchenkov has the backing of the International Olympic Committee, which said the whistleblowers’s accusations that Russia was doping its athletes are credible.
According to the World Anti-Doping Agency, Russia conspired to provide banned substances to about 1,000 athletes from 2011-15.
