A strange story occurred at the championship and the championship of the Siberian Federal District in athletics in the room, which was held January 13-14 in Irkutsk. When everything was ready for the start, 36 athletes suddenly changed their mind about participating in the competition. Someone brought a certificate of illness, someone refused to start, someone just did not show up for the event. And, marks "Championship. py ", this situation was doubly unpleasant, as the competition was decided to visit doping officers from RUSADA. As usual, they did not warn about their visit, but quickly realized that they would not be able to collect jars with urine from all those declared on the original list. What caused the mass exodus of athletes from Irkutsk competitions, journalists could not find out. They were told dry: there was a "medical certificate" or "absence". However, races with half of empty tracks caused, at least, bewilderment. It is clear that winter is the time of virus epidemics.

You can still mass poison in the dining room. And just stress before a responsible start can knock down many. But not three dozen trained people overnight. The media note that a similar situation was observed at last year's Moscow Marathon - some of the participants withdrew when there was a threat to get into the sight of doping officers. Then the Federation of Athletics of the Russian Federation stated that it would conduct an investigation. Maybe I did. But the results were not made public.