The Sochi Winter Olympics took place in Russia almost four years ago but the reverberations of those Games still impact today when it comes to doping.
Following a massive doping scandal that spread nationwide and sponsored by the Russian government, many Russian athletes who have been proven to be doping, have been having medals stripped and/or be banned from future events. It has been a slow process but more and more people have been getting penalized.
In total, the New York Times reports that 10 Russian athletes who were in the 2014 Winter Olympics have been disqualified from competition and what medals they had won, stripped.
When the Olympics ended, Russia had won a total of 33 medals and 13 gold medals. Before today, that result has lowered to 29 and 12 but were still top of the world in both golds and total medals. Now, with the disqualification of skeleton riders Elena Nikitina and Alexander Tretyakov, that medal count has lowered to 27 total medals and 11 golds.
This means that after almost four years, the United States has now gained the lead in total medals won at the 2014 Winter Olympics. As long as nobody from the US gets their medals stripped, they are at 28 total medals and lead by one. In gold medals won, Russia slips into a tie with Norway with 11 gold medals. The United States has nine and is behind those two nations as well as Canada.
It may not be how the USOC wanted to be at the top of the medal count but I have to imagine their reaction to the news went something like this.
“Due to doping penalties, USA now passes Russia for most Sochi Olympic medals”
Poetic Justice.
No doubt one of the reasons the Russian Fascist Dictator Vladimir Putin initiated this Russian State sponsored doping criminal conspiracy to win the most medals at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi Russia was to beat the one nation he considers Russia’s principal opponent in Olympic sport. The United States and now that his despicable plot to dope Russian athletes to give them an unfair advantage has been uncovered the United States now overtakes Russia in the medal count from the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.