Was London 2012 Olympics the dirtiest games ever?

Hannah England missed out on a place in the final and told Standard Sport: “I now see London as the dirtiest Olympic Games. With the backdated testing, I thought the cheats would be too scared to turn up, and it would be the cleanest Games. I was so damn naive and, looking back, it just feels like a farce.

“The 1500m was the dirtiest race and it speaks volumes that they’ve never bothered reordering the medals properly, because where do you start?

“So, now, every time I read about a failed test from London — and it happens a lot — I’m numb to it. As a clean athlete you’re desensitised. I just feel massively let down by the authorities.”

Of the black marks from London 2012, at least a third belong to Russia, which viewed London as the warm-up for the state-sponsored doping programme it used at the Winter Games in Sochi two years later.

This was eventually exposed by investigator Richard McLaren, who said London was “corrupted on an unprecedented scale” via the doping programme set up by Moscow laboratory chief turned whistleblower Dr Grigory Rodchenkov. He is hiding in the United States, in fear for his life. Standard Sport has made many attempts to contact him.

Two and a half years after he delivered his original report, McLaren said: “The reason I said ‘corrupted on an unprecedented scale’ was I knew that Rodchenkov had developed a test which was not one that the London lab could use at the time — and so did Rodchenkov.

“Russia sent athletes knowing there was the possibility that they might test positive from retrospective testing, but not at the time.”

In 2012, John Fahey was president of WADA and well aware that Russia were not serious about fighting doping after meeting the Minister of Sport, Vitaly Mutko, who boasted of a £3m budget for anti-doping. “This is a country with a population of 140m people,” said Fahey, “while Britain were ramping up to the Games spending something like £20m.”

Fahey’s first meeting with Rodchenkov in the now infamous Moscow laboratory sounded alarm bells. On the wall was a photo of Rodchenkov competing, with three taller men in the background chasing him down. “Rodchenkov tapped on it, and proudly laughing said ‘doper’ to everyone in the photo, himself included,” said Fahey. “This was the guy running the laboratory supposedly to stop drug cheating in Russia!”

Remarkably, Rodchenkov was given a full tour of London’s state-of-the-art Games anti-doping laboratory. The Russian later said: “I had information of what this laboratory was doing to understand where we are. Without this, all Russian doping will be collapsed.”

He was one of 115 scientists to work at the laboratory in King’s College during the Games. And David Cowan, the London lab’s chief until he stepped down last year, said somewhat understatedly of the Russian scientists in London, “I’m disappointed with them”.

But he rails against the idea that London was the dirtiest Games in history, pointing to the first-ever partnership with a pharmaceutical company, GlaxoSmithKline, at a Games, the benefits of which are being felt today.

“I never went along with the line of the cleanest Games,” said Cowan, “and I think the dirty Games tag is not helpful either. It’s sad what we see now. You want to win the gold now and not in eight or 10 years’ time. It’s about sport, not drugs. It’s not good when drugs take centre stage.

“Someone who cheats keeps cheating and we catch them in the end. The message is the same, ‘don’t take drugs, we might catch you now or we’ll catch you in the future’.”

The retesting of London 2012 samples began before the Rio Olympics in 2016 and, since July 2018, has been controlled by the International Testing Agency.

The ITA said it hoped the next year of testing would “serve as a valuable deterrent for potential cheaters for future Olympic Games”.

Sir Hugh Robertson, chairman of the British Olympic Association, was Sports Minister for London 2012. He admits the number of failed tests has far exceeded his expectations because, as he puts it, “we had no idea of the state-sponsored doping going on [in Russia].”

He said: “I would reject the notion that London was the dirtiest Games ever as we just don’t know. I’m confident we did everything we could at the time to get this right. Instead, I’d say London appears to be the Games with the most retrospective tests, and that’s a matter of grim satisfaction.”

For Fahey, now in retirement in his native Australia, each cheat caught counts as a plus. “I get sad that cheats did — and still do — get away with it, so any cheat that gets caught is a badge of honour,” he said.

That is scant consolation for England. London 2012 was her sole Olympics — injury denied her a shot at Rio and, at 32, she may not be in Tokyo in 2020.

“Afterwards I was bitter,” she admitted, “but I’d think, I’ll get another chance. That hasn’t happened but at least I got to an Olympics. There are hundreds that didn’t because of the cheats.”