‘It Doesn’t Work’: Critics of Russia’s Doping Ban Blame the System

Clare Egan heard the news last week while resting between training sessions in her hotel room in Hochfilzen, Austria, where she was preparing to compete in a biathlon World Cup event.

Egan, 33, a United States Olympian in the sport in 2018, read that the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland had banned Russia from international competition as a consequence of its state-sponsored doping scheme. She thought the ban was a good thing.

But then she read the fine print. The ban was half the length of the four-year suspension initially proposed by the World Anti-Doping Agency and, she realized, not much of a ban at all. The vast majority of Russian athletes will still have an unobstructed…