Seven Russians suspended in sting, might still get to compete in Beijing

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- With only one week to go before the Beijing Olympics, Russia suddenly has its own version of a BALCO doping scandal involving some of the track team's biggest stars.

Yelena Soboleva (left) and Yulia Fomenko are among the provisionally suspended. (Getty Images)

After a 1½-year sting investigation, the IAAF provisionally suspended seven female Russian athletes Thursday, accusing them of tampering with their urine samples. The list includes Yelena Soboleva, a world record holder and world champion middle-distance runner who was favored to win both the 800 and 1,500 meters at the Olympics.

The seven athletes, many of them potential Olympic medalists, come from a variety of disciplines, from middle-distance running to the hammer and discuss throw, suggesting the scandal has a broad base and goes well beyond a few competitors.

The IAAF said the suspensions were "for a fraudulent substitution of urine which is both a prohibited method and also a form of tampering with the doping control process."

The athletes could possibly still compete at the Beijing Games if they were to get an emergency ruling lifting the provisional suspension.

The IAAF made the announcement of potentially the biggest doping scandal since BALCO in 2003, hoping some of the dust will have settled by the time the athletics competition begins in Beijing on Aug. 15.

Still, the timing is bad.

The sport is trying to recover from a spate of doping scandals and is hoping to use the Beijing Games to reclaim some of its luster and again become the pre-eminent Olympic sport.

This, though, is still better than to have a scandal break at the Olympics itself. Twenty years ago, Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson was caught at the 1988 Seoul Games and it came to largely overshadow those Olympics.

Earlier this month, coach Trevor Graham received a lifetime ban from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency for his role in helping his athletes obtain performance-enhancing drugs as part of the BALCO scandal. Related to the case, former Olympic champion Marion Jones has admitted to doping and is currently in prison.

Because of that scandal, athletics took a big plunge in credibility and popularity.

Suspicions about the Russians first surfaced in early 2007 when a string of truly exceptional results were matched by a long string of flawless negative testing results.

"It was almost too good to be true," a source close to the investigation told the Associated Press. "It was odd." The source spoke on condition of anonymity because the legal case involving the athletes is far from complete.