Drug cheats are the only winners if everyone plays numbers game

Ever since Ben Johnson’s fall, every Olympics has seen officials try to convince us that, this time, no cheat will get away with it. And, for the Russians, a clean Sochi is crucial if only to lay the ghosts of their doping past.

The 1980 Olympics, the last time the Games were in Russia, is widely seen as a dopers’ paradise. Even two decades later, the Russians were in such a state of denial they threatened to walk out of the 2002 Salt Lake Games after cross country skiers Larisa Lazutina and Olga Danilova failed drugs tests.