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- Feb 13, 2014
Cultural Differences: Rafael Arutyunyan on the Russian Doping Scandal
Read all: http://www.theskatinglesson.com/tsl...fael-arutyunyan-on-the-russian-doping-scandalDL: If the Russian athletes are taking performance-enhancing drugs, do they recognize that they are doing something wrong or are they merely following along with what they are told to do?
RA: No, I don’t think so. That’s what I’m talking [about]. It’s so difficult to explain to you. So whenever an athlete is five, six years old, all the time he goes to some club and [his] father and mother bring him there even though he has no chance to watch practices. Can you imagine that? See, it’s very different. So mothers are not allowed to come on ice and watch what kids are practicing, because the coach does not allow this. So every single session, every single practice is paid for by [the] government, most of the time, they get on ice and coach can say, “You’re not allowed to come and watch. It’s my training and I don’t want you to watch.” I could close the door if some coach could come to my practice ice and say, “You’re not allowed to watch my practice.”
That way, to explain to you what that athlete feels whenever a coach subjects him to get some pills, do you think he will have some doubt about coach wishing him the best? Because, he grew up with him. I was with my student, Alex Abt, for fourteen years. Fourteen! I was his only coach. You can’t imagine that, right? Fourteen years, I was teaching him. So basically, what happened is that these athletes are dependent because there is coach who [theoretically] has [the] kind of [strong] ethics so could say, “I never want to use anything because I want my athletes to win clean. That is one story; but, if there is [a] coach who has a dirty mind, he would say to the athlete to use it and that athlete would follow his advice. You cannot blame these athletes because they are a part of [a] culture, part of [a] system, or I don’t know what you can name that, but it’s a part of [the] culture.
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