Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 835, the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act, a bill that was introduced with Ms. Jackson Lee to combat international doping schemes. The bill is named after Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, the former head of Russia's anti-doping agency lab that blew the whistle on the massive, state-run doping scheme that led the International Olympic Committee to suspend Russia from the 2018 Winter Olympics. From 2011 to 2015, over 1,000 Russian athletes in 30 sports benefited from an illegal program executed by numerous Russian state agencies at the direction of Russian President Putin. Another whistleblower, Yuliya Stepanova, revealed information that led to the formation of an independent commission at the World Anti- Doping Agency that investigated finding a deeply-rooted culture of cheating that existed in Russia. We heard from Ms. Stepanova and the lawyer for Dr. Rodchenkov during the Helsinki Commission hearing in July of 2018. Also present was Katie Uhlaender, who had been defrauded and cheated out of an Olympic medal as a result of the Russian doping scheme. No athlete should be subjected to doping, either through a state-run program or as a clean competitor. In 2015, the Russian Anti-Doping Agency entered into a Roadmap to Code Compliance agreement with the World Anti-Doping Agency involving 31 criteria for the Russian agency to be reinstated.…”