Richard Booth QC and Gideon Barth have written an article exploring the legal implications on the blanket doping bans on Russian athletes competing in Rio 2016. The article is for Volume 7, No 4 of Sports and Taxation.

It begins:

‘The Olympic Games, the greatest display of sporting ability in the world, is plagued by drug cheats and doping scandals. But our understanding of the scale and nature of modern-day doping dramatically changed in the build-up to the Rio Olympics and Paralympics.”

No longer were individuals cheating to gain an advantage over another competitor, but a whole nation of athletes was implicated by a government-led conspiracy.