, led by
Yury Vlasov All Soviet athletes held some nominal jobs, but were in fact state-sponsored and trained full-time. According to many experts, that gave the Soviet Union a huge advantage over the
United States and other Western countries, whose athletes were students or real amateurs. Indeed, the Soviet Union monopolized the top place in the medal standings after 1968, and, until its collapse, placed second only once, in the
1984 Winter games, after another Eastern bloc nation, the
GDR. Amateur rules were relaxed only in the late 1980s and were almost completely abolished in the 1990s, after the
fall of the USSR.
Doping According to British journalist
Andrew Jennings, a
KGB colonel stated that the agency's officers had posed as anti-doping authorities from the
International Olympic Committee (IOC) to undermine
doping tests and that Soviet athletes were "rescued with [these] tremendous efforts". On the topic of the
1980 Summer Olympics, a 1989 Australian study said "There is hardly a medal winner at the Moscow Games, certainly not a gold medal winner, who is not on one sort of drug or another: usually several kinds. The Moscow Games might as well have been called the Chemists' Games." Documents obtained in 2016 revealed the Soviet Union's plans for a statewide doping system in track and field in preparation for the
1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Dated prior to the country's decision to boycott the Games, the document detailed the existing steroids operations of the program, along with suggestions for further enhancements.
Flag bearers controversy symbol of the
USSR Soviet officials expected the flag bearer to show an example of an attractive, physically strong person and a distinguished athlete. He was expected to carry the flag through the Olympic ceremony in one hand unsupported by a harness. This presented a formidable physical task as the flag weighed in the 1960s, and a sudden wind might further increase the physical load. Hence the Soviet flag bearers at the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics were selected from among heavyweight weightlifters or wrestlers, who did not have to compete the next day. ==See also==