In an interview after he stepped down as director of RUSADA in December of 2015, Ramil Khabriev revealed that 40% of doping violations in Russia came from youth sports. While much of the WADA report and subsequent media coverage has focused on Track and Field, Russian youth swimming has not been free from doping controversy in recent years.
In 2013, top Russian junior swimmer Daria Ustinova (then just 14 years old) was caught with DHEA, a banned steroid. Despite this, Ustinova was only given a warning by RUSADA. She would go on to win five medals at the World Junior Championships later that year.
Russia has dominated the medal table at the European Junior championships for the past decade. This past summer at the European Games, Russia won as many gold medals (23) as second place Great Britain won medals of any kind.
Russian swimming has been unable to translate that dominance to the senior level, however. At the most recent European Championship in Berlin they finished second to Great Britain in the medal count. They also won fewer medals over than Italy or Germany.
