Cries of an anti-Russian plot, biased judging, unjustified doping tests and eternal money woes won’t save Russian sports officials from having to take the rap for Russia’s failures at the Winter Olympics. Indeed, analysts say that rather than lack of money, Russian sports’ biggest problem is the corrupt and incompetent officials who run them.

Vyacheslav Nikonov, president of the Politika Foundation think tank, said that the Olympics has thrown a harsh light on the lamentable state of Russia’s sports bureaucracy, and that this weakness has an objectively far greater negative effect on sports in the country than economic difficulties and poor financing.

"The Russian team at the Olympics was obviously lacking three things – PR, lawyers and doctors," Nikonov said. "It was the sports officials’ job to make sure these things were there."

This time, it wasn’t just the ordinary fans who got mad – the country’s leaders also took the matter to heart. The authorities held an urgent meeting in the Kremlin four days before the Olympics ended Sunday to discuss the Russian team’s problems in Salt Lake City. The day after the Games closed, the deputy head of the government apparatus, Alexei Volin, had some harsh words for the sports officials involved in the Olympics, and made it clear no amount of excuse-making would save them from a dressing-down at best and losing their jobs at worst.

"The sports officials have successfully demonstrated their ability to look after their own comfort and jobs over the last three weeks, and all at the expense of the athletes and the fans," Volin said in a telephone interview. "We’re going to have take a serious look at this."

Stories have been circulating about the quantities of vodka drunk and caviar eaten at Russia House, the manor where the Russian delegation held receptions while in Salt Lake City. Mostly it was the numerous VIPs – from Deputy Prime Minister Valentina Matviyenko to various members of the artistic elite – who got to savor the comforts of the house. A former top Soviet-era sports official who now works on the Duma sports committee and was a member of the Russian delegation in Utah, agreed to share his impressions on condition of anonymity.

"They [the team managers] are trying to accuse the Americans! But everything was so well organized there was nothing to complain about," the former official said. "As for the fact that they spent their time just looking after their VIPs rather than working with the team and the sports federations, which is their primary obligation, that is just entirely too much," the official exclaimed.

The official also explained what was really behind the departure of the Russian Nordic combined team, which was sent back to Moscow without being allowed to complete its program, ostensibly because the team showed "insufficient sporting spirit" and broke some rules.

"In reality, there weren’t enough accreditations for the VIPs," the source said. "So they decided to resolve the problem by sending the guys home on a chartered flight and giving their accreditations to the ‘necessary people.’"

From the point of view of looking after themselves, the Russian Olympics officials behaved logically: Matviyenko, who oversees sports for the government, is their boss, after all. But the head of the Russian Olympic Committee, Leonid Tyagachyov; chairman of the State Sports Committee Pavel Rozhkov; and Russian delegation leader Vladimir Mamatov lost sight of the fact that top officials also want to see their team succeed, just as ordinary fans do. Now, Volin says that even Matviyenko’s protection won’t save the sports officials from having to answer for the situation.

"There’s going to be a serious talk at the highest level with the sports officials," Volin said. "Tyagachyov isn’t formally answerable to the government – he’s an elected official – but if necessary, it wouldn’t be too difficult to call the National Olympic Committee and raise the issue of putting his post to a vote again."

Adding spice to the situation is the fact that Russia’s Olympic woes coincided with the launch of President Vladimir Putin’s campaign for a healthier, sports-oriented lifestyle for the citizenry. Russian Olympic success would have been just the thing to give sports an image boost around the country. But instead, Russians’ patriotic feelings have been dealt a blow.

"It’s been a long time since I felt such national humiliation as when I watched our sports officials’ press conference at the Olympics," Politika’s Nikonov said. "When they can’t even string a clear sentence together at a press conference, what kind of competently set-out official protests can we talk about? And what kind of doctor is it who can’t even make sure the tests are clear?"

During the two weeks that sports fans the world over followed the events in Salt Lake City, Russians went from anticipating coming victories to tasting the shame of doping scandals. This road from the sublime to the humiliating was in large part paved by the Russian sports officials, who in the run-up to the Winter Olympics promised the country between eight and nine gold medals and one of the top places in the team medals count. Now, these same officials are showing great imagination in coming up with ever-new pretexts for why their promises didn’t come true. This was why Russian public opinion seized on the idea of an anti-Russian plot at the Olympics with such enthusiasm.

The idea that Russia is strong, and that others fought with it using unsporting methods enabled Russians to hold on to the image of themselves as a sporting power amid Olympic defeats. Specialists say that although the official Russian delegation didn’t initially support the idea of a "plot" against Russia, the theory got started when Russian sports officials started looking for a way to explain why they had failed to deliver.

"They’ll say a lot more yet, they have to try and justify themselves," Nikonov said. "The State Sports Committee received all the money allocated for the Olympics, but I’m sure the officials spent most of it on purposes it was not designated for."

If there were a medal for skill at self-justification, the sports officials would win it. Vladimir Veselov, head of the State Sports Committee’s information department, had a highly original way of interpreting the Russian team’s Olympics results.

"It’s a relative failure," Veselov said. "We’ve done a count, and of the 150 athletes in the Olympic team, 40 won medals. Is that a bad result?"

But Veselov didn’t point out, for example, that this medal count includes the bronze medals won by the entire Russian hockey team. The State Sports Committee seems to have warmed to the idea that the best defense is to attack. Now, they have chosen a tactic that not only shifts the blame to others but will also help them to get more money.

"Russian sport is in poverty at the moment," Veselov said. "If this goes on, we won’t even get this result at the next Olympics."

But the former State Sports Committee official, who was speaking under the condition of anonymity, told a different story about state funding for sports. In the mid-’90s, he worked on funding issues and was fired shortly after sending then-Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin a report on grave violations of financial discipline in the State Sports Committee. The former official said the problem isn’t lack of money, but the dishonesty of officials.

"I can’t remain silent after [Moscow Mayor Yury] Luzhkov said just recently that the state hasn’t financed sports for the last 15 years," the source said. "I was deputy chairman of the committee for several years and I know what the situation is today. There is more money allocated every year, and there’s definitely more than in the Soviet years. As for where the money goes, you’d have to ask the officials."

The former official gave the example of a company called Olymp-Tour that State Sports Committee head Rozhkov ran in the past and is now run by his wife. For reasons that were not clear, the firm has the exclusive right to sell airplane tickets to Russian sports delegations.

"Even though Aeroflot has 30 percent discounts for groups, everyone has to buy their tickets through Olymp-Tour, which offers no such discounts," the source said. "Only tickets bought through them are accepted by the accountants."

Rozhkov and officials from Olymp-Tour were unavailable for comment.

Meanwhile, the State Sports Committee and the National Olympic Committee are busy drawing up proposals to raise more money, and have launched a PR campaign focusing on the need to collect more funds for sports.

"We’ve already asked the Finance Ministry several times to give us a sports lottery," Veselov said. "We also have proposals on taking a certain percentage from alcohol and tobacco sales and spending it on sports."

But the former sports official, hearing proposals like these, immediately launched into wrathful recollections of the situation in the early 1990s when, on the pretext of getting extra funding for sports, various funds were set up and privileges obtained, but all as a cover, he said, for embezzlement and money laundering.

"What privileges! You can’t give them any privileges, they’ll just fill their own pockets," the former official said. "There must be only a budget and strict control on how it’s spent. And any money from sponsors should be targeted assistance. As for these officials, they should be dismissed and a serious investigation should be made of their activities."