From Inside the Games
Outgoing World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) vice-president Linda Helleland has claimed she was spied on by Norwegian companies acting “on behalf of Russian interests” during the fallout from the state-sponsored doping scandal.
In her new book, Clean Sport, Dirty Games, Helleland said the companies had been monitoring her and her family following the decision to suspend Russia.
The former government minister, an outspoken critic of WADA and what she feels was a weak response to the Russian scandal, recalls a meeting with the Norwegian secret service (PST) in June 2018.
“Two people from PST, a man and a woman with grave looks on their faces, came to the Grand Hotel,” she writes.
“We sat on a rococo sofa in a lounge on the second floor; me with my hands on my lap, leaning forward while looking at them questioningly.
“The PST people got straight to the point.
“I was told that several Norwegian companies were monitoring me and family on behalf of Russian interests.
“I knew that foreign interests requested information about government ministers – and as WADA vice-president I was extra vulnerable – but that Norwegian companies were involved in this kind of espionage, was quite frightening.
“My thoughts span in my head like a flock of startled birds, I wondered who on earth it could be, and who I had spoken to recently.
“Meetings, emails and messages raced through my head.
“I knew many companies that worked closely with politicians.
“I pondered over what I had said to to whom, and what the Russians wanted to know.”
