Twenty-six months ago, after years of grueling workouts, Katie Uhlaender thrust herself onto a tiny sled and plunged, head-first, down Sochi's 1.1 mile-long ice luge, topping out at nearly 80 mph.
The then-29-year-old skeleton racer hurtled down the ice slick, surging around its turns and bobs, gliding to a halt just .04 seconds slower than the eventual bronze medalist, Russia's Elena Nikitina. It was Russia's first-ever medal in women's skeleton. Fourth-place Uhlaender left Sochi broken-hearted and empty-handed.
Less than two weeks ago, a Russian insider tipped off The New York Times to a state-wide doping scandal — one that implicated dozens of the country's Olympic medalists who competed in Sochi — in which more than 100 urine samples were alleged to have been tampered with or replaced entirely.