Defunct Sochi drug-testing lab is now a restaurant with doping-themed drinks
The infamous, and now defunct, drug-testing lab that was instrumental in Russia’s state-sponsored doping scheme is now a restaurant and bar with a couple aptly-themed drinks.
But you might not believe the theme, as fitting as it is: banned substances and related drug-testing vocabulary.
The establishment, La Punto, is a recommended destination on the World Cup website. One absinthe-based cocktail is named for the common performance-enhancing drug Meldonium, which is most famous for landing tennis player Maria Sharapova a suspension.
Another tequila-based drink is called the B Sample, named after the second urine sample required for Olympic drug testing (and yes, it’s yellow).
Even some officials are in on the joke:
“It effectively acknowledges some of the things that went on, but at the same time it trivializes it,” Sochi lab investigator Richard McLaren told the New York Times. “I get the humor in it.”
However, World Anti-Doping Agency President Richard Pound found it less amusing, noting the irony but stating that the doping scandal’s shadow over the World Cup is “probably not as big or as dark a one as would be appropriate.”
At least the building is being put to use?
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