'Doping gift box' sent out by Russian state-funded TV

RT got creative with its New Year's gifts

The Kremlin-funded international broadcaster RT, known as Russia Today, has produced New Year gift boxes branded "Russian doping".

The RT-branded box contains food packaged in laboratory bottles, such as Medonium honey - "med" being honey in Russian and Meldonium a performance-enhancing drugs taken by athletes.

There is also raspberry jam tagged "anabolic" in reference to steroids also banned in sports.

"Not everyone realised this was a humorous present from RT," the broadcaster said. It has consistently denied and ridiculed allegations of a state-sponsored doping programme in Russia.

One of the gift boxes was sent to Yulia Efimova, who won two swimming silver medals at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

A photo posted on Russia's leading social networking website VKontakte shows a smiling Efimova with test tubes and vials apparently containing food, such as jam, honey and condiments.

Russian athlete Yulia Efimova seemed pleased with the gift

On its website, RT gave further details of its gift pack which it suggested had also been sent to other people.

The website carried a video from the Twitter account of blogger Evgeny Kozlov showing one of the kits being unpacked.

People from RT are "unbelievably creative", he said.

Blogger Evgeny Kozlov posted a video of the gift box's contents

The kits also include cards said to be based on drawings by children from an orphanage.

"A New Year's card that you will never throw away," said Yulia Ostroukhova, apparently another recipient of the gift box.

"Very nice. Many thanks for the delicious Medonium, too," she said on Facebook.

It is not clear how many kits were produced or how many recipients there were.

The gift box contains honey and jam in laboratory bottles, as well as a greeting card

In July, an investigation commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) said Russia's sports ministry "directed, controlled and oversaw" manipulation of urine samples provided by its athletes.

A number of Russian athletes were banned from competing at the Rio Olympics, but no blanket ban was imposed.

Another report later in the year alleged more than 1,000 Russians benefited from a doping cover-up between 2011 and 2015.

Russian officials have strongly denied there has been a state-sponsored doping programme.

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