Belief that doping is necessary to compete? Not a belief...but for the decades & decades of PED use in athletics doping was a necessity for some to be successful & win. This is the "win-at-all-costs mentality" for those who decide to cheat.
So many dopers over the decades setting WRs, winning Olympic & WC medals, setting NRs, etc. For some nations, doping is probably the normal preparation for their athletes. And with all this better testing, the ABP and tough talk from the IAAF, it's still more or less a game of cat and mouse with anti-doping - how much can I get away with and not get caught.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.3311624"On another front, there are more questions being raised about the veracity of results in a variety of international competitions. The Moscow doping lab which oversaw the world track and field championships in 2013, where Russia won the most gold medals at home, was also employed for the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games. There, Russian athletes won 33 medals, 13 of them gold. Four years previously in Vancouver, the Russians were disgraced by an 11th-place finish and won 15 medals, only three of them gold."
"The disparity in production also exists in track and field. At the 2013 Moscow world championships, Russian athletes topped the charts with seven gold medals (they had 17 podium finishes in all). Under a cloud of suspicion at the most recent worlds in Beijing this summer, they delivered only four medals, four fewer than Canada."
"All of which points to motive and a win-at-all-costs mentality which seemingly pervades the Russian sporting system — a system where pride dictates that athletes do whatever it takes to be victorious, even if it means engaging in systematic cheating under the direction of the people at the very top of the food chain."
