Russia Doping Report

[hurrah]

Of course, athletes would be upset. Anyone would be.

Andy Murray wants tennis to spend more on anti-doping measures
http://www.skysports.com/tennis/new...-tennis-to-spend-more-on-anti-doping-measures

"On the day the Russia report came out, I had to do a urine and blood test at seven in the morning, which is great. You want to make sure that it is done properly and even if someone is a big name or their country is very wealthy, their name should come out and they get punished properly. I'm all for more drug testing, the more the better.
"This year, it feels like I've been tested more than I've ever been, which is good. It's probably more than 20 times and less than 30."

Andy Murray is not the only athlete who says they want rigorous testing. I also read another athlete who I think goes around saying 'I'm clean, please test me', or something like that. These athletes must be clean, so they want to be rigorously tested to establish their truth that they are clean.

As for athletes who aren't clean and are asked, then I suppose they would find the questioning annoying, but well, I think they deserve it.

Athletes who cheated and confessed found it, from what I have read, a relief to tell their truth, and took back their lives.

So yes, I think it's okay to ask.

Do you see how it might be harmful to this athlete to have this suggested about them when they can't prove their innocence even if they are so inclined?

In the case of Katerina Witt, I asked the question since it was indicated that she could have been. But quite frankly, given that everyone is saying that doping is rife in elite athletes, it can't be helped if they are asked. They are public figures.

At the end of the day, if the athlete is clean, their truth should come out, such as in the case of Paula Radcliffe, who was accused a great deal, but unlike Lance Armstrong, strong circumstantial evidence including her trainer's sworn testimony means she is now believed to be clean. That's amazing that she's the holder of the world record and she never doped!! A true athletic genius.

 

[solani]

I don't feel that it is 'deny(ing) the truth or look(ing) away' to object to posters feeling comfortable deciding that they are going to make 'educated guesses' as to whether athletes are doping. I mean, cockiness? Really? What next? An athlete looks smug when they have just skated well but there are still two athletes to go- ergo they are cocky- ergo they must be a drug cheat? Not exactly far from they have a wart so they must be a witch, is it?

We'd all rather be 100% sure that every athlete we cheer on is clean. Unfortunately, that ain't ever gonna happen. I've been disillusioned before and I'm sure I will be again. We have to rely on the officials (and law enforcement even) cleaning up their acts and catching as many as possible, but there will still probably be a few that fall through the net. The chemists are always one step ahead. One has to live with that and enjoy sport or decide to stop watching because trying to decided by 'educated guess' (what through seeing an athlete's face on the screen and the fact they just did a PB by 5 points? What on earth?!) whether someone dopes is ridiculous and impossible. And to imply that anyone who objects to using guesswork to decide who dopes is somehow not on the side of clean athletes is really infuriating, tbh.

I have the feeling that this addressed to me. I only want to add that my "educated guess" is indeed an educated guess. And it's not about how cocky an athlete is. You just have to look at the athletes environment, what was/is happening there and then you can make an educated guess. The chances that someone coming from an awful system can leave it untarnished are so very small. And I don't blame the athletes.
I agree to the 2nd paragraph of your post.

 

[hurrah]

At the end of the day, if you are a fan, I suppose all you can do is trust the figure skater that you are a fan of to establish his/her own truth.

 

[cruzceleste]

This just in:

Just got email from @iaaf confirming provisional suspension of Russian Track Fed

Reply

Edit:

IAAF suspends Russian Athletic Federation over doping scandal

The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) has temporarily suspended the Russian track and field federation's activities due to an ongoing doping scandal for an unspecified period.
The decision means that Russian track and field athletes will be temporarily banned from competing in international competitions.

The scandal erupted after the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) published a report saying that Russian athletes were involved in systematically state sponsored doping.

WADA recommended imposing a ban on all Russian team’s participating in all international competitions including the Rio-2016 Olympic Games. It also insisted on life-term bans for a number of Russian sportsmen and coaches.

However, the three-month suspension will only affect Russian athletes competing under the banner of the Russian Athletics Federation (VFLA) in IAAF sanctioned events. Russia’s athletes will be free to compete individually in meetings on the IAAF’s calendar.

Edit 2:

From the BBC

Russia provisionally suspended
Posted at 21:44
The consequences of the provisional suspension are:

• Athletes, and athlete support personnel from Russia may not compete in International Competitions including World Athletic Series competitions and the Olympic Games.
• Russia will not be entitled to host the 2016 World Race Walking Cup (Cheboksary) and 2016 World Junior Championships (Kazan).
• that ARAF delegates the conduct of all outstanding doping cases to Court of Arbitration for Sport

.

 

[Sam-Skwantch]

Who is going to suspend the IAAF?

 

[gmyers]

Former legends like Yelena isinbayeva are now banned for doping and can be expected to be stripped of their medals! Too bad.

 

[solani]

Former legends like Yelena isinbayeva are now banned for doping and can be expected to be stripped of their medals! Too bad.

Why is that? There's no evidence against her as far as I know. And I don't think that russian track & field athletes will be banned from Rio if there's no evidence against them. And she'll keep her medals. There's a lot of talking going on right now, but I don't take this seriously. I'm pretty sure that we'll see Yelena Isinbayeva in Rio.

 

[tulosai]

Why is that? There's no evidence against her as far as I know. And I don't think that russian track & field athletes will be banned from Rio if there's no evidence against them. And she'll keep her medals. There's a lot of talking going on right now, but I don't take this seriously. I'm pretty sure that we'll see Yelena Isinbayeva in Rio.

Yes, I do not understand at all what gymers is getting at. There is an extremely short (3 month) ban on Russian track and field athletes only, and this ban is actually easy to get around if an athlete really wants to. There is no talk at all of taking any medals from Yelena. There is no proof at all that she was doping, and she actually has staked her reputation on that fact that she isn't by writing an open letter professing herself to be clean, professing herself to know others who are clean, and basically saying that she feels it's unfair to the clean athletes in Russia that any ban is imposed at all. http://zeenews.india.com/sports/oth...t-to-ban-honest-russian-athletes_1821683.html

There is a lot of smoke about Rio 2016 but that's all it is-smoke. Russia will be at Rio, mark my words.

 

[alebi]

As a passionate lover of track and field from my early childhood (how do you say, you can never forget your first love) and as a person who has followed many doping scandals (everything from the '90s) and this particular doping case from the very beginning (which is almost 7 years ago, surely not the last week), I don't agree at all with the decision to ban every Russian athlete from competing in the next international competitions, OG in particular.

The main reason is that this doping scandal concerns not the majority of the Russian athletes but two specific fields, race-walking and middle distances (including 400 metres to be precise).

The absurd case of the race-walkers (in particular from the Saransk centre headed by Viktor Chegin) has been overlooked by the IAAF too many times, which is the real scandal, but at least it has been finally faced from the Russian Fed before the last World Champs (where they decided to not send any racewalker... a part from one... but found positive before the race! ). At least we had a sign that the Russian Fed was actually doing something to clean this rotten sector. And race-walking has always been the main source of Russian medals in athletics.

If we talk about track disciplines (omitting field disciplines which deserve a different discussion), is important to remind that Russia was a superpower in female 400 metres/400 hs, 800 metres, steeplechase, any middle distance and so on... A superpower who could finish 1st, 2nd and 3rd in any of the discipline mentioned above.
Well, during the last European Games (Zurich 2014) Russia won only a medal, a bronze in the 400hs (plus a bronze in the 4x100 relay but mostly due to stronger Netherlands and Switzerland losing their baton). The male athletes didn't do better, only winning a pair of medals too (see no Russian female athlete joining the 400 metres final was a kind of a shock for anyone who knows a little of T&F history).
If you know that during the previous European Championships (Barcelona 2010, I'm not taking into consideration 2012 EC) Russia won at least 9 medals only with female and only in the above disciplines, you obviously understand that there was something wrong before and that in the meanwhile a first cleaning has been made.

During the last few years Russia has already begun to do something against doping, their unusual few medals are there to guarantee this. So I don't think it's right to ban them now, for something belonging to the (near) past but already taken on. Many positions have also changed, and new people are there, trying to give a new image of their athletic federation.

Sorry, but I can't imagine an Olympic Game without Shubenkov, Kuchina or Chicherova or Isinbayeva... This is the death of IAAF, not of Russian athletics :disapp:

 

[alebi]

Who is going to suspend the IAAF?

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

I would also remind that currently there're other doping scandals, involving Kenya (and many of its great long distances/marathons runners), Nike (Oregon project and Britain legend Mo Farah), Italy (an affair very similar to a State doping scandal) and Turkey (I can't even remember how many of their last international winners have been found positive).

I'm pretty sure that the Italian case will end in "tarallucci e vino". While we are waiting (maybe) the end of the year to know which are these other (eight? six?) famous athletes (from Britain?) who have been covered during London.

 

[koatcue]

They don't just ban particular sportsmen, but ALL of them..What for? Feel sorry for them

 

[Naya]

I heard Russia still can defend itself and go to Rio (more likely), but maybe some athletes just won't be able to qualify in time due this suspension.

 

[plushyfan]

Former legends like Yelena isinbayeva are now banned for doping and can be expected to be stripped of their medals! Too bad.

https://twitter.com/yelenaisinbaeva/status/665431538432102405 Я в шоке от принятого решения советом ИААФ!!! I am shocked about decision taken by IAAF ... https://instagram.com/p/-DpF9YAAbe/

 

[peg]

https://twitter.com/yelenaisinbaeva/status/665431538432102405 Я в шоке от принятого решения советом ИААФ!!! I am shocked about decision taken by IAAF ... https://instagram.com/p/-DpF9YAAbe/

Isn't that a reaction to the general ban? I don't see anything about her losing her medals.

 

[plushyfan]

Isn't that a reaction to the general ban? I don't see anything about her losing her medals.

I really believe she didn't use drugs. And no one said about her losing her medals, only gmyers.

 

[Snow63]

I believe if there's even just one single clean sportsman in any team, it's not fair to disqualify the whole team, because this athlete worked his/her WHOLE LIFE to go to competitions. Let alone a situation where majority of the athletes haven't been proved guilty. This is crazy. Just crazy.

 

[alebi]

I heard Russia still can defend itself and go to Rio (more likely), but maybe some athletes just won't be able to qualify in time due this suspension.

Russia has 4 months to demonstrate that they're fighting doping (but as I wrote before they were already doing this, the suspension concerns facts belonging to the past). Then IAAF will vote again to cancel or confirm the ban. I'm pretty sure they will cancel the ban, or it would be a "dangerous" precedent given all the other doping cases currently existing.

Having said that, every athlete will have plenty of time to qualify for Rio, if they are not already qualified. In fact qualification period goes from 1 May 2015 to 11 July 2016 for T&F disciplines and from 1 January 2015 to 11 July 2016 for 10,000m, marathon, racewalking and combined events.

Another point is that IOC still hasn't express its opinion, till now Russia is suspended FOR SURE only from every IAAF competition. Given this, they will probably lose the organisations of the Junior Worlds (in Kazan) and the World Racewalking Cup (in Cheboksary) and more likely we won't see any Russian athletes during Indoor Worlds in Portland next March.

 

[exerym]

IAAF, athletics could face suspension from international competition after doping report, WADA commissioner tells ABC
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-...from-olympics-if-doping-scandal-leads/6942184

That would be crazy! I think it's unfair to ban all russian athletes, but to ban all discipline? That's must be something wrong in this world, seriously....

 

[hurrah]

IAAF, athletics could face suspension from international competition after doping report, WADA commissioner tells ABC
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-...from-olympics-if-doping-scandal-leads/6942184

That would be crazy! I think it's unfair to ban all russian athletes, but to ban all discipline? That's must be something wrong in this world, seriously....

:shocked: Crazy in a good way, as far as I'm concerned. Maybe there really will be a change in the culture of corruption and cheating in sports all over the world.

NO ONE wins when cheating is permissible.

 

[alebi]

IAAF, athletics could face suspension from international competition after doping report, WADA commissioner tells ABC
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-...from-olympics-if-doping-scandal-leads/6942184

That would be crazy! I think it's unfair to ban all russian athletes, but to ban all discipline? That's must be something wrong in this world, seriously....

It's true that the IAAF is one of the main protagonist in this case, given the corruption level they have found. But it's also true that each sport follows different rules when it comes to doping. For example, not every discipline has adopted the biological passport (and team sports are ages away from a serious doping protocol, especially football/soccer where the use of steroids is common and commonly known). And I also think that, for example, weightlifting has not the same appeal as athletics when it comes to investigate and create a loud scoop. And why, in the past, cycling wasn't banned from OG? This article sounds more like a speculation. And if the real problem isn't doping but corruption... well... every sport can give a good example then :disapp: