- Joined
- Jun 26, 2012
Thank you. Nothing especially new, but a nice interview for all that which I hadn't read before. Rather assuring too.
Laura Barquero & Marco Zandron
- Thread starter GoneWithTheWind
- Start date
- Joined
- Jun 26, 2012
@Dreamer57 has just provided us fans with an excellent piece of news in the Thread on Pairskating Worldwide: Marco has got his Citizenship.
Here's the proof (also via Dreamer57 from anything GOEs: https://twitter.com/AnythingGOE/status/1476165998659129349?s=20.
Really great news!
Here's the proof (also via Dreamer57 from anything GOEs: https://twitter.com/AnythingGOE/status/1476165998659129349?s=20.
Really great news!
- Joined
- Dec 7, 2018
At the GPF, Conti/Macii mentioned B/Z in their interview hoping they'd be back soon (they are training mates) so I assume they're still together.
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2021
I saw something on Twitter with Conti/Macii mentioning something about Laura/Marco. I clicked on it to see what was said, but couldn't find the quote.
Thank you for finding that though! That is a good sign. They have great potential.
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2016
Six years?
This is the same substance that Sinner tested positive for.
This is the same substance that Sinner tested positive for.
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2015
1) For those wondering : they are not coming back... He is skating with Brooke McIntosh (who represented Canada before)
2) I read the article... this is terrible news. Again, contaminated. They saw it as a second offense, hence the 6 years but by then, she knows she's done with the sport. I guess she could have appealed but these appeals cost a lot of money so sometimes, athletes just give up. I remember seeing similar news from a Canadian athlete, I think it was bobsleigh or something, she was at the end of her career, was certain it was contamination but didn't bother arguing the case because of $$ and just retired.
I feel sorry for Laura and Marco. They were promising. And yes, it's crazy how some athletes get away with stuff and others do not.
2) I read the article... this is terrible news. Again, contaminated. They saw it as a second offense, hence the 6 years but by then, she knows she's done with the sport. I guess she could have appealed but these appeals cost a lot of money so sometimes, athletes just give up. I remember seeing similar news from a Canadian athlete, I think it was bobsleigh or something, she was at the end of her career, was certain it was contamination but didn't bother arguing the case because of $$ and just retired.
I feel sorry for Laura and Marco. They were promising. And yes, it's crazy how some athletes get away with stuff and others do not.
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2016
I couldn't get Google to translate the site, and my Spanish is terrible. So I will be waiting for news in English, having got a few basics. But yeah, it's sad, she was nice to watch.
I gleaned enough to know, the case is rather different to Sinner's but even so. Same substance, inadvertent skin contact.
I'd say, that cream should never, ever be in the bag or the drawer of anyone who is a professional athlete, or who works for one.
I gleaned enough to know, the case is rather different to Sinner's but even so. Same substance, inadvertent skin contact.
I'd say, that cream should never, ever be in the bag or the drawer of anyone who is a professional athlete, or who works for one.
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2015
my google translated it... but it was iffy...
- Joined
- Aug 27, 2024
More of a generalistic comment than anything else, but still relevant to some degree to figure skating when it comes to money.
What is surprising to me is that Swiatek took only one month (essentially a non-sentence), Sinner three, and Halep originally 3 years (downgraded to 9 months) for a similar offense. Just a tad too inconsistent to my taste. That's why I really like the fact that the Men's Tennis Association (ATP) is trying to establish some sort of Minimum Wage for everybody down to top 200. The idea probably won't survive for long, but who knows (and I hope the WTA will establish something similar)
As directly relating to Barquero :
Without counting the fact that it's considered a second offense, is that she didn't have the pockets to counter-prosecute her case like the three quoted above had. Had she gotten these, not saying it's a guarantee but there's a fair chance she would have gotten something lower (comparison of a second offence, the US sprinter Justin Gatlin who got 4 years for testosterone). Also her lower profile as an athlete didn't help either.
I'm probably dreaming but there's hoping some common pool of money to be dedicated in order to deal with cases like this (and other things).
partial quote :
There's some sort of unwritten rule like " Athletes should always take care of what they entered contact with ", but the devil is often on the details of what can be controlled, and to which extent the athlete is then negligent or not
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2016
Heartbroken with the news.
Laura posted a video in Hielo Español YT channel, she speaks in Spanish with subtitles in English.
And El País just published an article, comparing her case with Sinner's, but it's behind a paywall so, I'm posting down here a (google) English translation.
Deportes
Difference in treatment in the doping cases of Laura Barquero and Jannik Sinner: same ointment, different sanction
The Madrid skater accepts a six-year suspension for a double positive days after the tennis number one negotiated three months a la carte
Carlos Arribas
17 FEB 2025 - 11:20 CET
The same indignation, the same feeling of manifest injustice and apparent difference in treatment, provoke in the fan the three months of a la carte sanction that minimally scratch the good reputation, earnings, glory and career of the Italian tennis player Jannik Sinner, than the six years that, as published by Hielo Español, the Madrid skater Laura Barquero, 23 years old, is serving.
Both tested positive for the same substance, the anabolic clostebol, contained, according to both, in a healing ointment sold in Italy and Brazil called Trofodermin. Both alleged artificial transdermal contamination. The clostebol entered Sinner's system through the hands of his masseuse who carelessly massaged him after applying the ointment to a cut on his hand; It ended up in the skater's blood because she kept a tube of Trofodermin in a drawer with other creams and it had traces on the outside and it dirty the other containers and although she never applied it, it did contaminate it. “A colleague gave me a tube of the ointment in case I needed it for a wound, without a box or leaflet, and I kept it in a drawer along with other creams. I never used it,” explains Barquero in Hielo Español.
Both have negotiated the sanction with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and their respective federations before reaching a scheduled hearing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
The coincidences end there.
Sinner is the number one tennis player in the world, recent winner of the Australian Open; Barquero learned her positive after finishing, happy and joyful, in 11th place with her partner Marco Zandron, in her Olympic debut at the Beijing Games three years ago. Sinner had the faith of the International Tennis Federation from the beginning, which only provisionally suspended him for four days when the laboratory published the positive result (and it was not a favored treatment, two number ones, Simona Halep and Iga Swiatek, also sanctioned for doping, were also treated lightly); Barquero was immediately tried by the ad hoc court of the CAS in Beijing, before which the International Skating Federation (ISU) accepted that she be sanctioned with only one year instead of the four established in the regulations because it was accepted that there had not been voluntary doping, but carelessness.
Supported by his fame, and by all the powers of Italy, a country in which he is considered a national hero, politicians, media, popular, and in an exclusive and very expensive law firm, Sinner carried out a very open, public, proactive communication policy. Rivers of ink raised its case. Barquero, neither a millionaire nor popular nor famous nor a national icon, remained discreet, and very quiet, advised by her lawyer, Gorka Villar, son of the former president of the Spanish soccer team Ángel María Villar, and already defender of Alberto Contador in 2011.
All reasons to conclude that not only does ordinary justice suffer from a lack of independence, but also sports justice suffers from arbitrariness.
Reasons that are complicated because 10 months after the Games, when he only has two months left on his suspension and has returned to training with Zandron for the 2023 World Cups, Barquero once again tests positive for clostebol, in an even more strange way, according to Barquero herself in Hielo Español, the only media to which she has given statements: “It was scientifically confirmed again with new hair studies that the most probable cause was transdermal contamination and not use of the substance. I can't give much more information about the second positive because I don't have it. “I had taken all the precautions, I changed my routine to avoid any risk of contamination.”
A second positive is recidivism and revision. Doubts about new negligence. The substance is in his urine and he cannot explain how it got there. In doping matters, the athlete always has the burden of proof: he is guilty and must prove his innocence. The World Anti-Doping Code provides for an eight-year sanction for repeat offenders, which in Barquero's case could have been extended to 12 if the first sanction was reviewed and raised to four years. Villar and Barquero negotiated knowing that the TAS could reach a devastating suspension and in October 2024 they reached an agreement for six years, until February 2028, when the skater, who has focused on her physiotherapy studies, will be 26 and have a deep-rooted skepticism towards human beings and justice. “The most painful thing was facing such an unfair system,” he reflects. “Anti-doping regulations, although created to ensure fair play, are rigid and insensitive.”
Laura posted a video in Hielo Español YT channel, she speaks in Spanish with subtitles in English.
And El País just published an article, comparing her case with Sinner's, but it's behind a paywall so, I'm posting down here a (google) English translation.
Deportes
Difference in treatment in the doping cases of Laura Barquero and Jannik Sinner: same ointment, different sanction
The Madrid skater accepts a six-year suspension for a double positive days after the tennis number one negotiated three months a la carte
Carlos Arribas
17 FEB 2025 - 11:20 CET
The same indignation, the same feeling of manifest injustice and apparent difference in treatment, provoke in the fan the three months of a la carte sanction that minimally scratch the good reputation, earnings, glory and career of the Italian tennis player Jannik Sinner, than the six years that, as published by Hielo Español, the Madrid skater Laura Barquero, 23 years old, is serving.
Both tested positive for the same substance, the anabolic clostebol, contained, according to both, in a healing ointment sold in Italy and Brazil called Trofodermin. Both alleged artificial transdermal contamination. The clostebol entered Sinner's system through the hands of his masseuse who carelessly massaged him after applying the ointment to a cut on his hand; It ended up in the skater's blood because she kept a tube of Trofodermin in a drawer with other creams and it had traces on the outside and it dirty the other containers and although she never applied it, it did contaminate it. “A colleague gave me a tube of the ointment in case I needed it for a wound, without a box or leaflet, and I kept it in a drawer along with other creams. I never used it,” explains Barquero in Hielo Español.
Both have negotiated the sanction with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and their respective federations before reaching a scheduled hearing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
The coincidences end there.
Sinner is the number one tennis player in the world, recent winner of the Australian Open; Barquero learned her positive after finishing, happy and joyful, in 11th place with her partner Marco Zandron, in her Olympic debut at the Beijing Games three years ago. Sinner had the faith of the International Tennis Federation from the beginning, which only provisionally suspended him for four days when the laboratory published the positive result (and it was not a favored treatment, two number ones, Simona Halep and Iga Swiatek, also sanctioned for doping, were also treated lightly); Barquero was immediately tried by the ad hoc court of the CAS in Beijing, before which the International Skating Federation (ISU) accepted that she be sanctioned with only one year instead of the four established in the regulations because it was accepted that there had not been voluntary doping, but carelessness.
Supported by his fame, and by all the powers of Italy, a country in which he is considered a national hero, politicians, media, popular, and in an exclusive and very expensive law firm, Sinner carried out a very open, public, proactive communication policy. Rivers of ink raised its case. Barquero, neither a millionaire nor popular nor famous nor a national icon, remained discreet, and very quiet, advised by her lawyer, Gorka Villar, son of the former president of the Spanish soccer team Ángel María Villar, and already defender of Alberto Contador in 2011.
All reasons to conclude that not only does ordinary justice suffer from a lack of independence, but also sports justice suffers from arbitrariness.
Reasons that are complicated because 10 months after the Games, when he only has two months left on his suspension and has returned to training with Zandron for the 2023 World Cups, Barquero once again tests positive for clostebol, in an even more strange way, according to Barquero herself in Hielo Español, the only media to which she has given statements: “It was scientifically confirmed again with new hair studies that the most probable cause was transdermal contamination and not use of the substance. I can't give much more information about the second positive because I don't have it. “I had taken all the precautions, I changed my routine to avoid any risk of contamination.”
A second positive is recidivism and revision. Doubts about new negligence. The substance is in his urine and he cannot explain how it got there. In doping matters, the athlete always has the burden of proof: he is guilty and must prove his innocence. The World Anti-Doping Code provides for an eight-year sanction for repeat offenders, which in Barquero's case could have been extended to 12 if the first sanction was reviewed and raised to four years. Villar and Barquero negotiated knowing that the TAS could reach a devastating suspension and in October 2024 they reached an agreement for six years, until February 2028, when the skater, who has focused on her physiotherapy studies, will be 26 and have a deep-rooted skepticism towards human beings and justice. “The most painful thing was facing such an unfair system,” he reflects. “Anti-doping regulations, although created to ensure fair play, are rigid and insensitive.”
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