Russia Doping Report

[hurrah]

The country sponsored fed vs. non-sponsored - formally there is difference. But it happens that the U.S. track-n-field fed and individual athletes have much more private funding than the fed in Russia which has to rely on the government money. It does not mean that the government is fully aware of the details. But even if they are. For example they see Florence Griffit-Jones who was around for quite a while - her first WC was in 1983. In all the years before 1988 she only twice ran 100m faster than 11 sec: 10,99 and 10,96. Then in 1988 she is visually much more muscular. And she delivers: 10.89, 10.99, 10.60, 10.49,10.70, 10.61, 10.62, 10.88, 10.70, 10.54, 10.91 - all in 1 year! She is 29 then. Next year she retires - in 8 years she dies. She has not been caught. But with all due respect do we believe her being clean? Especially knowing that her husband - another athlete was not? And if not, who knew and what does it have to do whether it was or not on the government money? And if in Russia they see that the name of the game is not to be clean but not to be caught, the temptation is too high as sports is a lot about politics. And some do think that it is better to be an uncaught dirty winner than a clean loser.

I do not justify the doping use - I just see this particular media hysteria as a part of driven by Ukraine situation push to further isolate Russia pretending she is the only black sheep in the herd.

The examples you cited are American athletes who were competing in the 1980's and early-1990's. I'm sure doping still takes place in the United States quite alot, but certainly not on the grand scale that it appears to occur in Russia. Russia, I think, is especially black here, no?

 

[[email protected]]

The examples you cited are American athletes who were competing in the 1980's and early-1990's. I'm sure doping still takes place in the United States quite alot, but certainly not on the grand scale that it appears to occur in Russia. Russia, I think, is especially black here, no?

No, otherwise, the results of the Russian athletes would be much more impressive than they are. In fact there is the ongoing deterioration in terms of the number of medals especially in men. I guess the Russian pharma industry is too outdated

2011 9+4+6
2013 7+4+6
2015 2+1+1 - measures were clearly taken

 

[hurrah]

No, otherwise, the results of the Russian athletes would be much more impressive than they are. In fact there is the ongoing deterioration in terms of the number of medals especially in men. I guess the Russian pharma industry is too outdated

2011 9+4+6
2013 7+4+6
2015 2+1+1 - measures were clearly taken

Excuse me, but you just listed some numbers without explaining the context. Those numbers could be anything from number of bingo wins to ejaculations.

Another source of information, such as this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia_at_the_Olympics

would indicate that Russians are not losing more.

 

[jenaj]

The country sponsored fed vs. non-sponsored - formally there is difference. But it happens that the U.S. track-n-field fed and individual athletes have much more private funding than the fed in Russia which has to rely on the government money. It does not mean that the government is fully aware of the details. But even if they are. For example they see Florence Griffit-Jones who was around for quite a while - her first WC was in 1983. In all the years before 1988 she only twice ran 100m faster than 11 sec: 10,99 and 10,96. Then in 1988 she is visually much more muscular. And she delivers: 10.89, 10.99, 10.60, 10.49,10.70, 10.61, 10.62, 10.88, 10.70, 10.54, 10.91 - all in 1 year! She is 29 then. Next year she retires - in 8 years she dies. She has not been caught. But with all due respect do we believe her being clean? Especially knowing that her husband - another athlete was not? And if not, who knew and what does it have to do whether it was or not on the government money? And if in Russia they see that the name of the game is not to be clean but not to be caught, the temptation is too high as sports is a lot about politics. And some do think that it is better to be an uncaught dirty winner than a clean loser.

I do not justify the doping use - I just see this particular media hysteria as a part of driven by Ukraine situation push to further isolate Russia pretending she is the only black sheep in the herd.

I don't know if Florence Joyner passed her drug tests. I assume she did. Many people in the US and the US media in particular did suspect she had used PE drugs, but there was never any proof. If she did, it was done by her alone, or with the help of her husband who I think was her coach. So an investigation of the US federation would have proved nothing.

 

[[email protected]]

Excuse me, but you just listed some numbers without explaining the context. Those numbers could be anything from number of bingo wins to ejaculations.

Another source of information, such as this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia_at_the_Olympics

would indicate that Russians are not losing more.

We are trying not to be rude, aren't we? As I talked about WCs before I thought the numbers were obvious. But I see, they are not. These are the medal counts of the Russian team in WCs, gold+silver+bronze. After the fuzz last year serious meausures were taken like resignation of year long head of the fed. Russia punished a number of sportsmen. The famous walking school in Saransk is reshuffled. Then the major loss in WC 3 months ago. Never ever had we such miserable results - isn't it a sign that things are different now? And still this report. ***? The Russian officials already replied that only B samples with clean A samples were destroyed and this is a normal regular procedure - they have been always destroyed as there is no place to store them forever. And that's the core of the accusation and of the media thunderstorm: evil Russians destroy the evidence.

 

[cruzceleste]

Just now : IOC ask for santions on Russia

BREAKING: IOC asks for disciplinary action against Russians in doping report; could strip medals.

 

[solani]

I have two very naive questions.

1. If a steroid helps someone recover from a serious injury, is there a reason why athletes shouldn't be allowed to use them? If they're recovering, they're not competing, presumably. Is it because the drug has other effects that would outlast the injury recovery period?

1. Some coaches and physicians believe that steroids shoudl be allowed, especially testosterone, because they say "they only give the body back what it has lost due to physical exertion". F.e. during the Tour de France the testosterone levels of the cyclists should drop significantly and they have in the past. But they don't drop nowadays. The levels still don't drop.
If it would be allowed it would be a freak show. And there are already so many doping victims, we don't need more of them.

Yes. Their bodies, like those of girls, would be stunted for life.

No. When they're using steroids as growth inhibitors the growth plates (I'm not sure that's the right term in english ..) close but they can be opened again by using growth hormones. I read about a female gymnast, I think from Romania (not sure) and she had huge problems because she grew about 20 cm within a year when she was 22 years of age because they gave her large amounts of growth hormones, just to see what would happen. They should have gone easier on her ...

 

[cruzceleste]

IOC Executive Board takes action following WADA Independent Commission - provisionally suspends Mr. Lamine Diack

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is closely monitoring the situation after the Independent Commission of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) released its report on 9 November. The IOC expects the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and WADA to consider all necessary action to be taken to protect the clean athletes and rebuild trust.
Even if it has not been directly addressed in the report, the IOC has already decided to take the following steps itself:

The IOC’s Executive Board decided this afternoon to confirm the proposal of the IOC Ethics Commission to provisionally suspend Mr. Lamine Diack, the former President of IAAF, from his honorary membership of the IOC.

As far as the Olympic Games may be concerned the IOC Executive Board decided:

The IOC has asked the IAAF to initiate disciplinary procedures against all athletes, coaches and officials who have participated in the Olympic Games and are accused of doping in the report of the Independent Commission. With its zero-tolerance policy against doping, following the conclusion of this procedure, the IOC will take all the necessary measures and sanctions with regard to the withdrawal and reallocation of medals and as the case may be exclusion of coaches and officials from future Olympic Games;

The IOC studied the functioning of the WADA accredited laboratory in Sochi during the Olympic Winter Games 2014 following the doubts expressed during the Independent Commission’s press conference. In this context the IOC relies on the then report of the WADA independent observer group which makes no mention of any such irregularity. Nor was any such irregularity reported by the international experts involved, nor found by the IOC itself. Therefore, the IOC has no reason to question the credibility of the results of the anti-doping tests carried out at the Olympic Winter Games 2014. However, the IOC retaining all the doping samples for ten years, will retest samples in an appropriate way should substantial doubts arise. In any case, the IOC may retest samples once new scientific techniques become available.

 

[plushyfan]

http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/inde...s-you-will-ever-see-in-this-interview.412846/

Angel Heredia---Do you know his name???

The Austrian marketer Wagner, founder of World Athletics Management, wrote last Thursday in an e-mail to SPIEGEL, that he “never doped athletes” or “supported and promoted” doping. And Angel Heredia, the chief witness, sat in an office in New York, an athletic man in a black shirt, still in excellent shape, and wrote down names on a sheet of paper. 41 track and field athletes, he said, were his clients, as well as boxers, soccer players and cross-country skiers. His Jamaicans: Raymond Stewart, Beverly McDonald, Brandon Simpson. From the Bahamas: Chandra Sturrup. A couple of his Americans: Jerome Young, Antonio Pettigrew, Tim Montgomery, Duane Ross, Michelle Collins, Marion Jones, C. J. Hunter, Ramon Clay, Dennis Mitchell, Joshua J. Johnson, Randall Evans, Justin Gatlin, Maurice Greene. Some of those named by Heredia have been caught doping. Others have admitted to doping, while still others deny it.

 

[humbaba]

1. If a steroid helps someone recover from a serious injury, is there a reason why athletes shouldn't be allowed to use them?

I think there might be a case for restricted, carefully monitored, short-term use of anabolic steroids in a few cases. For example, a muscle tear that won't heal, keeps getting reinjured, and isn't responding well to standard treatments. As with any drug, risk vs. benefits would have to be carefully considered.

The problem is any therapeutic use of anabolic steroids would open up a Pandora's box of loopholes that would undoubtedly be exploited by those wanting to use the drugs for performance enhancement.

 

[solani]

http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/inde...s-you-will-ever-see-in-this-interview.412846/

Angel Heredia---Do you know his name???

The Austrian marketer Wagner, founder of World Athletics Management, wrote last Thursday in an e-mail to SPIEGEL, that he “never doped athletes” or “supported and promoted” doping. And Angel Heredia, the chief witness, sat in an office in New York, an athletic man in a black shirt, still in excellent shape, and wrote down names on a sheet of paper. 41 track and field athletes, he said, were his clients, as well as boxers, soccer players and cross-country skiers. His Jamaicans: Raymond Stewart, Beverly McDonald, Brandon Simpson. From the Bahamas: Chandra Sturrup. A couple of his Americans: Jerome Young, Antonio Pettigrew, Tim Montgomery, Duane Ross, Michelle Collins, Marion Jones, C. J. Hunter, Ramon Clay, Dennis Mitchell, Joshua J. Johnson, Randall Evans, Justin Gatlin, Maurice Greene. Some of those named by Heredia have been caught doping. Others have admitted to doping, while still others deny it.

I know him, he was the dealer who delivered the PED's to Marion Jones and said later that he never saw anyone as dedicated and hard training as Marion Jones.
He has a lot of insight information, but for me the question always is "How much can you trust the drug dealer?". I guess he's telling the truth most of the time, but he might also exaggerate a lot.

 

[[email protected]]

http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/inde...s-you-will-ever-see-in-this-interview.412846/

Angel Heredia---Do you know his name???

The Austrian marketer Wagner, founder of World Athletics Management, wrote last Thursday in an e-mail to SPIEGEL, that he “never doped athletes” or “supported and promoted” doping. And Angel Heredia, the chief witness, sat in an office in New York, an athletic man in a black shirt, still in excellent shape, and wrote down names on a sheet of paper. 41 track and field athletes, he said, were his clients, as well as boxers, soccer players and cross-country skiers. His Jamaicans: Raymond Stewart, Beverly McDonald, Brandon Simpson. From the Bahamas: Chandra Sturrup. A couple of his Americans: Jerome Young, Antonio Pettigrew, Tim Montgomery, Duane Ross, Michelle Collins, Marion Jones, C. J. Hunter, Ramon Clay, Dennis Mitchell, Joshua J. Johnson, Randall Evans, Justin Gatlin, Maurice Greene. Some of those named by Heredia have been caught doping. Others have admitted to doping, while still others deny it.

A very revealing interview but those with agenda will dismiss it: "just individual unrelated cases vs. state-sponsored conspiracy".

P.S. I think this whole thread should go into politics as it has nothing to do with FS.

 

[solani]

A very revealing interview but those with agenda will dismiss it: "just individual unrelated cases vs. state-sponsored conspiracy".

This has been dealt with accordingly in the U.S., it's a rather old interview. This happend about 9 years ago. The U.S. stripped their biggest star Marion Jones of nearly all her medals and sent her to jail. There's no other country that has ever done something like that.
Justin Gatlin has served a 8-year ban (for 2nd offence) and is competing again since last year I think. I hope we won't see him in Rio, but you'll never know. He's after all the best sprinter the U.S. has now.
So I wonder how Russia will deal with this scandal. Because this is really huge. The FIFA scandal is nothing. We did know that it was bad after the german tv program, but I never thaught that the WADA would treat it accordingly. I hope that this will not have an political impact, because it would be bad if this would affect the international relations with Russia negatively. It most probably will, but it shouldn't because the athletes' health should have the highest priority for every country.

 

[Sam-Skwantch]

Thanks Plushyfan for sharing that. That Angel guy is one interesting character. I have a family member who played professional baseball and he has told me some stories about athletes and amphetamines that made my head spin.

The focus of this investigation is clearly on track and field and other events that require feats of strength often with a time based result. I expect the first pair of skates, if any, implicated in a scandal will be a pair of speed skates. The king of all knife boots!

 

[Sam-Skwantch]

Meanwhile in the world of snowboarding and fresh off of an Olympic Gold medal Sage Kostenburg told us about his preparations for Sochi.

“I’m super mellow, laid-back. I’m not like the normal guy that goes in the gym and trains. I haven’t been in the gym since September.”

:cool14:

 

[el henry]

As someone who follows track and field, although not as much as FS, a very discouraging state of affairs. But I think it is well to compare apples to apples, as it were....

1. I do not hate Russia. I do not follow ladies and could care less who won the ladies' OGM in Sochi. In fact, if I were rooting for anyone then, I would have rooted for Adelina because Jason took selfies with her. I do root for the American men, and some other men in other countries. I would never call a whole country "evil" or bad. That to me is :dumb:

2. The WADA report accuses Russia of state-sanctioned doping in track and field. The evidence seems clear and damning. But I imagine Russia will challenge the suspension and maybe present other evidence. However, right now the *state* ministry of sport is accused of hiding athletes who doped.

3. A common response to wrong-doing is "Well, everyone does it". I'm not the only one who ignores that stop sign, why are you giving me the traffic ticket? Why are you picking on me? That is an understandable human response. It does not excuse the wrong-doing.

4. I think our friends in other countries may not realize how much the system in the US differs from that of Russia (if the descriptions of the Russian system are accurate). There is little to no government involvement in the US athletic system. There just isn't. The funding is minuscule and non-existent. There is *no* system of state trainers or state doctors or any meaningful government involvement in athlete preparation.

5. When American athletes dope (Justin Gatlin, Marion Jones, Lance Armstrong), they do so on their own. They pay their own trainers, coaches, advisors, money to help hide their doping. NOT the US fed and NOT any state system. They do it for the dollars. There are no dollars from our US feds worth cheating for. There are millions of dollars from sponsors worth cheating for (in the minds of cheaters). So, when suspensions are handed out, they are handed out to individuals.

In one story I read, they said the current investigation was started by a *Russian*'s athlete's complaint that she had paid her T&F fed to hide her doping (and she didn't get the money back when she was caught). Very, very sad.....

 

[solani]

In one story I read, they said the current investigation was started by a *Russian*'s athlete's complaint that she had paid her T&F fed to hide her doping (and she didn't get the money back when she was caught). Very, very sad.....

I think she did get her money back, it just took a while. They wanted to bribe somebody in the IAAF but somehow it didn't work, or something like that.

 

[[email protected]]

1. The WADA report accuses Russia of state-sanctioned doping in track and field. The evidence seems clear and damning. But I imagine Russia will challenge the suspension and maybe present other evidence. However, right now the *state* ministry of sport is accused of hiding athletes who doped.

2. A common response to wrong-doing is "Well, everyone does it". I'm not the only one who ignores that stop sign, why are you giving me the traffic ticket? Why are you picking on me? That is an understandable human response. It does not excuse the wrong-doing.

3. I think our friends in other countries may not realize how much the system in the US differs from that of Russia (if the descriptions of the Russian system are accurate). There is little to no government involvement in the US athletic system. There just isn't. The funding is minuscule and non-existent. There is *no* system of state trainers or state doctors or any meaningful government involvement in athlete preparation.

1. Right, Russia already challenges the evidence as biased. The major point of sample destruction is dismissed as nonsense: only samples B with clean samples A were destroyed.

2. That's a wrong response. Wrong-doing is wrong doing. But there is some point that if everybody else does that to win one may be tempted to do the same and may be unhappy if he is the only scapegoat.

3. I already said that if the athletes in Russia had the same access to private money as in the U.S. the situation would be different.

This has been dealt with accordingly in the U.S., it's a rather old interview. This happend about 9 years ago. The U.S. stripped their biggest star Marion Jones of nearly all her medals and sent her to jail. There's no other country that has ever done something like that.
So I wonder how Russia will deal with this scandal. Because this is really huge. .

Marion Johnes was never caught. She revealed that she doped on her own. Others deny. Russia already dealt with that. It received 3 times fewer medals than we used to during the last WC because many top athletes were banned.

 

[solani]

Marion Johnes was never caught. She revealed that she doped on her own. Others deny. Russia already dealt with that. It received 3 times fewer medals than we used to during the last WC because many top athletes were banned.

No, she didn't reveal it herself. She went to jail because she denied it until the bitter end. There was just so much evidence against her (also from the dealer Angel Heredia as far as I remember). If she would have told the truth they would have stripped her of all her medals for sure, because she was surely doped from 1997-1999 also, but the investigators couldn't proof that. If someone is interested, Marion Jones was involved in the BALCO scandal.

 

[OS]

Found the German ARD Documentary that sparked off the WADA investigation.

Everyone should take a look, pass it around and get educated. French / English subtitles are available

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iu9B-ty9JCY

The research, first hand accounts and evidence collected over the years are overwhelmingly extensive. I am truly appalled how anyone can try to justify this. What a terrible shame.

Well done one German Maverick Journalist Hajo Seppelt, and all those within Russia including the athletes, coaches and anti doping agents that risks their careers and put their personal lives at stake, trying to expose the dreadful practices and clean up their sport. They should be heroes!

Found the follow up, released in Aug 2015.