A doping scandal of Olympic proportions?

[goggalor]

Bild.de reports:

Olympic bans for 30 athletes after failed drugs tests

The Winter Olympics are over before they even started for 30 athletes who received bans after failing doping tests.

Vancouver has been shocked by the drugs scandal on the eve of the 2010 Games.

IOC director of communications Mark Adams said the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) had confirmed that 30 competitors would be prevented from coming to the Games because of positive tests.

The drug cheats were caught out in controls held prior to the Games. Since the opening of the Olympic Village there have been 554 drug tests, of which 407 were urine tests and 147 were blood tests, all coming back with negative results.

As yet, the names of the 30 offending athletes have yet to be revealed. WADA has announced that it will hold a press conference on Thursday.

The IOC wants to make the fight against doping in Vancouver a number one priority.

In general, when an athlete is caught taking drugs he is not acting alone, according to Adams.

It would seem that hopes of a clean Winter Olympics devoid of doping are rapidly melting away…

Press conference to be held at 11:00 a.m. local time (i.e. in three hours).

 

[Cobblestones]

Bild.de reports:


Press conference to be held at 11:00 a.m. local time (i.e. in three hours).

I was just about starting a similar thread. Likely it concerns cross country, skating etc. in other words endurance events. As I understand it, the results are from WADA controls. Anyway, let's wait and see what the press conference will reveal.

 

[Kennf1]

If any are Italian, they'll be paying a hefty fine to CONI.

 

[Cobblestones]

I hope they give details. Many details. The more we learn about actual doping regimes, the better we can speculate. I want to know which products were used at what stage of preparation. Do cross country and skating have blood passports? I think the answer is yes for skating (see the Pechstein affair), but I don't know about cross country. If so, they should publish the numbers from the passport along with the positives. Another interesting thing to monitor would be ski jump. Ski jump is a lot about losing weight. Where have we heard about weight loss again? Give us details, please.

Likely it's just first generation EPO by mediocre athletes from obscure countries with no money. Entirely amateurish and boring from our perspective. Ah the suspense is killing me.

 

[sars1981]

Woah 30! Looks like ther SERIOUSLY underestimated the quality of the control. Or maybe they just got caught by surprise? Hmm

 

[Ripper]

How about Russian X-Country

 

[sars1981]

I surpose its to much to ask for a link to a live stream of this press conference?

 

[131313]

male figure skaters on female hormones? Just sayin'.

 

[python]

hmm, just got back from the exhausting xc skiing session and see this shattering news..

an immediate thought crossed my mind - the huge number of the busted athletes and the precomp timing imo point to a new screening method/procedure/test.

could it be that new fast and cheap epo screening test that was in the pipe for quite a while ?

someone asked if xc skiing has a passport system..

yes, fis calls it blood profiling. It is one of the oldest and most effective. saltin and then (infamous) rasmuss damsgaard set it up. but dont expect the data from fis because the testing at the olympics is strictly by ioc and wada. nadas are out of the loop too.

 

[Kennf1]

They did not give names of athletes in the press conference, or products used.

 

[tifosa]

How about Russian X-Country

I'm placing money on the Biathlon.

 

[Cobblestones]

So far disappointing. No details whatsoever. As I understand it, in some cases the B sample hasn't been opened, hence no names are mentioned. Anyway, should be a breeze to find out in no time. Just check who's going home early. In two weeks someone will compile a list of DNS's for the whole games.

So, let's speculate what it could be. To my knowledge hockey has practically no routine tests at all. I could imagine cases of steroid abuses there. That's beside the endurance events. Maybe it's curling? That'd be funny.

 

[Master50]

I am just glad there is no cycling events in the winter Olympics although I am sure **** pound is trying to make a connection

 

[Mellow Velo]

I am just glad there is no cycling events in the winter Olympics although I am sure **** pound is trying to make a connection

Don't worry. The Germans will blame it all on us!

 

[lostintime]

The Olympics has the System down pat....... suppress any names for as long as they can. If this was cycling we'd already know who it was because someone would have leaked the "confidential" information to the press.

I suspect NBC in America will barely mention it .

 

[Oldman]

The Olympics has the System down pat....... suppress any names for as long as they can. If this was cycling we'd already know who it was because someone would have leaked the "confidential" information to the press.

I suspect NBC in America will barely mention it .

No joke. There is no mention of it on either ESPN, CNBC, Universal Sports, CNN.com, etc. There was a comment on an obscure site quoting a US coach that no US atheletes were on the list. Someone knows who is, I guess.

 

[Oldman]

No joke. There is no mention of it on either ESPN, CNBC, Universal Sports, CNN.com, etc. There was a comment on an obscure site quoting a US coach that no US atheletes were on the list. Someone knows who is, I guess.

Eurosport is the only mainstream info so far and it has no names.

 

[BikeCentric]

So far disappointing. No details whatsoever. As I understand it, in some cases the B sample hasn't been opened, hence no names are mentioned. Anyway, should be a breeze to find out in no time. Just check who's going home early. In two weeks someone will compile a list of DNS's for the whole games.

So, let's speculate what it could be. To my knowledge hockey has practically no routine tests at all. I could imagine cases of steroid abuses there. That's beside the endurance events. Maybe it's curling? That'd be funny.

I have a couple of friends that played hockey at a high Division 1 collegiate level; they have told me that the PED abuse in hockey is kind of similar to cycling in that it's mainly for recovery. Lot's of cortisone shots and rumors of HGH and T injections just to recover well for the next game. They play like 3 games a week in the NHL and the season is around 82 games long then playoffs which are a huge grind as well.

Anyway, I would most certainly put my money on the more endurance sports for this bust; XC skiing, biathlon, speed skating, etc. Certainly wouldn't be surprised if they bust some hockey players though.

 

[this_is_edie]

From Vancouver Sun:

the 30 cases, which he refused to name, were all registered in the past months.

"I would say several months in obviously more than one sport and more than one country," he said.

....

Many of them are known, however, with domestic anti-doping agencies naming them in the past months.

Russia had a spate of positive tests before the Vancouver Games, with top cross-country skier Alena Sidko the most recent offender.

 

[Monty Dog]

I'll wager on the Austrian and Russian Biathlon squads - the Austrians were sent home from the last Olympics and this season both teams have exhibited performance from mediocre to dropping the Norwegians on the skiing sections -

 

[nfmcgrath]

"The athletes who have been banned were caught in the months leading up to the Feb. 12-28 Olympics and the results are unrelated to testing done in the days before the start of the Games", WADA chief John Fahey said.

I just read this on the Canada.com website. Which to me suggests that the number actually caught in Vancouver is a great deal less than 30. In fact I would go so far as to say that no one has been caught from testing in Vancouver or Whistler yet.

 

[zapata]

According to Gerhard Geiberg of the IOC, talking to VG,

http://www.vg.no/sport/ol/2010/artikkel.php?artid=583967

nobody has tested positive, but thirty athletes have been "asked" not to participate, because their values, I assume that is blood values, have been fluctuating unnaturally and suspiciously over time. He further says that there might be dopers among the thirty, but there's not evidence of that.

 

[python]

"The athletes who have been banned were caught in the months leading up to the Feb. 12-28 Olympics and the results are unrelated to testing done in the days before the start of the Games", WADA chief John Fahey said.

I just read this on the Canada.com website. Which to me suggests that the number actually caught in Vancouver is a great deal less than 30. In fact I would go so far as to say that no one has been caught from testing in Vancouver or Whistler yet.

thanks. i just read the same. looks like the 30 represent a combined total caught by various nadas and feds in pre-departure testing. the corresponding number in beijing was 70.

 

[BroDeal]

According to Gerhard Geiberg of the IOC, talking to VG,

http://www.vg.no/sport/ol/2010/artikkel.php?artid=583967

nobody has tested positive, but thirty athletes have been "asked" not to participate, because their values, I assume that is blood values, have been fluctuating unnaturally and suspiciously over time. He further says that there might be dopers among the thirty, but there's not evidence of that.

Sounds like the typical attempt to sweep things under the rug by preventing athletes from testing positive. You have to wonder how many were warned beforehand, giving them a chance to adjust their programs.

 

[sida-mot]

PR stunt. Nothing was revealed. Nothing was said. Nobody has tested positive afaik.

The number for the 2008 games in Beijing was 70 athletes.