Doping in XC skiing

[Saint Unix]

And this piece of conclusive scientific fact was derived from a sample size of 1?

 

[BullsFan22]

I want to believe Olsson, but....This guy has been doing this for years now. Anyone want to bet when he does come back from his 'sickness,' he'll be winning races and putting everyone to the sword?

http://www.svt.se/sport/vintersport/johan-olssons-o-tur-att-lamna-aterbud/

 

[kosmonaut]

I want to believe Olsson, but....This guy has been doing this for years now. Anyone want to bet when he does come back from his 'sickness,' he'll be winning races and putting everyone to the sword?

http://www.svt.se/sport/vintersport/johan-olssons-o-tur-att-lamna-aterbud/

Difficult to dislike the guy, but his record is pretty shady.

In other news, IOC has been busy forgetting about the Smigun positive from 2013 (re-test of Torino 2006 sample). http://www.tv2.no/2015/11/19/sport/doping/7670280 (Norwegian)

 

[Random Direction]

If someone has a bit of time and the data available to them, it could be quite informative to run a correlation analysis between nationality, result (in time or placement) and location of anti doping lab to which test samples were sent. My bet is on the same issue in athletics with one or two labs clearing positives for those who have paid / are from a given nation, occurring in xc and biathlon. For the issue to be real, there would be a strong skew in results for some nations or individuals to some labs, and a relatively consistent distribution for other nations. I'd pick Moscow and Lausanne to be the shady ones - and initially look at the Russian, Swiss and Austrian skiers, as well as those with close ties to those nations.

Feel free to PM me with the data.

Becky, Marty or Lisa, if you are on the forum this is for you.

 

[BullsFan22]

Re:

If someone has a bit of time and the data available to them, it could be quite informative to run a correlation analysis between nationality, result (in time or placement) and location of anti doping lab to which test samples were sent. My bet is on the same issue in athletics with one or two labs clearing positives for those who have paid / are from a given nation, occurring in xc and biathlon. For the issue to be real, there would be a strong skew in results for some nations or individuals to some labs, and a relatively consistent distribution for other nations. I'd pick Moscow and Lausanne to be the shady ones - and initially look at the Russian, Swiss and Austrian skiers, as well as those with close ties to those nations.

Feel free to PM me with the data.

Becky, Marty or Lisa, if you are on the forum this is for you.

C'mon, what do you expect Marty and Beckie are gonna say? Russia, Russia, Russia. Whenever I've commented or replied to Marty and given him facts about widespread doping in skiing, he never answered. He is almost 80 years old, he's lived the entire cold war era. He only knows one thing, point fingers at the Russians and nobody else. When I shared the Swedish documentary on doping in the 80's and 90's (that documentary does an excellent job, btw, especially in interviewing most of the key people in FIS who were involved at the time and they give out specific data numbers, i.e. hemoglobin) he didn't respond. Russia will always be looked at as the villain through the eyes of the NA public, especially the US. He didn't even say anything on the Mads Drange report. He may be a good guy and a good ski coach (well, was a good ski coach, doesn't coach anymore) but the MSM has taught him well.

 

[Random Direction]

True on some parts Bulls fan, however my key point was that a statistical analysis could potentially be useful in determining if some nations have been using relationships with the testing labs to create windows to compete while glowing. If it shows the swedes and Norwegians have been doing it but not the Russians, great. I'd prefer to deal with statistical evidence instead of possibility.

 

[BullsFan22]

Re:

True on some parts Bulls fan, however my key point was that a statistical analysis could potentially be useful in determining if some nations have been using relationships with the testing labs to create windows to compete while glowing. If it shows the swedes and Norwegians have been doing it but not the Russians, great. I'd prefer to deal with statistical evidence instead of possibility.

I agree with you as well. We'll just have to take the stats as they are now and hopefully more information will come out in the near future. I hate to have doubt over just about everyone (I am not paranoid, I swear), but the realities of professional sports is scary to me right now.

 

[BullsFan22]

Looks like the Norwegians at it again this season. Sundby looking untouchable already. It reminds me of 15-16 years ago, when the Norwegians would go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 in the men's race this time of year. The next two people? In one of those races it was Muehlegg and Elofsson. I don't need to tell you about Muehlegg, do I? Yes they had noticeably fast skis yesterday (especially compared to the Russians, who would be reduced to almost a crawl the second half of the big last hill in Kuusamo), but does that paint the entire picture?

 

[roundabout]

Well, I think there were only 4 of them in the top-10 in the men 10 free.

But it sadly does look like Sundby is going to steamroller the field for a third year running despite having a previously unremarkable career

 

[John de Savage]

Looks like the Norwegians at it again this season. Sundby looking untouchable already. It reminds me of 15-16 years ago, when the Norwegians would go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 in the men's race this time of year. The next two people? In one of those races it was Muehlegg and Elofsson. I don't need to tell you about Muehlegg, do I? Yes they had noticeably fast skis yesterday (especially compared to the Russians, who would be reduced to almost a crawl the second half of the big last hill in Kuusamo), but does that paint the entire picture?

Norway's depth means many of the lesser norwegians are in good form early in the season just to qualify for the WC team. They are not that dominant at the major events. Remove Petter and this is the number of distance gold medals won by Norway's men's team at the worlds and olympics:

2009: 0

2010: 0

2011: 0

2013: 0

2014: 0

2015: 0

Not even a silver behind Petter. Sweden and Russia have outperformed non-Petter Norway in the most important races.

 

[roundabout]

Err, that's not true with the zeros, you know.

Ah, you mean golds. So what, it's not the major events that are being discussed.

 

[markene2]

Johaug and Sundby is ridicolus.

 

[roundabout]

The selection for Lahti must have started really early.

 

[BullsFan22]

Bjoerndalen though. 42 next month, still winning races, against guys almost 10-20 years younger. Disappears for most of the year in the Italian and Austrian Alps, Norwegian news reporting him being sick and or injured, missing weeks of training, and does he do? Wins by hitting all targets and skis with a time inside the top 10. Early in the season, yes, but the guy won the bulk of his races in the EPO era. Clean? Probably not.

 

[coinneach]

Bjoerndalen though. 42 next month, still winning races, against guys almost 10-20 years younger. Disappears for most of the year in the Italian and Austrian Alps, Norwegian news reporting him being sick and or injured, missing weeks of training, and does he do? Wins by hitting all targets and skis with a time inside the top 10. Early in the season, yes, but the guy won the bulk of his races in the EPO era. Clean? Probably not.

I know I should say I don't care, because I care about the integrity of sport.
But I have to say if there is one athlete who is above all the rest in the last 20 years it would be eitherLance, Bolt or Bjorndalen, and I've looked up to all of them......but Bjorndalens 95th wold cup win yesterday was the the most amazing performance I have ever seen. His final 2 shots were spine tingling beyond anything else I've seen. FANTASTIC

 

[BullsFan22]

Bjoerndalen though. 42 next month, still winning races, against guys almost 10-20 years younger. Disappears for most of the year in the Italian and Austrian Alps, Norwegian news reporting him being sick and or injured, missing weeks of training, and does he do? Wins by hitting all targets and skis with a time inside the top 10. Early in the season, yes, but the guy won the bulk of his races in the EPO era. Clean? Probably not.

I know I should say I don't care, because I care about the integrity of sport.
But I have to say if there is one athlete who is above all the rest in the last 20 years it would be eitherLance, Bolt or Bjorndalen, and I've looked up to all of them......but Bjorndalens 95th wold cup win yesterday was the the most amazing performance I have ever seen. His final 2 shots were spine tingling beyond anything else I've seen. FANTASTIC

I respect your position and you are free to look up to anyone you please, as we all are, but Lance is now a well known fraud, Bolt is a freak but him beating all the other dopers and not just beating them, but crushing them most of the time and Bjoerndalen is a quieter version of Bolt and he's been doing it for, as you say, 20 years. I don't question their abilities, I question the integrity of these sports, as they all have been littered with doping for many, many years. That's why I wrote what I wrote, Bjoerndalen has been around the height of the EPO era, he dominated that time, more or less, and he is still able to win these races. Professional sports, and specifically endurance sports, have made me more skeptical rather than hopeful in recent years. I love watching all these races, but I am just being realistic. Maybe I am completely and utterly wrong, but that's how I view it. Same thing with other sports I like to watch: Tennis, Basketball, Football (both versions), Swimming, Baseball...

 

[maltiv]

Bjoerndalen though. 42 next month, still winning races, against guys almost 10-20 years younger. Disappears for most of the year in the Italian and Austrian Alps, Norwegian news reporting him being sick and or injured, missing weeks of training, and does he do? Wins by hitting all targets and skis with a time inside the top 10. Early in the season, yes, but the guy won the bulk of his races in the EPO era. Clean? Probably not.

I agree that Bjørndalen in general is a bit fishy, but not this performance. He won solely due to shooting well, which is the way one would expect a 42-year old to win.

10th fastest skiing time for a guy with perfect technique, who used to be able to win normal XC-skiing events at his peak, isn't really that suspicious. Particularly considering that it's early in the season, which means that a lot of non-Norwegians usually are far from top form due to too little training on snow.

 

[BullsFan22]

Bjoerndalen though. 42 next month, still winning races, against guys almost 10-20 years younger. Disappears for most of the year in the Italian and Austrian Alps, Norwegian news reporting him being sick and or injured, missing weeks of training, and does he do? Wins by hitting all targets and skis with a time inside the top 10. Early in the season, yes, but the guy won the bulk of his races in the EPO era. Clean? Probably not.

I agree that Bjørndalen in general is a bit fishy, but not this performance. He won solely due to shooting well, which is the way one would expect a 42-year old to win.

10th fastest skiing time for a guy with perfect technique, who used to be able to win normal XC-skiing events at his peak, isn't really that suspicious. Particularly considering that it's early in the season, which means that a lot of non-Norwegians usually are far from top form due to too little training on snow.

"Who used to be able to win normal XC skiing events at his peak." That's the issue. At his peak, he was beating dopers, cross country and biathlon. I'd say his peak was in 2002, when he dominated in Salt Lake City and was close to a medal in 30km XC race.

 

[Samson]

Ridiculous sport.

 

[BullsFan22]

Re:

Ridicolous sport.

Bad skis for everyone else?

 

[Bavarianrider]

Stone grinding is a hell of a drug

 

[Discgear]

Soldier Hollow x 2 today.

 

[BullsFan22]

http://www.svt.se/sport/vintersport/overlagsne-sundby-gjorde-som-johaug/

LOL. Fredriksson (former overall world cup winner, world championship and olympic medalist for Sweden) says Sundby's performance might seem similar to Muehlegg's in 2002 in SLC, but then quickly said that it was due to hard training and didn't want to make parallels. Sundby jump skated that last hill like it was the first hill of a sprint qualification race, not after 29.5 KM in tough conditions.

 

[kosmonaut]

What a joke. Johaug winning every race with a 10% margin and Sundby living up to his big hero Lance's performances.

Seven out of top eight men were Norwegian. The relay tomorrow will be exciting... This sport must surely be dying at a record pace.

 

[Armchaircyclist]

1-2-3-4, 6-7-8, the ridiculous thing is how sad the competition is !
However, these tracks at Lillehammer were of an unusual type, favouring several of the Norwegians. Too much up and down compared to the normal tracks, so favouring Sundby and Johaug, while our real #1 Northug, struggled to get a 6th Place.

The usual explanation that we have so many fighting for a few spots in the team, holds true as usual, but the domination is still too much even for a Norwegian ? How can foreigners bother looking at all ?

How the Swedes are doing so badly, is a mystery to me, it's not like it's a Secret to Kalla and the Swedes that the Norwegians are working out more than they do, they've been trying to work out With the Norwegians... Most of the rest of the world could not care less about cross-country, but for the Finns and Swedes to have such poor performances, is sad.