Doping in XC skiing

[ToreBear]

Re:

"No amount of factual information seems to penetrate and be internalized" - perfect description of the Betonkopf, no?

Anyway, how are you getting on with your list of nations who are using the "common practice" of using asthma treatment for non-asthmatics in the same fashion as Norway? Since last time your assertion that this was common practice in several nations was questioned, you could only name Maurice Manificat as an example. As you've gone back to the assertion that it is done by several nations and trump up your scientific mindset, I can only presume that you have unearthed further evidence that backs up your assertion, as restating an unsatisfactory conclusion would surely be a no-no?

bla bla bla....

I cant adress all your points, due to time constraints/lack of patience/lazyness etc. But I can give you some possible asnvers to the asthma drama:

I'll try to explain how this ashtma drugs to healthy athletes started:
Ernst A. Lersveen, a reporter for TV2 asked Norwegian athletes if they had used Asthma medications. They confirmed they had, and they also comfirmed they did not have the diagnosis Asthma.

Headline: "Ski federation gives asthma medication through nebulizers to healthy athletes"

The problem here is that there are legitimate uses for asthma medications for conditions other than Asthma. For example the Swedes in there guidelines used a term Bronchial hyperactivity in addition to Asthma. In any case the athletes in the headline had other issues which were legitimately treated with asthma medications. They were not healthy and they did not have asthma. So the main problem with the headline is that the term healthy is misleading. So this starts a media scrum, with especially Swedish media riling up their readers.

In the end, the argument came down to the use of nebulizers, with the swedes having the moral high ground, which turned out to be very lonely as pointed out in the previous links. This asthma thing was silly from the start, and says more about the media environment for XC skiing than the use/misuse of asthma medications.

From your response you indicated you had not watched the video since you kept going on about failing to notice the marker. If you can miss a guy in a freaking gorilla suit you can miss a red marker. It's just how we humans function.

I'm not going to give you anymore evidence since that would be to much work for me. If the German government has any guidelines for the usage of medications, you can look there and see that asthma drugs are used for other things than asthma.

 

[ToreBear]

Re: Re:

I live in Norway. Naïvety as displayed by ToreBear is dime a dozen here, so his posts don't surprise me one bit.

A dysfunctional anti-doping agency that couldn't even catch a cold and a borderline maniacal sense of patriotism will do that to people. Some Norwegians genuinely believe the lack of Norwegian positives is because our athletes don't dope, and that they're just naturally 10-15% better than everyone else. It's sad.

Our athletes aren't better, but our anti-doping agency is definitely sh*t.

This is a few years old take on the issue, but one proponent of the idea that the Norwegians have naturally anti-doping mindset is none other than the doping historian Erkki Vettenniemi who wrote the following essay some three years ago:

http://idrottsforum.org/forumbloggen/what-science-says-about-doping-in-norway/

I am not quite certain if this is a satirical take on how unreliable polls are or is this guy serious because:

1) He is a heavy proponent of the theory that Norwegian Gjermund Eggen was one of the first blood dopers in the 1966 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships when he started being 16th at 30km but won three golds later in the games (not then a banned method but portrays their ethical stance in a weird light).
http://idrottsforum.org/forumbloggen/triple-victory-for-norwegian-sport-medicine/

2) In his other books, he ridicules the notion that polls could tell the real opinion of athletes because they have vested interest to lie and downplay the prevalence of doping use/availability etc.
3) He himself isn't reluctant at all in accepting practically every doping-related rumour as fact.

1) I don't see a reason why he might not be right regarding Eggen. I have no idea either way. Before 1989 IIRC Norwegian sport was much more fragmented, so it's not unreasonable that some groups could be anti doping while other groups felt otherwise. Also the line between doping/not doping and whether it was cheating was not as clear as it is today. With the establishment of the Olympiatoppen, standards were set regarding anti doping. I think I read somewhere that they did discuss the use of doping, but that the argument that not using a doping shortcut would be more beneficial in the long run, as well as doping being ethically questionable/wrong, won out. Likely pressure from above also helped sway the argument.

2) I would agree one should be carefull with polls though there are ways to avoid the issue of answer expectations. IIRC there was a major Norwegian study which were issued in a way that avoided/reduced the risk of this problem. I think they had a lot of questions not related to doping and not only athletes were given the questions etc. I think it might be one of the studies he quoted.

3) That puts into question how seriously one should take his work.

 

[ToreBear]

As for the Johaug case, I guess CAS didn't agree with me. I haven't read the judgement yet. Maybe I will, maybe I won't.

The clinic has dropped a lot on my priority list this time of the year now, so don't be shocked If I'm not here to argue against the clinic narrative.

 

[Aragon]

Re: Re:

After going quickly through some of the writings of Erkki Vettenniemi, I must first point out that he is always very non-specific about his PED-related allegations about others than Finns, even when he generally believes that every country uses every available method banned or not. He sees this as a fact-of-life and nothing to moralise about, a quite realistic position in light of what we do know about the world.

But here are a few instances where he specifically mentions Norwegians in a slightly questionable light:

- He repeats favourably the speculation that the reason why Norwegian Olympic Committee decided in 1976 to send letter to the IOC warning them about blood doping wasn't sports ethics or medical hazards but only because other countries were little-by-little catching up their advantage on the subject.
- Here is a longish quote about the 1997 FIS World Championships from his newish book:

When men had three starts behind them, the Finn Jari Isometsä had been blood tested three times. Björn Dählie, who had won three golds and one silver had avoided blood testing completely... In addition, Dählie had arrived to traditional urine test twice too late, which should've led to a disqualification... Norwegians took full advantage of the priveleges of the host nation, of which the Finnish team had enjoyed also when the competition was in Finland. The chief supervisor of doping testing of Trondheim was Inggard Lereim, who was known as the trusted man of Norwegian skiers.

What is "full advantage of the privileges"? He tells a few page earlier that the Finns did a lot of things when they were hosts during the 1989 World Championships like giving rEPO-hormone to their skiers and withholding information about what could be detected in the blood doping tests.
- He has an entire book detailing his theory that there was a plot against the Finnish cross-country skiers busted in 2001 of which one key player was aforementioned Inggard Lereim. The theory goes that Finns had convinced foreigners that transfusions and rEPO could be tested at the 1989 Lahti World Championships so other countries (presumably also Norwegians) seized to dope while Finns took full advantage of the medical aids. Lereim had to wait for twelve years for his revenge when the Finns were misinformed that HES couldn't be tested.

Vettenniemi seems to think that all athletes are afraid to rise against the antidoping-machine in order to keep competing and that is why they are seemingly so anti-doping and welcome every anti-doping measure with cheers. In his 2009 book he quotes figures of a 2002 Finnish poll where 90 % of respondents believed that doping improves performance but 0 athletes out of 446 admitted having ever used doping products. 93 percent stated that they would not use any banned product even if it would be legalised in the future. But there might be more sophisticated polling methods where the results are more accurate.

Just a word on the context of my third point, lost by most of the readers who didn't follow the link. It was that in the link he is very critical of the book Den store dopingbløffen which "not only thrives on speculation" but also "bluntly ignores recent academic discoveries concerning the role of doping in Norwegian sport" and still he more-or-less accepts every third hand hearsay as fact whenever it suits his case.

In one of his recent essays he refers neutrally to the same book he criticises in the link writing that "[o]n the eve of the 2014 Winter Olympics, a former Norwegian Anti-Doping official stated in his book that a number of Norwegian athletes had resorted to blood doping since 2001". I quess that because his thesis in that essay is that Finns aren't blood doping pioneers nor more dirty than others, so in that context the book that "thrives on speculation" is an OK source.

He is an interesting fellow and this was just a take why his defence of Norwegians seemed weird, without taking any position one way or another about his allegations or about Norwegians (I just have to mention that I don't believe his Eggen-theory after having gone through his primary sources).

 

[Discgear]

Re: Re:

"No amount of factual information seems to penetrate and be internalized" - perfect description of the Betonkopf, no?

Anyway, how are you getting on with your list of nations who are using the "common practice" of using asthma treatment for non-asthmatics in the same fashion as Norway? Since last time your assertion that this was common practice in several nations was questioned, you could only name Maurice Manificat as an example. As you've gone back to the assertion that it is done by several nations and trump up your scientific mindset, I can only presume that you have unearthed further evidence that backs up your assertion, as restating an unsatisfactory conclusion would surely be a no-no?

bla bla bla....

The problem here is that there are legitimate uses for asthma medications for conditions other than Asthma. For example the Swedes in there guidelines used a term Bronchial hyperactivity in addition to Asthma. In any case the athletes in the headline had other issues which were legitimately treated with asthma medications. They were not healthy and they did not have asthma. So the main problem with the headline is that the term healthy is misleading. So this starts a media scrum, with especially Swedish media riling up their readers.

In the end, the argument came down to the use of nebulizers, with the swedes having the moral high ground, which turned out to be very lonely as pointed out in the previous links. This asthma thing was silly from the start, and says more about the media environment for XC skiing than the use/misuse of asthma medications.

ToreBear, still going strong before hibernation. You are really one of a kind (outside the nation of yours of course) when you keep repeating arguments or opinions that have been properly debunked a long time ago. For you, and a bunch of fellow countrymen, the earth is still flat.

You said: the Swedes in there guidelines used a term Bronchial hyperactivity in addition to Asthma
Source? What about the Norwegians?

Firstly, when the "asthma report" went public, the Swedish team doctor Per Andersson was upset in a way you very seldom see from Swedish officials. He said following:
Nebulizers do not belong in sports, other in emergency cases.

He also said that the Swedes never would treat anyone with asthma medication in a preventive purpose:
There's no research that claims it's the right thing to do, and as a medic you should work accordingly to science and experience.

I think your argumentation is dishonest. And remember, your cycling star Kristoff said when he heard about the Norwegian XC skiing national team and asthma medication:
I was surprised when I heard about the doses they are inhaling. I was told to take five puffs a day, and they are talking about 50 doses. I would have dropped my chin if I was told to take 50 doses every day.
http://www.vg.no/sport/langrenn/kristoff-om-skilandslagets-medisinbruk-overrasket-over-dosene-jeg-hoerte-de-tok/a/23780297/

 

[Blaaswix]

Interesting comment from Norwegian cycling president Harald Tiedemann Hansen in this article from Dagbladet looking at antidoping routines in other sports in Norway https://www.dagbladet.no/sport/slik...-ansvaret-ligger-alltid-hos-utoveren/68616046

Tidemann Hansen doesn't wish to evaluate the Skiforbundets antidoping work, but talks openly about the Sykkelforbundets routines.

"First and foremost you must have completed the 'clean athlete' program to cycle for the national team. In addition we have an ethical policy that we follow up, but that's about more than antidoping. Also there is a much tougher test regime for our athletes than what i'm reading has been the case in other sports (branches)"

Now which other branch of Norwegian sport could he be referring to?

 

[kingjr]

Re: Re:

1) I don't see a reason why he might not be right regarding Eggen. I have no idea either way. Before 1989 IIRC Norwegian sport was much more fragmented, so it's not unreasonable that some groups could be anti doping while other groups felt otherwise. Also the line between doping/not doping and whether it was cheating was not as clear as it is today. With the establishment of the Olympiatoppen, standards were set regarding anti doping. I think I read somewhere that they did discuss the use of doping, but that the argument that not using a doping shortcut would be more beneficial in the long run, as well as doping being ethically questionable/wrong, won out. Likely pressure from above also helped sway the argument.

Not directly related to XC skiing obviously, but somewhat relevant to the bolded part perhaps.

Eddy Merckx thought EPO was OK, but he was not an exception. I remember a discussion we had in November 1995 [...] when we began talking about the new drug EPO, Merckx and De Cauwer shouted in unison: "But EPO is not doping!"

from 'Hans Vandeweghe: Wie gelooft die renners nog?'

 

[Aragon]

Re: Re:

rEPO is interesting also because some people considered it actually a good thing because it would replace the nasty transfusions. I can't recall his name, but one famous American exercise physiologist cheered the rEPO in late 1980s exactly because it would make the "vampiristic" blood transfusions obsolete. He later admitted that his take was slightly naïve even when his intentions were good.

It reminds me the episode when runner Alberto Cova and the Italian blood doping program was briefly discussed in the Finnish media in 1984. Cross-country ski oriented exercise physiologist Heikki Rusko was at least publicly against the use of the method on ethical grounds:

In Italy, there is a very sophisticated system for blood transfusion. It is possible to separate young and old red blood cells and infuse the subject only with young ones. There have been published a lot of research about blood doping in foreign countries that point to the direction that it enhances performances. By how much is difficult to say because it hasn't been researched with athletes. Here in Finland we have a different moral standards than in other countries. There people do think that everything that isn't specifically banned is allowed.

Then when you go forward four years to 1988, when everyone is scared about the future of sports because this recombinant EPO would turn endurance athletes into supermen, this same man wrote the following in a book he coauthored with his colleague:

It is only a matter of time, when sports doctors have access to effective medications to treat all diseases, to remove the fatigue of athletes, to enhance recovery, to develop muscular strength etc. A few pharmaceutical companies have managed to develop the method to manufacture synthetic erythropoietin. It is exactly the same thing as the natural hormone produced by human body, and in the future fine tuning the dosage it would be possible to micromanage the hematological values of an athlete to the desired level.

I don't know whether that is just stating the facts or thumbs up, but many commentators read the sentence that the authors saw rEPO as a good thing. It wasn't banned when the book was published and there was no clear consensus view on the substance, so there was room for dissenting opinions.

In the end, Rusko has a good reputation among his peers and he isn't tainted by the doping revelations, and he would later become one of the foremost specialist of the hypoxia training.

 

[Discgear]

Re: Re:

rEPO is interesting also because some people considered it actually a good thing because it would replace the nasty transfusions. I can't recall his name, but one famous American exercise physiologist cheered the rEPO in late 1980s exactly because it would make the "vampiristic" blood transfusions obsolete. He later admitted that his take was slightly naïve even when his intentions were good.

It reminds me the episode when runner Alberto Cova and the Italian blood doping program was briefly discussed in the Finnish media in 1984. Cross-country ski oriented exercise physiologist Heikki Rusko was at least publicly against the use of the method on ethical grounds:

In Italy, there is a very sophisticated system for blood transfusion. It is possible to separate young and old red blood cells and infuse the subject only with young ones. There have been published a lot of research about blood doping in foreign countries that point to the direction that it enhances performances. By how much is difficult to say because it hasn't been researched with athletes. Here in Finland we have a different moral standards than in other countries. There people do think that everything that isn't specifically banned is allowed.

Then when you go forward four years to 1988, when everyone is scared about the future of sports because this recombinant EPO would turn endurance athletes into supermen, this same man wrote the following in a book he coauthored with his colleague:

It is only a matter of time, when sports doctors have access to effective medications to treat all diseases, to remove the fatigue of athletes, to enhance recovery, to develop muscular strength etc. A few pharmaceutical companies have managed to develop the method to manufacture synthetic erythropoietin. It is exactly the same thing as the natural hormone produced by human body, and in the future fine tuning the dosage it would be possible to micromanage the hematological values of an athlete to the desired level.

I don't know whether that is just stating the facts or thumbs up, but many commentators read the sentence that the authors saw rEPO as a good thing. It wasn't banned when the book was published and there was no clear consensus view on the substance, so there was room for dissenting opinions.

In the end, Rusko has a good reputation among his peers and he isn't tainted by the doping revelations, and he would later become one of the foremost specialist of the hypoxia training.

.... in the future fine tuning the dosage it would be possible to micromanage....
....Here in [nation of chocie] we have a different moral standards than in other countries....
Heikki Rusko, Nostrodamus of Sports. Good post and interesting read.

 

[Aragon]

Re: Re:

After some mental gymnastics on where I'd seen the reference, I finally managed to find the "famous American exercise physiologist" and his take on rEPO from David Walsh's 2007 book:

In 1989, Les Earnest, a director of the United States Cycling Federation (USFC), wrote that r-EPO had the potential to help athletic performance and to bring an end to potentially hazardous blood transfusions. Before suggesting r-EPO should be used by sportsmen, Earnest wrote to Jerry Lace, USCF executive director, asking that a study be done to determine if the drug could be used safely. Earnest was reassured such a study was under way, which it was not. Earnest was not an advocate of doping and had been critical of the blood doping program undertaken by members of the U.S. cycling team at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games...
Earnest would later admit his first reaction to r-EPO was naïve, but even to the morally scrupulous the drug was tempting. It wasn't banned; it didn't involve the drawing, storage, treatment, and reinfusion of blood - allt it did was replicate the effects of altitude training.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re: Re:

"No amount of factual information seems to penetrate and be internalized" - perfect description of the Betonkopf, no?

Anyway, how are you getting on with your list of nations who are using the "common practice" of using asthma treatment for non-asthmatics in the same fashion as Norway? Since last time your assertion that this was common practice in several nations was questioned, you could only name Maurice Manificat as an example. As you've gone back to the assertion that it is done by several nations and trump up your scientific mindset, I can only presume that you have unearthed further evidence that backs up your assertion, as restating an unsatisfactory conclusion would surely be a no-no?

bla bla bla....

I cant adress all your points, due to time constraints/lack of patience/lazyness etc. But I can give you some possible asnvers to the asthma drama:

I'll try to explain how this ashtma drugs to healthy athletes started:
Ernst A. Lersveen, a reporter for TV2 asked Norwegian athletes if they had used Asthma medications. They confirmed they had, and they also comfirmed they did not have the diagnosis Asthma.

Headline: "Ski federation gives asthma medication through nebulizers to healthy athletes"

The problem here is that there are legitimate uses for asthma medications for conditions other than Asthma. For example the Swedes in there guidelines used a term Bronchial hyperactivity in addition to Asthma. In any case the athletes in the headline had other issues which were legitimately treated with asthma medications. They were not healthy and they did not have asthma. So the main problem with the headline is that the term healthy is misleading. So this starts a media scrum, with especially Swedish media riling up their readers.

In the end, the argument came down to the use of nebulizers, with the swedes having the moral high ground, which turned out to be very lonely as pointed out in the previous links. This asthma thing was silly from the start, and says more about the media environment for XC skiing than the use/misuse of asthma medications.

From your response you indicated you had not watched the video since you kept going on about failing to notice the marker. If you can miss a guy in a freaking gorilla suit you can miss a red marker. It's just how we humans function.

I'm not going to give you anymore evidence since that would be to much work for me. If the German government has any guidelines for the usage of medications, you can look there and see that asthma drugs are used for other things than asthma.

And likewise, you failed to notice anybody other than Manificat who uses asthma medication without asthma and doesn't compete for Norway, but it didn't stop you returning to your point that everybody does it except Sweden.

And quite simply, just because when specifically asked to focus on another task the human brain can miss something, does not erase the basic tenet of strict liability. And quite simply, Johaug cannot be innocent even if we accept that the substance taken was not with the intention of enhancing performance. She cannot delegate the fullness of her responsibility to the doctor under the current code, because that removes any responsibility from the athlete for their own actions and reduces them to automatons in the eyes of the lawmakers. Now, she can delegate part of the responsibility, i.e. claim that she took less care because of the trusted position of the doctor. But she cannot be absolved of all responsibility for her own actions without setting a very dangerous precedent, and it is not only understandable but wholly correct that CAS does not want to go down that road and therefore has to be seen to hold Therese responsible at least in part and act accordingly. The fact that they gave her the 18 months and not the full 4 years shows that there is some acceptance that responsibility is diminished somewhat, but a full exoneration is neither reasonable nor desirable.

 

[python]

The cas just
essentially acquitted legkov and belov and allowed them into a completion starting 1 November. The Mc laren report was criticized as presenting insufficient evidence.

So we got 2 innocent top skiers punished essentially b/c an 'independent' canadian lawyer wrote a politically charged report...

I am traveling...the link later...

 

[Rider]

Legkov & Belov cleared by CAS
http://wieschemann.eu/en/cas-mclaren-report-allein-kein-beweis-fuer-einen-doping-verstoss-eines-einzelnen-athleten

 

[BullsFan22]

Not so fast on the clearing of Russian skiers. The Oswald commission (I believe this one was set up by the IOC) has to go through the testing of samples to give the final go ahead. There is another commission doing similar work. The Russians are hoping that one of them (can't remember which one) will give them the benefit, so I wouldn't quite say they are cleared to race just yet. They very well could be on their way, but I won't believe it until I see it.

 

[Blaaswix]

The asthma affair comes back to Norway's attention again. There's a *lot* to read here. http://www.vg.no/sport/langrenn/en-skiskandale-med-stor-s/a/24150764/

Norway's health authority has concluded in a report released this week that the research conducted by Norges Idrettshøgskole on asthma medications and sport that: (from the article)

The state health authority takes 'very seriously' that the project was carried out without prior ethical approval.

It wasn't clear what the research project was trying to show/discover.

Healthy athletes were exposed to risk without ensuring that there would be any useful results.

In an article published in the BMJ it was wrongly written that the project had ethical approval.

In this article: http://www.vg.no/sport/langrenn/idr...e-at-de-har-vaert-paa-ville-veier/a/24151602/ a Norwegian medical professor who led on the ethics committee assessing the research application says that the project "Bronchial reactivity and airway inflammation in top athletes in cross country skiing and biathlon" was refused ethical approval because the committee thought that "the underlying purpose for the research with the testing is thought to be to promote athletes' performances". Evensen still believes this today.
"This affair indicates that many considerations were set aside to achieve top results in our parade sport".

Testing of asthma medications on athletes was carried out over 20 years, says the article.

It's getting harder and harder to look forward to the XC season.

 

[Cloxxki]

Skiing is my main hobby in life but I can't look forward to the season either. Johaug sealed the deal I'm afraid. I kind of knew it was unlikely for her to be clean, but the way it was all handled just makes it so hard to swallow. It's more than just cheating when "everyone" does it. The lying and hypocricy get to me. Governmental support.

 

[spalco]

Re: Re:

Not directly related to XC skiing obviously, but somewhat relevant to the bolded part perhaps.

Eddy Merckx thought EPO was OK, but he was not an exception. I remember a discussion we had in November 1995 [...] when we began talking about the new drug EPO, Merckx and De Cauwer shouted in unison: "But EPO is not doping!"

from 'Hans Vandeweghe: Wie gelooft die renners nog?'

I'm replying to this very late, because I just wondered what the hell happened with that Johaug thing, so I came to check this thread (nobody, I mean literally nobody in Austria gives a *** about cross country skiing in August, so I missed the news).

But, I absolutely don't even understand Merckx' and De Cauwers's mind there. What could possibly be doping other than EPO? Are steroids possibly worse when they absolutely have therapeutic value as well? Smoking a crack pipe during the ride?
What are they talking about?

 

[meat puppet]

Perhaps Eddy thinks epo is just a means to return a strained body to its "normal" state or even to pre-empt such a strain altogether when "riding lots" as he used to put it.

Similar to the Norwegian story line about asthma meds. Just check Tores posts here.

To me the coming xc season is the same as it ever was. We know a bit more, and one cheat continues jet holiday, is all. Semi expecting crazy feats from some finns.

 

[Aragon]

Re: Re:

The "therapeutic doping"- explanation is possible, there are a few other possibilities for remarks by Merckx and De Cauwers:

1) "What can not be tested isn't banned" - attitude. The history of sports is full of "banned" things that are barely regulated, things such as amateur rules, transfusions, undetectable hormones and even hypnosis being "technically" prohibited without any kind of test. rEPO could fit in to this category as well as another dead letter.

2) Merckx might've been aware that some teams had used transfusions in the past, and unlike logistically difficult transfusions, rEPO was accessible to everyone and therefore less "cheating" or "unfair advantage" and therefore step towards the right direction and only a "necessary evil".

3) Due to prevalence of rEPO use in mid-1990s, at least some people were under the impression that rEPO wasn't even banned in 1990s before the test was developed. "Personally I think EPO will soon be banned, and if the French Cycling Federation starts analysing blood, then this will advance things in this area", told Christophe Bassons in a 1996 interview. When discussing the orange juice - comments of one Italian doctors in his book Bad Blood, Jeremy Whittle also emphasizes that "it is worth remembering that at this time EPO was not banned nor was there a test to detect it".

It is true that Whittle made his remarks in 2008 and the idea of Bassons might've been lost in translation, but I am pretty sure they are not the only ones who had this idea particularly semi-outsiders who only enjoyed the sports with very little incentives to follow the anti-doping regulations.

 

[Robert5091]

https://www.dagbladet.no/sport/jauh...edisin-skylden---er-det-verdt-a-leve/68795460
Sami Jauhojärvi bio details suffered from severe depression after changing asthma medicine. He will not say what it was, but he changed back to his previous medicine and the depression went.

Histamine https://www.samanthagilbert.com/histamine/

When elevated, histamine causes depression, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), and perfectionism

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Teja Gregorin suspended by the IBU following retests from Vancouver.

Gregorin has been a fixture on the biathlon circuit for many years and is now 37, intending to head into her final season before retiring after Pyeongchang. The Slovene women's team had been heavily reliant on her and Andreja Mali for several seasons. She was top 10 in the sprint, pursuit and mass start in Vancouver, while in Sochi she won bronze in the pursuit and replicated her 5th place in the mass start. She also won a silver at the 2009 World Championships in Pyeongchang - and although she would get numerous top 10s and 20s around the season, it is worth noting that she only had three career individual podiums, two of which were at major championships. Over recent years she had become a relatively peripheral figure as Slovenia struggle to maintain a presence at the forefront of the sport, and heading toward retirement it's perhaps too little too late to suspend her now, but it will be interesting to see if the 2010 Olympic retests bring up anything else interesting. Of people who were above their normal level in Vancouver, she wasn't the first one that would have sprung to mind.

 

[May0maniac]

From what I've heard about a local guy who used to be pretty good back then (top 10 in a race in the 1987 WC in Oberstdorf) he and the rest of the Italian squad,, that includes De Zolt already experimented with transfusions in the mid/late 80ies.
I won't say his name because I don't have absolute prove, but people who know the sport should get the hints, everyone around here who follows the sport knows that the guy experimented with transfusions durning that period.

 

[Rider]

Re:

... it is worth noting that she only had three career individual podiums, two of which were at major championships...

4 and 3, not 3 and 2.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re: Re:

... it is worth noting that she only had three career individual podiums, two of which were at major championships...

4 and 3, not 3 and 2.

Pyeongchang 2009 Worlds, Sochi 2014 Olympics, 2012 Oslo World Cup, and where?

She's got another World Championships medal, but that was the mixed relay at Ruhpolding in 2012.

 

[roundabout]

http://biathlonresults.com/?IBUId=BTSLO22906198001

click on 'Top'