Doping in XC skiing

[Jaco0505]

They say in the SVT video that the blood values from the skiier spans 7 years, so that means something like 2003/2004-2010 I guess. So he was active back then.
Anyone else than Rickardsson that fits these criterias?

Edit : Brink, I guess

Hellner.

Hellner debuted in the world cup in 2006.

I didn't catch the 7 years thing in the short SVT video, though. What time was in mentioned at?

5:30

 

[kosmonaut]

They say in the SVT video that the blood values from the skiier spans 7 years, so that means something like 2003/2004-2010 I guess. So he was active back then.
Anyone else than Rickardsson that fits these criterias?

Edit : Brink, I guess

Hellner.

Hellner debuted in the world cup in 2006.

I didn't catch the 7 years thing in the short SVT video, though. What time was in mentioned at?

5:30

Cheers. Then I guess it's very likely that it is DR.

 

[python]

Not exactly 1/3, but 46%, which is a lot more. Apart from that, it isn't medals between 2001 and 2010 but 2001 and 2017, i.e. over a much longer time period.

Are you sure?

Also they have set a very low bar for suspicious needing only one expert for it to be labeled as such. The ABP needs IIRC three experts to all agree to initiate a process.

There's none so blind as those that will not see.

that's right...one consistently missed point here (i hope it is involuntary) that a media (or THE media can not and should not operate operate on the basis of wada standards.

it would be very awkward and messy if they did. the'd be then called a faux anti-doping lab.

the purpose of a democratic and independent media is NOT to duplicate wada, BUT to raise questions to keep wada and ioc and fis on their toes. hopefully in a responsible manner...the blood passport data is much better than the speculation on the basis of just haemoglobin or haemocrit...in that regard, the latest documentary imo is doing just fine and the standard they used is adequate... they did achieve, at least in some instances, an inward look in stead of the endless, old-news, obsessive focus on only one nation. such obsessions create a 'feel-good' attitudes and blunt the ability to reflect. not to mention the screwed up testing results when most funds was spent chasing only one nation around or spending million of wada money (of some $15-20 total budget) funding the report that smelled and was eventually rejected by the cas due to using an inadequate legal standard.

check the svt article where the swedish anti-doping king expressed incredulity that the fis data about a doped swede has never been suspected by the swedish anti-dopers...

make no mistake, the latest documentary is a very clear and direct indictmet of fis. the only sporting organization to my knowledge that makes the names of their doping jurors ABSOLUTE SECRET.

thus the whisleblower, as i posted in the sunday times article above, was from within fis...

 

[John de Savage]

He's not talking about the swedish skier at 5:30.

 

[blueskies]

So of the big XC nations, the country with lowest percentage of suspicious athletes is Norway, which strangely is also the country who wins most. What a devastating blow to the narrative frequently pushed here and in other forums and media in other countries.

 

[Jaco0505]

He's not talking about the swedish skier at 5:30.

You are right. My bad

 

[kosmonaut]

He's not talking about the swedish skier at 5:30.

You are right. My bad

Watched it again. Agreed.

Will be exciting to see the full show on Wednesday.

 

[ToreBear]

Not exactly 1/3, but 46%, which is a lot more. Apart from that, it isn't medals between 2001 and 2010 but 2001 and 2017, i.e. over a much longer time period.

Are you sure?

Also they have set a very low bar for suspicious needing only one expert for it to be labeled as such. The ABP needs IIRC three experts to all agree to initiate a process.

There's none so blind as those that will not see.

I guess you didn't want to see that bit of info. Sorry for ruining your day.

 

[ToreBear]

So of the big XC nations, the country with lowest percentage of suspicious athletes is Norway, which strangely is also the country who wins most. What a devastating blow to the narrative frequently pushed here and in other forums and media in other countries.

Thanks for posting that, I didn't get to see that whole table in the article I read. It's interesting. And it makes sense from my understanding of things.

But of course I'm just a fan boy. :lol:

 

[blueskies]

It would be worrying if the experts frequently disagreed whether a set of samples of was suspicious or not. I'd hope this is generally not the case, so long as one's agreed on the threshold for suspicion.

The fact that the best performing athletes have a much higher share of suspicious sets of samples indicate that they're at least on to something.

For the purpose of transparency, insight and accountability, it's important that we have fact finding institutions (media) that don't have to follow as high standards of evidence and process as would be expected in a formal procedure.

As for the olympics that stands out with 9 gold medals won by "suspicious" athletes, what are the odds that we're talking about Torino?

 

[python]

So of the big XC nations, the country with lowest percentage of suspicious athletes is Norway, which strangely is also the country who wins most. What a devastating blow to the narrative frequently pushed here and in other forums and media in other countries.

Thanks for posting that, I didn't get to see that whole table in the article I read. It's interesting. And it makes sense from my understanding of things.

But of course I'm just a fan boy. :lol:

do you really understand what you are cheering ?

i suspect you dont. At least I do not understand neither what you cheered nor that chart. it's a100% genuine remark with no dig at norway. if i misunderstand, pls fix me...

it's hardly a secret that norway dominates the fis testing pool of athletes. any percentage with abnormality would constitute a big number of the norwegians potentially doped. 12% of what ???

here's what the sunday times article says about the potential non-russian dopers:
'...Other countries also had big doping problems. More than 100 medals have been won by skiers from Norway, Germany, Sweden and Italy who recorded results that were judged to be suspicious...

so the article black on white said that norway had a big doping problem along with other countries...

are they wrong b/c they are not fanboys or they may have looked at the data wrongly. which i again submit is confusing. or they just mis-expressed the numbers you cheered but said in plain english that norway had a big doping problem ???

we need to sort out the data from the sunday times. perhaps you have a point but you seem too willing to take what's not clear in the data as some sort of conclusion...no ?

 

[blueskies]

So of the big XC nations, the country with lowest percentage of suspicious athletes is Norway, which strangely is also the country who wins most. What a devastating blow to the narrative frequently pushed here and in other forums and media in other countries.

Thanks for posting that, I didn't get to see that whole table in the article I read. It's interesting. And it makes sense from my understanding of things.

But of course I'm just a fan boy. :lol:

do you really understand what you are cheering ?

i suspect you dont. At least I do not understand neither what you cheered nor that chart. it's a100% genuine remark with no dig at norway. if i misunderstand, pls fix me...

it's hardly a secret that norway dominates the fis testing pool of athletes. any percentage with abnormality would constitute a big number of the norwegians potentially doped. 12% of what ???

here's what the sunday times article says about the potential non-russian dopers:
'...Other countries also had big doping problems. More than 100 medals have been won by skiers from Norway, Germany, Sweden and Italy who recorded results that were judged to be suspicious...

so the article black on white said that norway had a big doping problem along with other countries...

are they wrong b/c they are not fanboys or they may have looked at the data wrongly. which i again submit is confusing. or they just mis-expressed the numbers you cheered but said in plain english that norway had a big doping problem ???

we need to sort out the data from the sunday times. perhaps you have a point but you seem too willing to take what's not clear in the data as some sort of conclusion...no ?

That chart simply shows the share of athletes from each country in the database who has registered suspicious blood values.

We don't know how many medals each country's suspicious athletes have won, nor do we know the degree of suspicion for the medal winners.

While it's very clear from looking at the statistics, that they're onto something and their method has predictive force (it scores much higher for medal winners), there are undoubtedly false positives as well.

It would be very naive to believe that any country is absolved from cheating athletes. As long as the rewards are high and the risks are low, there are always going to be cheaters - everywhere. And the general public is not aware of how easy it has been to cheat without detection. However, it's hard to reconcile that chart with the theory that Norway wins because they dope, at the very least, it's ironic that of all the big XC nations of recent times, Norway has the lowest share of suspicious athletes and lower than Sweden.

The curious thing about that chart in particular is that it corresponds fairly well with the stereotypes.

 

[alternator]

So of the big XC nations, the country with lowest percentage of suspicious athletes is Norway, which strangely is also the country who wins most. What a devastating blow to the narrative frequently pushed here and in other forums and media in other countries.

Thanks for posting that, I didn't get to see that whole table in the article I read. It's interesting. And it makes sense from my understanding of things.

But of course I'm just a fan boy. :lol:

do you really understand what you are cheering ?

i suspect you dont. At least I do not understand neither what you cheered nor that chart. it's a100% genuine remark with no dig at norway. if i misunderstand, pls fix me...

it's hardly a secret that norway dominates the fis testing pool of athletes. any percentage with abnormality would constitute a big number of the norwegians potentially doped. 12% of what ???

here's what the sunday times article says about the potential non-russian dopers:
'...Other countries also had big doping problems. More than 100 medals have been won by skiers from Norway, Germany, Sweden and Italy who recorded results that were judged to be suspicious...

so the article black on white said that norway had a big doping problem along with other countries...

are they wrong b/c they are not fanboys or they may have looked at the data wrongly. which i again submit is confusing. or they just mis-expressed the numbers you cheered but said in plain english that norway had a big doping problem ???

we need to sort out the data from the sunday times. perhaps you have a point but you seem too willing to take what's not clear in the data as some sort of conclusion...no ?

That chart simply shows the share of athletes from each country in the database who has registered suspicious blood values.

We don't know how many medals each country's suspicious athletes have won, nor do we know the degree of suspicion for the medal winners.

While it's very clear from looking at the statistics, that they're onto something and their method has predictive force (it scores much higher for medal winners), there are undoubtedly false positives as well.

It would be very naive to believe that any country is absolved from cheating athletes. As long as the rewards are high and the risks are low, there are always going to be cheaters - everywhere. And the general public is not aware of how easy it has been to cheat without detection. However, it's hard to reconcile that chart with the theory that Norway wins because they dope, at the very least, it's ironic that of all the big XC nations of recent times, Norway has the lowest share of suspicious athletes and lower than Sweden.

The curious thing about that chart in particular is that it corresponds fairly well with the stereotypes.

Norway and Sweden are practically tied in frequency in the chart (12% vs 13%), so it is misleading to characterize the share of suspicious athletes as lower than Sweden. And note that Finland and Italy, stereotypically dirty, are at the exact same level, too - 13% and 12%, respectively.

So I guess you could argue from this information that the big Nordic countries may have had a level playing field from 2001 to 2010, and that Norway did not have a notable pharmaceutical edge then. Three cheers for the Estil/Hjelmeset generation?

BTW, I am no statistician, but this layman's feeling is that if false positives are used as an explanation for much more than 1% of athletes - suspicion index is supposed to be 1 in 100 or below chance, after all - there is something fishy going on. This is especially the case for athletes with multiple "pings"...

 

[Bavarianrider]

Re:

It would be worrying if the experts frequently disagreed whether a set of samples of was suspicious or not. I'd hope this is generally not the case, so long as one's agreed on the threshold for suspicion.

The fact that the best performing athletes have a much higher share of suspicious sets of samples indicate that they're at least on to something.

For the purpose of transparency, insight and accountability, it's important that we have fact finding institutions (media) that don't have to follow as high standards of evidence and process as would be expected in a formal procedure.

As for the olympics that stands out with 9 gold medals won by "suspicious" athletes, what are the odds that we're talking about Torino?

Should be 2002 or 2006,naturally those two should be the most obvious one as blood manipulation was more or less a safe game as long as you didn't go about 50%.
(as long as your name was not Mühlegg, of course)

 

[python]

That chart simply shows the share of athletes from each country in the database who has registered suspicious blood values.

i dont think you read the entire article. or if you did, you missed the important data and the point i was making.
let's try again...
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/blizzard-of-ski-doping-cheats-q3ltj2djm
you can easily find that the data base of athletes was 2000 of which abnormal/suspicious numbered 'more than 290'.

in another place, the article said: In terms of the highest number of athletes with abnormal test results overall, .....followed by Germany (20), France (18), Austria (16), Norway (16), Finland (15), Italy (12), Sweden (12), America (12), Switzerland (11) and Canada (10).

so, not only norway had more potential dopers than sweden (which is a minor point but still you seemed mislead) but also if the number 16 if divided by the data base total abnormal (290) or an entire pool (2000) does not lead to 12% in the chart you ran with...something is missing that the article hasn't specified.

again, how do you reconcile the article's black on white statement, that norway, among others had a big doping problem with the chart ?

 

[John de Savage]

That chart simply shows the share of athletes from each country in the database who has registered suspicious blood values.

i dont think you read the entire article. or if you did, you missed the important data and the point i was making.
let's try again...
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/blizzard-of-ski-doping-cheats-q3ltj2djm
you can easily find that the data base of athletes was 2000 of which abnormal/suspicious numbered 'more than 290'.

in another place, the article said: In terms of the highest number of athletes with abnormal test results overall, .....followed by Germany (20), France (18), Austria (16), Norway (16), Finland (15), Italy (12), Sweden (12), America (12), Switzerland (11) and Canada (10).

so, not only norway had more potential dopers than sweden (which is a minor point but still you seemed mislead) but also if the number 16 if divided by the data base total abnormal (290) or an entire pool (2000) does not lead to 12% in the chart you ran with...something is missing that the article hasn't specified.

again, how do you reconcile the article's black on white statement, that norway, among others had a big doping problem with the chart ?

You seem rather confused. Why would you divide the number of suspicious norwegians with the total abnormal (290) or entire pool of athletes (2000)? The chart shows percentage of skiers with suspicious blood test results by country. As in what percentage of french skiers had at least one 1/100 off-score? Apparently it's 29% of french skiers. 12% of norwegian skiers. 34% of russian skiers. Get it?

 

[BullsFan22]

So the French were more suspicious than the Norwegians? LOL.

Also some countries that are consistently at the back of the pack also having interestingly high numbers. The graphic just doesn't make sense. It's like it was made to appease someone.


Wonder if asthma meds figured into the 'leak.'

 

[kosmonaut]

Also some countries that are consistently at the back of the pack also having interestingly high numbers. The graphic just doesn't make sense. It's like it was made to appease someone.

Care to explain why it doesn't make any sense? If you're from a lesser nation and suck at skiing, you're still not going to win even though you've juiced up a little bit. Of course unless you wanna get caught right away like Mühlegg and Dürr.

 

[ToreBear]

Python the rate is 12% of norwegians had 1 or more suspicious samples. Since there should be a lot of Norwegians in the database, likely more than any other country there will likely be more individual norwegian skiers that are pinged, but the rate is still the same.

The impressions one sometimes gets in this forum is that norway should have rates more in the range of Russia.

 

[ppanther92]

Re:

Python the rate is 12% of norwegians had 1 or more suspicious samples. Since there should be a lot of Norwegians in the database, likely more than any other country there will likely be more individual norwegian skiers that are pinged, but the rate is still the same.

The impressions one sometimes gets in this forum is that norway should have rates more in the range of Russia.

I agree. Not much to interpret here. Norwegians appear to be one of the nations which have rather few abnormalities regarding their blood values. And a percentage is a relative number - this should also be clear, as well as it should be clear that in absolut terms it is likely that still a lot of Norwegians are involved, simply because of the sheer number of athletes.

“Smaller“ nations may appear higher on this list, because they have fewer athletes. In the end blood values are only a part of the big picture, as we know now that for example asthma medicine or painkillers are too widespread substances which are abused by top tier athletes. But they won't show up in a blood test.

 

[ToreBear]

OK I have had a little time to light a fire under my grey cells.

What is important to remember is that this is likely a database with only the raw blood data and that they are using a criteria that likely gives a huge amount of false positives. Meaning there are likely a lot of clean athletes that are included in their suspicious list. The upside of that is that those with no suspicious activity are extremely likely to be clean as in not blod doped.
Another important thing to remember was that the testing was not standardized until 2004-2005. That means the variation in measuremnts is likely to be a lot higher than after the standardization. Meaning there could be a lot of suspicions that are due to measuring errors before 2004-05

quote bo Berglund:
https://www.svt.se/sport/vintersport/dopningsexpert-1
orignal:

En av Sveriges ledande experter på området blodpass är Bo Berglund, som också sitter med i det medicinska rådet. Han har inte sett Uppdrag granskning men menar att det är oerhört komplext och att man ska vara försiktig med vad man säger.

– Det görs fel i provtagning, analys, det ligger liksom osäkerhet i det här. Har man klämt armen på rätt sätt, har man suttit och vilat på rätt tidpunkter och tillräckligt länge. Allt det här ska göras på standardiserat sätt och vi tog fram regler för det där kring 2004-2005, säger Berglund och fortsätter:

– Innan dess var det ”hej och hå” med standardiseringen. Så man måste också se när det här var taget. Det här är inte så lätt att det är ett värde man bara kastar fram.

google translate:

One of Sweden's leading experts in the field of blood pass is Bo Berglund, who is also in the medical council. He has not seen mission review but believes it is extremely complex and that you should be careful about what you say.

- It's done wrong in sampling, analysis, it's like uncertainty in this. If you have stuck your arm correctly, you have been sitting and resting at the right time and for a long time. All this should be done in a standardized manner and we developed rules for that around 2004-2005, "Berglund says, continuing:

"Before then it was" hello and hope "with the standardization. So one must also see when this was taken. This is not so easy that it's a value you just throw out.

Since it is likely raw data, it is unlikely to contain notes like:
*caught for doping as a result of increased testing on athlete,
* athlete was ill,
* xxx machine broken, used yyy device instead.

So that means there are a lot of things that could cause a suspicious ping not related to any doping. However if there are repeat suspicions for an athlete the chance of it being the result of an error is reduced. Also they require only one of four experts to see a reading as suspicious before including it in the suspicious group.

So the Data needs filtering/washing.
How many are suspicious if:
* Testing prior to 2004/5 is exluded
* Graded according to the amount of suspicious samples per athlete. I.e how many had one/2/3/etc suspicious samples.
* Graded according to samples degree of expert agreement. I.e. How many were marked suspicious by 1/2/3/4 experts.

So a tabloid question like: Why weren't these people caught? The answer might very well be because they didn't dope.

Also important to remember about statistics. The French have very few racers. So it takes fewer tests for them to stick out. Now lets say all the suspicious tests were taken in the period before testing standardization. The suspicious reading could have an explanation that the French team were sending lets say dehydrated skiers to take samples. Thereby everybody theoretically has screwed up readings. Hence the statistical effect of just a few errors becomes huge.


So in essence: this info is interesting but it really can not say much new about doping in XC until at least some of the sources for error can be accounted for. But I would love it if the Times would give me the database. Then I might have a crack at seeing if there were any dopers that weren't caught.

 

[bambino]

Re:

Python the rate is 12% of norwegians had 1 or more suspicious samples. Since there should be a lot of Norwegians in the database, likely more than any other country there will likely be more individual norwegian skiers that are pinged, but the rate is still the same.

The impressions one sometimes gets in this forum is that norway should have rates more in the range of Russia.

Yeah this is fairly simple math. 16 Norwegians with abnormal result(s) represents 12% of all Norwegians, so there is around 133 Norwegians in the database.

More stricking to me is the relatively low number of Norwegians compared to other nations in the database. I.e using same math there are 150 Russians, 115 Finns and 92 Swedes in that database.

My suspision of some countries getting tested more frequent than others is getting stronger given Norway has definitely had most athletes in top level from all nations by far, probably followed by Sweden.

 

[lartiste]

Concerning the Norwegians, it is necessary to point out, that they emerged out of nowhere just before Olympic Games at Albertville, their main task were Olympics in Norway 2 years latter. And in fact majority of them just disappeared before or when tests on EPO were introduced. Together with Italians they were main protagonists of EPO at that time ... .

 

[BullsFan22]

Yep, the Norwegians are such 'super men/women' that not even government sponsored doping programs can beat them....Give me a break.

Do people REALLY still think that? Really?

The higher you go in pro sport the higher the chances of doping. If all of these countries like Russia, France, Germany, Austria, Finland, Italy, etc had 'more' doping than the Norwegians and even the Swedes, wouldn't they be the ones dominating the sport? And please, let's not go back to the 2010/2011 debates on 'better grinds, better skis, better equipment, better culture, better food, etc.' Those are stories for little kids of beginners of the sport.

 

[Oude Geuze]

So this must all mean that the Russians are the victims of an even greater political conspiracy than first thought, not only were they wrongly accused of doping in Sochi, but someone has actually gone to the trouble of fabricating hundreds of blood results over a 7 year span just to disparage Russia as a nation!

On a serious note, this lends some credence to the doping “intuition” that most people have, nothing really surprising. I do however, wonder how much altitude training would impact these results. We know that elite endurance athletes are self selected for high Hb, and the addition of “living high, training low” might tip values into suspicious territory.