Doping in XC skiing

[maltiv]

Well I wrote that on 18th and Tora wasn't first by that time, you see? You have count on time flowing by... And compared to last year she was worse this season until Antholz, no doubts.

It's her shooting that has been worse than usual. Her skiing speed has been at a stable high level all season, even having the fastest ski-time in some races before Christmas.

 

[Velo1ticker]

Well I wrote that on 18th and Tora wasn't first by that time, you see? You have count on time flowing by... And compared to last year she was worse this season until Antholz, no doubts.
About Svendsen I said undirectly that he is in great form since Oberhof. So I don't really understand what is your point.

“Now he's hiding somewhere again.” You do know about the wherabout rules so this is an obvious doping accusation, you do understand that.

Tora have struggled with the prone shooting and that's what different from last year.

 

[Mr. Brooks]

does anyone know the absolute number of licensed/registered race license holders or merely regular race participants in norway (all levels and genders -from juniors to masters to amateurs etc ) ?
how many are regularly racing (locally , nationally or abroad) ?
for example, i recently found out that in russia the first questions answers - about 60,000.
the 2nd - about 10,000 of which 2700 were officially rated by the federation's ranking system.

i know all the arguments about quality vs quantity, but let's start with pure numbers...does norway top the numbers ?

Hi python;
Your questions got me interested too, so I did some searching. This is the best that I could find, please take these numbers for what they are worth. They should at least give an indication of the sport’s popularity in Norway.

Number of annual race licenses 2012/13 season: 10.531
Number of single race licenses 2012/13 season: >53.000
Number of XC club members 31/12/2012: 143.259
(Source: The national skiing federation’s annual report 2012-2013, http://www.skiforbundet.no/Documents/Om Skiforbundet/Årsberetning 2012-2013l.pdf)

 

[Libertine Seguros]

“Now he's hiding somewhere again.” You do know about the wherabout rules so this is an obvious doping accusation, you do understand that.

Tora have struggled with the prone shooting and that's what different from last year.

She's also been shooting notably slower in standing this year, until recent races. Last year she was, bar Dorothea Wierer, the fastest shot from standing on the world circuit (among women at least, I don't know how she stacks up against Simon Eder, the fastest man), in addition to her average being 89% (this season it is 83%). At Christmas she was down to 27th fastest shooter, and while this has improved greatly as her form has got better in January, she's still some way off Wierer, Preuß and Romanova, who are the fastest women on the circuit, as well as the likes of Vilukhina and Pidhrushna. Tora on her best form would be shooting in standing as fast as the likes of Wierer, although in prone she can't match the Italian's tempo (not that it matters, as Berger was at Christmas the 4th fastest woman on the world circuit - behind Domracheva, Mäkäräinen & Valj Semerenko - and Wierer only about 50th).

Either way, a lot of times last season when coming in to the final shoot alongside others, Berger would put the pressure on by shooting fast and shooting often very accurately; often even if they hit all 5 targets, the fast skiers like Domracheva, Mäkäräinen or Gössner would still have their work cut out to catch Tora as she'd give herself a 10 second cushion with the speed of her final shoot. Often, though, her fast shooting would make them rush theirs to try to catch her and cause them to miss, safeguarding a win, and this has been a weapon she has been unable to call upon for much of this season.

 

[kingjr]

Fastest men on the range are Volkov and Arwidson mostly these days. And they are not much quicker than Wierer.

 

[Cloxxki]

British Eurosport biathlon commentators mentioned that going into the recent races, the German (and I want to say French) men spiked up in ski speed about 3% relative to the other nations. They're sweethearts so they likely didn't mean what we all think of first. And we got a double win for a new German guy.

3% ski speed, that's a huge f'ing deal. I suppose it takes about 6% in power output. At nearly 30kph standing up, air drag is significant. And time spent in corners and on descends limit the amount of track time that increased fitness has purchase on.

 

[wansteadimp]

British Eurosport biathlon commentators mentioned that going into the recent races, the German (and I want to say French) men spiked up in ski speed about 3% relative to the other nations. They're sweethearts so they likely didn't mean what we all think of first. And we got a double win for a new German guy.

3% ski speed, that's a huge f'ing deal. I suppose it takes about 6% in power output. At nearly 30kph standing up, air drag is significant. And time spent in corners and on descends limit the amount of track time that increased fitness has purchase on.

It was the French who were mentioned.

An other interesting comment was about the last successful Italian relay team in the earlier 90's, my immediate thought was I wonder what Conconi knows about them?

 

[Cloxxki]

It was the French who were mentioned.

An other interesting comment was about the last successful Italian relay team in the earlier 90's, my immediate thought was I wonder what Conconi knows about them?

Ah, another loyal viewer, I am not the only snow nut

And what to think of the lack of a Russian overall WC winner. Doesn't that actually speak for them? People love to complain about Russians, but I get the impression they dope old fashioned, get caught more easily and often, and never get to really play with the top users.

In biathlon, I get the impression that those relying on dope for their best performances are being forced to pick their races. Good at the beginning of the season, after missing out a WC for "altitude", and the run-up for a big tournament. Penty of XC skiers give me the same feeling. Bjoergen most notoriously. Can win a few races, but runs out of steam soon. Seems more reliant of the "training" than others.
Imagine it's become impossible to drug up while on tour, due to chance of searches and tests, then surely you expect people to be best after having had some good time away from testers.

On the one hand, as a fan it's hard to imagine some to be doping. But to expect them to hang with obviously talented and IMO suspicious racers, is hypocrit. And them all being clean is a stupid fairytale. Unlikely anyone I'm rooting for is clean, right? I want (really want) to make an excepttion for Domracheva. By far superior ski style. Not just good, sublime. And fades on last laps. Gets dropped like a bad habit by Tora Berger, most of the times. Domracheva can create fast laps when skiing towards a shoot, but after the last shoot rarely she has something special. Or is that rather suspect, does she have a bad VO2 max but identical threshold thanks to enhancements? It might go either way. I feel uncomfortable by the ski styles of Tora Berger and Lucas Hofer over those last laps. A bit of a final sprint, sure, but a whole lap skied like an XC WC sprint?

 

[the sceptic]

It was the French who were mentioned.

An other interesting comment was about the last successful Italian relay team in the earlier 90's, my immediate thought was I wonder what Conconi knows about them?

They were all Conconi clients.

 

[python]

Hi python;
Your questions got me interested too, so I did some searching. This is the best that I could find, please take these numbers for what they are worth. They should at least give an indication of the sport’s popularity in Norway.

Number of annual race licenses 2012/13 season: 10.531
Number of single race licenses 2012/13 season: >53.000
Number of XC club members 31/12/2012: 143.259
(Source: The national skiing federation’s annual report 2012-2013, http://www.skiforbundet.no/Documents/Om Skiforbundet/Årsberetning 2012-2013l.pdf)

your post is a very good beginning. the numbers are impressive and, despite norway being a small country compared to Russia, the numbers appear to match or exceed their corresponding absolute numbers.
I guess you were referring to this from the link:
Det ble i sesongen 2012/2013 løst 10 531 årslisenser, hvorav 1 610 var utvidede. I overkant av 53 000 engangslisenser ble løst, i hovedsak av deltakere på de store turrennene. Antall løste lisenser er på nivå med solgte lisenser i sesongen 2011/2012.

while you did quote the numbers correctly and there is no reason to doubt their accuracy, we need to make sure that we are comparing apples to apples. for example, we need to compare the numbers of active race participants in 2 very specific areas - 1. the events modeled on the strict fis structure and rules. 2. mass/amateur events/races unrelated to fis guidance, such as citizen races, mass lopeds etc

not yours or my fault, but it is not always easy to filter and compare the statistical data from different sources composed for different purposes. like for example the document you linked was 80% a financial report for the multi-sport norwegian ski federation of which xc skiing is but one relatively small economic part. it is fine, but a web-based data base of the current norwegian racers (similar to the Russian data base I am linking below) would be just perfect.

in this regard, with some help from a knowledgible russian friend, i did more digging into the numbers. my goal was to isolate comparable sets of data of the 2 biggest xc skiing nations. i started with searching on the fis data base. here are some results. please have an independent look and correct me if I made mistakes.
http://data.fis-ski.com/global-links/search-a-athlete.html?sector=CC&rec_start=0&limit=100

-norwegian xc skiers with fis code - about 5200 (2800 active)
-russian xc skiers with fis code - about 4300 (1400 active)
-total number of ‘coded’ russian skiers in CCSFR (xc ski fed of rus) data base as of 2013 - 10, 272
http://www.flgr-results.ru/?ActiveP...&cbFilterRecord=20&eFilterFisCode=&cbStatus=0
(of this number, 2779 were ranked based on racing in fis-associated national and international events. The 2779 are the crème de la crème of russian skiing and serve as a pool for all national teams.)
-total number of Norwegian xc skiers licensed by Norges Skiforbunds to race in 2013- 10 531
(not clear how many were ranked). we need to make sure this is the same as the number of nationally coded skiers based on fis rules. of this number, as pointed above, 5200 are coded by fis (vs. the 4300 Russians). if the numbers are confirmed, they indicate a relative parity with Russia in absolute members though norway much superior in skiers recognized internationally.
-Infrequent/single race licenses in Norway -53.000 . This is the true grass roots level where natural talents can be identified for the first time. the fis structure and rules do NOT apply here.
-Infrequent/occasional xc racers in Russia- about 60,000. This number is reported on the web site of the Russian amateur ski union - RLLS. The native site http://rlls.narod.ru/ was down when i tried to access it. Here’s the googled source
http://translate.google.com/transla...refox-a&hs=RmT&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official.

in addition, it was reported that up to 600,000 participants registered to qualify for a 2007 mass event called russkaya lyzgnya.

the preliminary conclusion - while normay clearly currently holds the edge in qualitative representation at all racing levels, it is far from obvious the advantage could be simply attributed to natural selection due to wider and deeper grass roots.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

The problem with the % marker on ski time is, if it's absolute there's the risk of it being skewed by conditions and courses (the Antholz course is at high altitude, but is less challenging than many on the World Cup circuit), and if it's relative to competition then there's the risk of it being skewed by opposition (the Norwegian and Russian first teams being absent mean several skiers who would typically have been outpacing much of the German and French teams were not there to do so).

Here are the fastest people for each leg of the men's relay:
1 Lesser 17:12.0 Ferry 16:24.8 Lindström 15:54.8 Fourcade 15:58.8
2 Os +2.1 L'Abeé-Lund +3.0 Peiffer +1.2 Bergman +0.0
3 Fourcade +6.2 Birnbacher +9.7 Beatrix +33.5 Bjoentegaard +11.2
4 Weger +23.1 Slepov +16.9 Green +40.6 Schempp +11.3
5 Savitskiy +28.8 Chepelin +21.8 Eng +42.2 Lapshin +16.4

Lesser's position I see no problem with, few fast skiers against him and he's a multiple World Cup podium athlete. Birnbacher's and Schempp's ski speeds are in fact unexceptional (while Schempp won both individual races in the weekend, it was his shooting that held the key as he did so with the 5th fastest ski time in the sprint but only the 30th fastest (!) in the pursuit). Which just leaves Peiffer. Personally I think it is him and Christoph Stephan who are the most interesting in terms of ski level; Stephan had been pretty quick but unreliable before he was dropped from the squad in 2010-11. He fought back into consideration last season, but his ski speed, good on the IBU Cup, was some way slower than it had previously been. This season, in the pre-season races, he was not much quicker, but back on the World Cup his pace has jumped right back to World Cup competitive levels, even setting a shock fastest ski time in the Annecy pursuit, where he gained nine (!) positions on the final lap. And while many of those positions were not strong skiers - Mesotitsch, Smith - there were also the likes of Dmitry Malyshko and Tim Burke. Peiffer is a hard one to work out. In 2010-11 and 2011-12 he was quiet in the early part of the season but became stronger as the season went on, and won races including World Championships events, mainly on the strength of his ski speed, and was 4th in the overall World Cup both times. Last season, however, he was dreadful after a promising start at Östersund, and this season has started off similarly. Peiffer has also traditionally done well at Antholz (he won his first ever World Cup race here in 2009-10 and has been a fixture in the top 10 in most races for the following two seasons here). However, before Christmas he was 20th fastest on the World circuit, here he was 4th fastest in the sprint and 10th fastest in pursuit, as well as being far above all but Lindström on his relay leg.

Daniel Böhm's ski speed has also been about 3% better than last year's, but as he did so few races last season, and he has still been almost totally reliant on his shooting for results (hitting 20/20 but still losing positions in the Hochfilzen pursuit) I don't have so much in the way of questions about him. Nor do I really query the women, who are all clustered in the area between 10th and 30th fastest; Preuss and Dahlmeier are improving in ski speed, but then they are young, and they have been seen as potential phenoms for some time (Preuss podiuming Junior World Championships races as a 17-year-old comes to mind, and both were medallists as Juniors while still eligible for Youth races) and are more competitive on the skis in the shorter events, typically (exception in the Ruhpolding Individual where Preuss was fast, but that's on her home trails and she had excellent skis that day), Henkel is slower than she was last year and reliant on her shooting for success (which has been less than last year too), while Hildebrand is performing round about her historical norm. Evi's better than she was last year and significantly so, but then she'd been racing mostly IBU Cup races last year too.

In respect of the men in General, prior to Christmas their ski speed ranks were: Christoph Stephan 7th, Arnd Peiffer 20th, Simon Schempp 23rd, Erik Lesser 25th, Andi Birnbacher 31st, Florian Graf 32nd, Daniel Böhm 42nd. Once the races post-Christmas are taken into account they now have Peiffer 17th, Stephan 18th, Schempp 23rd, Birnbacher 31st, Graf 34th, Lesser 36th and Böhm 55th, so they have not made major progress in their home events, however it is notable that at Antholz their performances were markedly better, I'm just not convinced by the 3% figure quoted by Eurosport.

The French are another question. Martin Fourcade is one of those athletes who will be up at or near the top of the ski times more often than not and need not detain us. I assume the discussion relates primarily to the men, as the women, with the sole exception of Anaïs Bescond, are severely lacking in ski speed (Sophie Boilley hit all 10 targets in the sprint but couldn't even make the top 30, for example). Before Christmas, their best skier was Bescond, 11th fastest in the world, the next was Brunet, 37th. Obviously the lack of Marie Dorin-Habert skews that as, while not exactly competitive with Domracheva/Mäkäräinen/Gössner, she was at least able to produce a level on the skis that enabled her to be competitive with the best. Over 2012-13 Marie Dorin-Habert was the 10th fastest; following on from her Anaïs Bescond was 12th fastest (so her times before Christmas were not out of the ordinary for her), Boilley 56th, Bolliet 58th, Brunet 69th. At this point in the season, they have Bescond 13th, Brunet 50th, Bolliet 66th, Boilley 70th, Chevalier 80th... so if anything they are slower than they were. The exception is Brunet, but she was racing injured last season. Bescond had the 2nd fastest ski time in her win in the sprint in Antholz, but this reverted back to her typical norm, being 16th in the pursuit. But she is the only Frenchwoman currently capable on the skis.

So what of the French men? While Martin Fourcade is only outpaced this season by Lars Berger (who is an outlier given that he's only raced at two events, and the changing conditions that favoured him so well at Hochfilzen), the others are further down the line: Jean-Guillaume Beatrix 21st, Simon Desthieux 26th, Alexis Bœuf 46th, Simon Fourcade 49th, Quentin Fillon-Maillet 64th, Baptiste Jouty 73rd. Before Christmas they ranked somewhat differently: Simon Desthieux 11th, Jeangui Beatrix 13th, Alexis Bœuf 22nd, Simon Fourcade 52nd. At Antholz Beatrix set the 21st and 18th fastest times in the individual races, and was 30+ seconds behind Peiffer and Lindström in the relay; Bœuf, god only knows what's happened to him. He was a very competitive skier last year, and since Christmas he's dropped off a cliff. I assume he fell or had some technical issue in the relay as he was skiing competitively with L'Abée-Lund and Birnbacher, shot well enough to leave the range first, then lost fifty seconds on the final 2,5km, which is just ludicrous. Simon Fourcade is the one who's really stepped up, but even then the ski times are not stupendously better than they were, and only come back into line with where we might reasonably expect him to be (between 20 and 40), and it is that his shooting is faster and more accurate that he has come to be able to be competitive again. The real exception is Quentin Fillon-Maillet's incredible Antholz pursuit where he set the 6th fastest course time, which is so far out of his ordinary that it merits a proper mention.

So in all honesty, I don't know where this supposed improvement in the French skiers has come from. In truth there isn't that much of one in the German skiers either, but at least there is definitely one to speak of.

 

[kingjr]

Boeuf is a sprinter-type, it's not unusual for him to fade away in the last lap, we've seen it lots of times before, although in Antholz it was a bit extreme.

Fillon Maillet's time in the pursuit has to be seen in context, coming from position 32 he was most likely on all laps running in a "bunch" of sorts that carried him along allowing him to save a lot of his energy.

 

[Cloxxki]

Awesome analysis LS, thanks for sharing!

 

[Armchaircyclist]

Another indication of the popularity of cross country skiing in Norway: Todays long distance race in Marcialonga had 2500 norwegians out of 7200 skiers. That's in a race in Italy.
The race was won by a norwegian who failed to qualify for the olympic team, even though winning one distance in the national championship - Simen Østensen.

 

[roundabout]

You guys are also pretty rich

 

[neineinei]

You guys are also pretty rich

I'd be very surprised if the number of Norwegians at Marcialonga was anything like that in the 90's. More like 20. The reasons that there are so many more Norwegians there now is that Norwegians has a lot more money, and that it has become a must among Norwegian finance people to be competetive at skiing, running and cycling events like Marcialonga.

 

[python]

impatiently anticipating the sochi xc racing, i decided to play some vids from the 90s including the lillehammer 94 Olympics...

this was the era of norwegian men and russian women dominating xc skiing.. this was also the golden era of epo spreading throughout endurance sports concurrent with advent of mysterious stone grinding and the revolution in sports nutrition….

…after watching de zolt interviewed, my explosive laughter woke up my daughter…the same de zolt who ran the 1st leg of the infamous 4x10 km relay when the italians crushed norges including bjorn daehlie in the last leg…

the then 43 yo said, ‘every one was surprised, how i was able to survive in the sport for so long… i train very hard and i eat special diet and drink special drinks, specifically, high quality pasta and red wine…a lot of it. I can not tell you how many glasses i drink, but if i did I’d get in trouble

he survived the later busts that wiped out the russians and the finns, except the seized conconis files explicitly referred to him, among other elite italian endurance athletes, being on epo… lots of it.

let see if the comedy repeats itself in 2 weeks

 

[maltiv]

the then 43 yo said, ‘every one was surprised, how i was able to survive in the sport for so long… i train very hard and i eat special diet and drink special drinks, specifically, high quality pasta and red wine…a lot of it. I can not tell you how many glasses i drink, but if i did I’d get in trouble

That's a good find. Hilarious stuff right there, but sad to see that people still believe similar excuses.

I mean, if you switch wine with beetroot juice, this is essentially what Horner said too...

 

[Armchaircyclist]

I'd be very surprised if the number of Norwegians at Marcialonga was anything like that in the 90's. More like 20. The reasons that there are so many more Norwegians there now is that Norwegians has a lot more money, and that it has become a must among Norwegian finance people to be competetive at skiing, running and cycling events like Marcialonga.

--------------
Russia has so many more rich people than Norway that it would be ridiculous to make up the numbers. I'm quite sure the swedes have some rich people too, as do the finns. So why do rich Norwegians go to ski in Marcialonga, and not the rich people from other countries ? Because of cross country skiing's special position in Norway, opposed to its status in these other countries.

By the way, did anybody mention that the 6 first in the race were Norwegians ? Since this is the clinic, do we have a new wonderdrug here ?

 

[Armchaircyclist]

That's a good find. Hilarious stuff right there, but sad to see that people still believe similar excuses.

I mean, if you switch wine with beetroot juice, this is essentially what Horner said too...

------------
I remember him quoted in Norway as to drinking a bottle of red wine per day. Seems a bit excessive for an athlete...

 

[sworks]

More doping, Russia and Lituania. http://www.aftonbladet.se/sportbladet/vintersport/skidskytte/article18257008.ab

 

[Libertine Seguros]

How long before the names leak? Probably not long. Both sexes, two countries, both former Ostbloc nations. Just the same old problem of not being up to date enough in what they're doing, or dosing too much in the hunt for Sochi qualification?

 

[roundabout]

Walter Mayer fails at doping his athletes again

Guess I was wrong as he did not make it that far

 

[python]

of the 3, two are russians...of the 2, one is zaitseva - according to an 'informed' source from one of the forums who often was indeed spot on.

rumours, rumours...

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Wow, that would be big. I was thinking more likely to be the fringe Russian team members or those who've stepped up big time this season, or even Ekaterina Iourieva since she was almost back to her best earlier in the year but absolutely nowhere since. I never would have thought Zaitseva. I thought she'd be smarter than that. The others would have been taking risks to make the Olympic squad. Zaitseva was always going to be there.