Doping in XC skiing

[Cloxxki]

they are usually told, yes, unless they specifically ask for it not to be done.

so the fella running the test will stand there shouting

"keep working, you're approaching 85! looking good. shall we increase the pace? [waiting for thumb up] OK, you want more speed. ok, we're up to a speed which is going to require you pushing 90ml! use your arms, remember to breath, remember to breath! still looking strong! can you do another minute? new o2 reading in 20 seconds. work work work! come on, now 91, keep on, can you go another 30, [test leader sees that the athlete's about to die], last 30 now, remember to breath, this is the final 100meters of the olympics, keep going son, you can do it, just 10 more"

this is how the dude who tested daehlie's 96 does it anyway

Seems the technical advice to perform the test optimally is useful, like working the arms etc. In my tests, the next step in power simply with come. I might be warned for it, sometimes not. But I never got to offer a thumbs up for it. It's a test, not a running experience fun time.
On the ergo, my one-year personal trainer would only test me to find my current threshold, and the test would that 40mins of better. Really slow increase in power.

The way you guys are explaining this, Daelie is dropping in my regard more and more. It WAS a dirty time, and the gap to close with mere talent and dedication huge. The guy to beat, dedicated THUS doping, was at least nearly talented as well. Like a race car that is equal but on better octane fuel, there is no beating that.

 

[ingsve]

The Swedes were probably doing blood transfusions, along with most others during the 1980's - it wasn't even a banned method until 1985. But there's a reason to believe they stayed off EPO - and it's an interesting question as to why. One possibility is this - 7 Swedish orienteering racers died between 1987 and 1992, and it's widely believed they over-dosed on EPO.

Oh, I remember those deaths. At the time it was speculated that it was a bacterial disease called TWAR that was the cause and I just found an article from 2001 that then instead thought it was another bacteria that had caused the deaths. EPO seems a likely culprit.

That reminds me of an old classmate of mine who said he was blood doping. He competed in orienteering and was only around 15 at the time. This was a few years after the orienteering deaths.

 

[RdBiker]

There are a few general trends to consider. First, when did teams switch from blood transfusions to EPO - and secondly when did they switch back when EPO testing came along in 2001-2002. Finally, the introduction of Hb limits in 1997 (18.5 g/l for men) and in 2001 (17.5 g/l for men) started to limit the advantage of the dopers. But back in the 1990's when there was no Hb limits, and no test for EPO, the only thing holding back success was the know-how and access to EPO.

Blood transfusions were common in the 1980's - but logisitically much more difficult to arrange than an easy EPO injection into the arm. It's also unlikely the skiers would have drawn multiple blood bags to reinfuse during the Olympics or World Championships - something that was required to do well at the cycling grand tours. Hence this is one trend you can use to gauge who was on EPO and who was not.

Races were still very close at the World Championships in 1989 in Lahti, and in 1991 in Val di Fiemme, suggesting no one was on EPO yet:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIS_Nordic_World_Ski_Championships_1989
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIS_Nordic_World_Ski_Championships_1991

Compare these results to the Olympics in 1992 in Albertiville and results suddenly got grazy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-country_skiing_at_the_1992_Winter_Olympics

The Swedes were probably doing blood transfusions, along with most others during the 1980's - it wasn't even a banned method until 1985. But there's a reason to believe they stayed off EPO - and it's an interesting question as to why. One possibility is this - 7 Swedish orienteering racers died between 1987 and 1992, and it's widely believed they over-dosed on EPO.

http://sportsanddrugs.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=001212

This could have scared off the Swedish athletes from EPO, even as other nations learned its power and how to adjust the dosages to safe(r) levels.

Hmm...you make a very good point. There are awfully many Norwegians and Italians taking the top placings in 1992 whereas in 1989&1991 they aren't as dominating:

1992 Men's distances:
Feb10 30K classic - top5: Nor, Nor, Nor, Ita, Nor
Feb13 10K classic - top2: Nor, Ita
Feb15 15K pursuit - top4: Nor, Nor, Ita, Ita
Feb18 4x10K relay - 1st Norway, 2nd Italy
Feb22 50K freest - top3: Nor, Ita, Ita

Albertville was closest to Italy so it might be possible that the Italians could visit home between events (=blood refills?) Of course there are again a million other variables that could've affected performance in Albertville but the results are still interesting

 

[ingsve]

1992 Men's distances:
Feb10 30K classic - top5: Nor, Nor, Nor, Ita, Nor

That race is very misleading. It was snowing tremendously that day and the norwegian team took the gamble that it would continue snowing while other teams prepared their skis for it to stop snowing. As a result Norway had by far the best skis that day. Had the snowing stopped they would be nowhere to be seen in the results.

 

[python]

i have to come back to this point again, the uci needs to take example from fis when dealing with some 'cycling nations'

the international ski federation was ready to disqualify an entire nation from all and any xc ski completion for 4 years including their own winter olympics. only extreme and urgent commitments from the sporting and government authorities saved them.

An excerpt from the fis decision in oberhofen reached few days ago.
http://www.fis-ski.com/uk/news/pressreleases/press-releases-2010/fis-council-oberhofen-20.html

At its last Meeting in Antalya in June 2010, the Council sanctioned the Russian Ski Association following serious concern of the FIS regarding the situation of the Russian Ski Association with the high number of doping cases and lack of adherence the FIS Anti-Doping Rules.
Prior to the Council Meeting in Oberhofen, the Russian Ski Association submitted a detailed report about the various activities and actions it has undertaken in the meantime and the Council acknowledged the positive steps taken to address the many problems in a truly meaningful way. Support from the highest levels of the Russian governing authorities through important anti-doping measures in sports have paved the way for a significant number of changes have been made including changing team and other officials, an operational anti-doping administration, comprehensive testing programs in and out of competition, as well as anti-doping education for both athletes and officials. The Council underlined that this approach of the Russian Ski Association must be a new beginning and it will monitor progress whilst supporting the on-going work.

 

[RdBiker]

i have to come back to this point again, the uci needs to take example from fis when dealing with some 'cycling nations'

the international ski federation was ready to disqualify an entire nation from all and any xc ski completion for 4 years including their own winter olympics. only extreme and urgent commitments from the sporting and government authorities saved them.

An excerpt from the fis decision in oberhofen reached few days ago.
http://www.fis-ski.com/uk/news/pressreleases/press-releases-2010/fis-council-oberhofen-20.html

What are the chances of UCI banning Spanish cyclists from competing And the Spanish cyclists have even more problems with doping than the Russian skiers...On top of that you have a national federation that has no interest in banning their riders. And what's even worse they do everything they even support their doped riders...

 

[Trond Vidar]

Dahlie was the undisputed king during the dirtiest doping period in cross-country skiing. Did he do it clean? Frankly, that would be physically impossible. The EPO era was exclusionary - especially when there were no limits on Hb or Hkr - you had no chance to be in top 10 unless you were on it.

I don't want to make this into a big dispute, since we'll likely never settle the debate - no one's going to come up with the conclusive evidence at this stage.

But the comparison to Armstrong is not far off the mark: consistently beating known / admitted dopers during the EPO era was simply not possible by just eating your wheaties. Contrast the following popular claims about the two athletes:

- Most dedicated training ethic ("I'm on my bike 7 hours a day - what are you on?")
- Best technique ("Lance increased his cadence to 110 to be able to use his physical capacity")
- Best equipment ("Endless hours spent in the wind tunnel")
- Most gifted athlete ("Lance won early, youngest world champ ever")
- Dedication, attention to detail, pursuit of perfection ("relentless focus, singular goal, total team effort")

Here's a good example. 10km classic from 1998 Nagano Olympics. Height of the EPO era - everyone knew about its benefits, and there was no EPO test in sight. Hb limit was still a ridiculously high 18.5 g/l and plasma expanders were legal. An educated guess is that the first clean athlete was USA's John Bauer in 41st place, 9% behind the winner. Who's on top? The great Bjorn Dahlie.

http://www.fis-ski.com/uk/604/610.html?sector=CC&raceid=1279

You take for granted that all men all created equal. Both physically and mentally. Which is cute.

Some are better than others. Many dopers don't even make it into the big playing field. Why was John Bauer clean?

 

[Tubeless]

i have to come back to this point again, the uci needs to take example from fis when dealing with some 'cycling nations'

the international ski federation was ready to disqualify an entire nation from all and any xc ski completion for 4 years including their own winter olympics. only extreme and urgent commitments from the sporting and government authorities saved them.

An excerpt from the fis decision in oberhofen reached few days ago.
http://www.fis-ski.com/uk/news/pressreleases/press-releases-2010/fis-council-oberhofen-20.html

There is a big difference between FIS and UCI. FIS has been fighting doping head-on for years - their turning point was the Lahti doping scandal in 2001 - while UCI has been trying to look the other way - or at best "manage" the doping problem. This is just one of many such examples.

Time will tell whether the Russians shape up. Unfortunately, doping is ingrained in their culture. I would not be surprised a few more Russians being caught this year. In that happens it will then be the true test of the resolve of the FIS - it's one thing to threaten with a ban, yet quite another to go through with it.

On the other hand, Austria was effectively banned from the 2010 Olympics for cross-country skiing due to their scandal in 2006 Torino games. FIS played an active role there as well.

 

[Tubeless]

You take for granted that all men all created equal. Both physically and mentally. Which is cute.

Some are better than others. Many dopers don't even make it into the big playing field. Why was John Bauer clean?

I am making a guess on John Bauer, but have some knowledge and reason to believe that the US team did not take EPO back then.

But back to the main point. Let's assume FIS world cup skiing is relatively clean of doping today. That seems to be the consensus. The finishing times are incredibly close - take this example from last year: 15km classic in Kuusamo, Finland. Interval starts, tough course. Today's unquestioned superstar Northug of Norway wins - 1 min off the lead (or 2.8%) did not get you into the top 30.

http://www.fis-ski.com/uk/604/610.html?sector=CC&raceid=16151

Contrast this with the EPO's go-go years from the 1990s. Let's take this 10km classic race from the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics. Interval starts, tough course. Bjorn Dahlie wins, and beats an admitted EPO-doper Mika Myllyla (6th place) by 45 secs, or 3.1%. The difference between 1st place and 30th place is a whopping 8.7%.

http://www.fis-ski.com/uk/604/610.html?sector=CC&raceid=461

I am happy to agree that Dahlie was the best skier of his era. But was he clean? To argue that is to deny reality. Dahlie skied during the days when there we no Hb limits and no EPO test to get caught. EPO is generally accepted to give you an honest 5% boost over clean comptitors. Was a clean Dahlie therefore 8.1% (5 + 3.1) better than a (5% EPO adjusted) Myllyla?

When you contrast those days to today's close racing, it should make people realize something was badly amiss in the 1990s - and that applies equally to cycling and xc-skiing.

 

[Tyler'sTwin]

Here's a good example. 10km classic from 1998 Nagano Olympics. Height of the EPO era - everyone knew about its benefits, and there was no EPO test in sight. Hb limit was still a ridiculously high 18.5 g/l and plasma expanders were legal. An educated guess is that the first clean athlete was USA's John Bauer in 41st place, 9% behind the winner. Who's on top? The great Bjorn Dahlie.

http://www.fis-ski.com/uk/604/610.html?sector=CC&raceid=1279

Because the swedes were obviously jacked, right?

Year, In-season avg, Off-season avg, Peak

97–98 (n=8) 146,4±3,5 149,2±3,1 161

 

[ingsve]

I am making a guess on John Bauer, but have some knowledge and reason to believe that the US team did not take EPO back then.

But back to the main point. Let's assume FIS world cup skiing is relatively clean of doping today. That seems to be the consensus. The finishing times are incredibly close - take this example from last year: 15km classic in Kuusamo, Finland. Interval starts, tough course. Today's unquestioned superstar Northug of Norway wins - 1 min off the lead (or 2.8%) did not get you into the top 30.

http://www.fis-ski.com/uk/604/610.html?sector=CC&raceid=16151

Contrast this with the EPO's go-go years from the 1990s. Let's take this 10km classic race from the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics. Interval starts, tough course. Bjorn Dahlie wins, and beats an admitted EPO-doper Mika Myllyla (6th place) by 45 secs, or 3.1%. The difference between 1st place and 30th place is a whopping 8.7%.

http://www.fis-ski.com/uk/604/610.html?sector=CC&raceid=461

I am happy to agree that Dahlie was the best skier of his era. But was he clean? To argue that is to deny reality. Dahlie skied during the days when there we no Hb limits and no EPO test to get caught. EPO is generally accepted to give you an honest 5% boost over clean comptitors. Was a clean Dahlie therefore 8.1% (5 + 3.1) better than a (5% EPO adjusted) Myllyla?

When you contrast those days to today's close racing, it should make people realize something was badly amiss in the 1990s - and that applies equally to cycling and xc-skiing.

I'm not saying the conclusion is wrong but you can't compare the top 30 of a World Cup race with an Olympic race. The competition in the top 30 in the World Cup is much thougher since most top nations have at least 8 riders at the start while at the Olympics they only have 4 so while the top in the Olympics is the very best the top 30 is overall weaker than in the World Cup.

To be fair the comparison would have to be between world cup to world cup or championship to championship if one wants to draw any conclusions from diffrence between first and no 30. It would also be interesting to see a statistically significant number of races analyzed.

 

[TheFixxer]

Oh, I remember those deaths. At the time it was speculated that it was a bacterial disease called TWAR that was the cause and I just found an article from 2001 that then instead thought it was another bacteria that had caused the deaths. EPO seems a likely culprit.

That reminds me of an old classmate of mine who said he was blood doping. He competed in orienteering and was only around 15 at the time. This was a few years after the orienteering deaths.

Well, the researchers discovered a bacterium, Bartonella, among all the orienteering deaths. In combination with physical exertion Bartonella can bring on heart and cause heart muscle inflammation, which in some cases can lead to death.

If you believe in that a orienteering kid were doing blood doping, then you have to be real stupid!

 

[Tubeless]

I'm not saying the conclusion is wrong but you can't compare the top 30 of a World Cup race with an Olympic race. The competition in the top 30 in the World Cup is much thougher since most top nations have at least 8 riders at the start while at the Olympics they only have 4 so while the top in the Olympics is the very best the top 30 is overall weaker than in the World Cup.

To be fair the comparison would have to be between world cup to world cup or championship to championship if one wants to draw any conclusions from diffrence between first and no 30. It would also be interesting to see a statistically significant number of races analyzed.

Eliminating the "extra" skiers for the few countries that placed more than 4 in the top 30 does not make much of a difference in the calculation. Here's the nations split in top 30 from World Cup Kuusamo 2010:

7 - Norway
6 - Russia
4 - Germany
3 - Sweden
2 - Finland
1 - USA
1 - Switzerland
1 - France
1 - Poland
1 - Czech Republic
1 - Kazakhstan
1 - Estonia
1 - Slovakia

If we drop the extra 3 Norwegians and 2 Russians, we'll extend the comparison time to 35th place - which is only 6 seconds slower than 30th. The difference from 1st place to 35th place is still only 3%.

In the Lillehammer race from 1994 the difference from 1st place to 6th place was 3.1%.

 

[Tubeless]

Because the swedes were obviously jacked, right?

The only Swede that looks "too good" at these olympics is Niklas Johnsson. He got silver in the 50km, just 8 seconds behind Dahlie - and nearly 9 minutes (or 7.2%) ahead of the next best Swede, Mathias Fredriksson. You can't say the team did an amazing wax job since only one succeeded, and "really good skis" can give you at best a 1% advantage over other top skiers who'd obviously be skiing at least on "good skis".

http://www.fis-ski.com/uk/604/610.html?sector=CC&raceid=1282

 

[roundabout]

The only Swede that looks "too good" at these olympics is Niklas Johnsson. He got silver in the 50km, just 8 seconds behind Dahlie - and nearly 9 minutes (or 7.2%) ahead of the next best Swede, Mathias Fredriksson. You can't say the team did an amazing wax job since only one succeeded, and "really good skis" can give you at best a 1% advantage over other top skiers who'd obviously be skiing at least on "good skis".

http://www.fis-ski.com/uk/604/610.html?sector=CC&raceid=1282

as far as i remember, Jonsson started as number 2 30 seconds ahead of Daehlie, was caught before half distance and then attacked Daehlie with about 4k to go. IIRC it was also a warm day, with the early starters having an advantage due to the soft snow.

 

[Tubeless]

as far as i remember, Jonsson started as number 2 30 seconds ahead of Daehlie, was caught before half distance and then attacked Daehlie with about 4k to go. IIRC it was also a warm day, with the early starters having an advantage due to the soft snow.

Here's a video of Johnsson attacking Dahlie in that race:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drl24gKWvxM

 

[Ferminal]

Season starts today.

http://www.fis-ski.com/?actu_id_1614=3869&actu_page_1614=

Everyone's favourite corruptable Danish blood doping expert talks up the FIS anti-doping regime.

Q: Cycling, especially, has seen some spectacular cases of doping recently which have again shattered the belief in the sport's efforts to change its culture. How much similarity do you see to skiing?

A: There are differences and similarities. The differences are that skiing historically hasn't had a lot of exotic substances, such as Phase III clinical trial pharmaceuticals, clenbuterol, steroids or similar cases telling me that cheating skiers are not constantly looking for new medical methods to improve their performance. Instead, it is telling me that newcomers may have a different approach to a possible medical improvement of their performance and if cheating, it is "old school" doping with EPO and/or blood transfusion with some exceptions which confirm the rule.

 

[RdBiker]

Season starts today.

http://www.fis-ski.com/?actu_id_1614=3869&actu_page_1614=

Yes the season started and Marit Bjorgen won the women's 10K by 40 seconds. She surely had a good start to her season. The Finnish head coach commented that he was not surprised that Bjorgen won but the winning margin was a surprise.
The Swedes have really upped the game, especially the men.

 

[Ferminal]

Yeh, I had a feeling Bjoergen might take a few weeks to settle in... but nope, she smoked it.

 

[Trond Vidar]

Yes the season started and Marit Bjorgen won the women's 10K by 40 seconds. She surely had a good start to her season. The Finnish head coach commented that he was not surprised that Bjorgen won but the winning margin was a surprise.
The Swedes have really upped the game, especially the men.

Great Swedish effort. Also for the norwegian men to have 3among the top ten without Petter, in skating. It's been a long time since that happened the last time.

 

[Trond Vidar]

And for everyone who can get around international proxies you can view everything live in great resoloution here: http://www.nrk.no/nett-tv/direkte/nrk1/#

Tomorrow is mens and womens relay

 

[roundabout]

On a slightly unrelated note, just for educational purposes as there are Norwegian posters on this board. Why are the Norwegians relatively weaker in the skating technique?

 

[zapata]

On a slightly unrelated note, just for educational purposes as there are Norwegian posters on this board. Why are the Norwegians relatively weaker in the skating technique?

Norwegians are notoriously conservative when it comes to skiing. To a lot of people, skating is not real skiing, although that's probably slowly changing. Even I feel a little like that, even though skating existed most of my lifetime. If you ask my father it's an abomination and should be outlawed.

Also, practising skating requires specifically prepared tracks, which are few and far between. Normal skiing you can do everywhere there's snow, from your backyard to your nearest mountain. Kids are skiing around on lawns and fields as soon as there's an inch of snow, but might never see a track for skating.

Mostly, though, I suspect it's just that the swedes, for instance, are better and more serious about coaching and practicing technique from an earlier age.

 

[Ingenerius]

Interesting question, especially since it could be other reasons than just chance.

Myself and all other casual skiiers in Norway, which are many, only uses the classical technique. So all the normal ski tracks in Norway are prepared with this in mind and without good possibilities for skating. (You could of course argue that nobody skates, because there are no tracks for it)

So at least where I live(Oslo), when professional and aspiring skiiers wants to train outside the stadium, it is hard for them to do so while skating.

So even if the organised training sessions divides the technique 50/50, I'm sure that every norwegian skiier has done a lot more classical than skating lifetime.

Comparing this to Switzerland(where I studied for one year), all the tracks have a skating section and the casual skiiers, which are very few compared to Norway, actually skated for the most part.

I also tried to train with a student group while there, but couldn't because all they did was skating(which I don't do).

The craziest thing was that it was actually expected in Switzerland that people(not small kids) did skating the first time they tried skiing. That was a huge shock to see coming from Norway, and not just because no norwegians ever tries skiing for the first time.

But even if I do think these things has some influence, the main reason is probably still variance.

 

[MustIski]

Using different techniques could be related to the age when one learnes to ski. Classic technique is easier to learn for young kids. In nordic countries kids start skiing when they are 2 - 5 years old. I assume that in Switzerland people start to ski at older age when they already have the skil of skating (ice). Then learning to skate ski is not a big problem. "Sunday skiers" tend to use the technique which is easier for them. In most cases that technique is the one that they learn first.