Doping in XC skiing

[mutschi]

Dario Cologna perfect doping candidate.

Haven't had time to read through the thread so I hope this hasn't been covered yet. Did anyone watch Dario Cologna win his 2nd gold? Did anyone get suspicious? Can someone wake up XC reporters? Why suspcicious?
1. He wins in 38:28 min, 28 s faster than the 2nd. There are 5 other skiers within the next 32 s. So his margin was huge about 1% faster.
2. He is one of the heaviest skiers, he is big. The curse had 540 m of climbing over 15 km. That's like 5400 m climbing over 150 km - a solid mountain stage at the Tour. The guy is heavier than Cancellara. So this is not his favorite terrain and yet - he is 1% faster
3. He didn't race for months until about 2 weeks before the Olympics. He had an injury. No racing means no doping tests when racing. Do XC skiiers have out of competition testing and do they have to report where they are at any time? If someone wanted to have a nice doping program - he was in the perfect position, I think. Ferrari lives not far away by the way.....
4. The guy was hardly breathing for the first 14 km while the others were running on their limit.

This guy looked just too good to be true. And the British reporters did not set one question mark. Sad. Maybe I am wrong, correct me please but this guy has to be investigated imo.

 

[BullsFan22]

Haven't had time to read through the thread so I hope this hasn't been covered yet. Did anyone watch Dario Cologna win his 2nd gold? Did anyone get suspicious? Can someone wake up XC reporters? Why suspcicious?
1. He wins in 38:28 min, 28 s faster than the 2nd. There are 5 other skiers within the next 32 s. So his margin was huge about 1% faster.
2. He is one of the heaviest skiers, he is big. The curse had 540 m of climbing over 15 km. That's like 5400 m climbing over 150 km - a solid mountain stage at the Tour. The guy is heavier than Cancellara. So this is not his favorite terrain and yet - he is 1% faster
3. He didn't race for months until about 2 weeks before the Olympics. He had an injury. No racing means no doping tests when racing. Do XC skiiers have out of competition testing and do they have to report where they are at any time? If someone wanted to have a nice doping program - he was in the perfect position, I think. Ferrari lives not far away by the way.....
4. The guy was hardly breathing for the first 14 km while the others were running on their limit.

This guy looked just too good to be true. And the British reporters did not set one question mark. Sad. Maybe I am wrong, correct me please but this guy has to be investigated imo.

Swiss athletes from all sports are having a stunning start to 2014 it has to be said. Tennis, XC skiing, Alpine Skiing, Biathlon, etc. Having said that, Cologna's performances are quite stunning. Was he really injured?? He was in phenomenal shape before the injury, so I am sure he didn't lose too much of his form, but to get back to world beating form so quickly, with only a couple races under his belt, without showing much fatigue, it's unbelievable. I guess he is just much more fresh than everyone else and maybe thought he had nothing to lose and headed into Sochi pretty relaxed, that's what I would like to believe. Johan Olsson is in a similar boat. The guy does this quite often though, season to season. He races sparingly, and remarkably peaks every single championship(s). First Torino, then Sapporo, Liberec was a bit of a downer as he didn't win a medal but was still close in a couple races, Vancouver he was on fire, Oslo was more of the same, last year he won 3 medals, including that epic breakaway in the 50km, and is pretty much doing the same in Sochi. I'm not sure what to believe anymore. Perhaps everyone will copy the Swedish formula starting next season: race sparingly, don't travel as much, train at home and win medals at World's.

 

[alternator]

Do XC skiiers have out of competition testing and do they have to report where they are at any time?

Yes they have out of competition testing. Yes the athletes have to report whereabouts.

XC skiing is one of the few sports that you could say has been ahead of cycling when it comes to testing (earlier implementation of blood profiles, OOC testing, targeted testing already by Salt Lake City Olympics, etc). Don't know the absolute test numbers but the number of top level competitors is much smaller too. Caveat: it is a national team oriented sport instead of commercial teams, with all the possible repercussions if a particular nation decides to hinder the testers.

Cologna is arguably the best, most consistent overall skier of the last four years (he only has some problems with the 50km races, never did very well there) so he would not have been under the testers' radar either.

 

[python]

..... Was he really injured?? ....

here’s what multiple wc podiumer, canadian babikov said about cologna's capabilities and his injury:

He‘s a machine, not a person. to come back from injury, not compete in any wc races and now to show such - amazing. nobody expected this, everyone thought it was the end of the great dario. But he came back and proved to all the opposite.

did he cheat? no, i personally saw a photo of his injury - the injury was serious. He’s not a Norwegians with their tricks.

i believe he has a twitter account. i don't, but those with one can ask him directly what he meant by the 'norwegian tricks’ and the photo.

or was this one doper defending another doper ?

 

[alternator]

On the subject of the slightly eyebrow-raising performances so far, I think most came in the first events of the Olympics:
Emma Wiken, Lars Nelson
Giorgio di Centa (old man power!)
Jaroslav Soukup, JP Le Guellec, Simon Eder
Anais Bescond, Susan Dunklee
Iivo Niskanen

In case of the youngsters it is not so suspicious to get a performance jump in your early 20s, and in case of experienced athletes it can very easily be down to skis and successful preparation. Not preparation in Clinic sense, either - athletes are still not robots and they are always balancing right at the edge of overtraining...

 

[Marco Pantani]

Well, lets see what Bjoergen will do.

 

[roundabout]

33 seconds. Game over

 

[kingjr]

Has there been any news on the cause of Sten Anders Jacobsens death?

 

[MrRoboto]

Has there been any news on the cause of Sten Anders Jacobsens death?

Why do you ask in this thread?

 

[Tyler'sTwin]

Every single swede has improved relative to the competition. Men & women. All of them.

 

[roundabout]

Not Haag. Or was she even worse before?

 

[jens_attacks]

one thing is for sure. the waxing for norwegians will improve only after leaving russia.
it sucks to see marit breathing on the mouth too breaks my heart

 

[maltiv]

Every single swede has improved relative to the competition. Men & women. All of them.

They also have excellent skis. Look how they gap everyone, bar Germany, in the descents.

 

[Silhouette]

LOL skis. 5th place with 4 of the 10 best athletes, maybe even 4 of the 6-8 best. Ice under Johaugs skis.

Something to think about for those disregarding skis/vax as a major factor in cross country skiing.

 

[roundabout]

They have been in Sochi for over a week.

Okay, it did get warmer, but somehow the rest seem to have figured the conditions out.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

LOL skis. 5th place with 4 of the 10 best athletes, maybe even 4 of the 6-8 best. Ice under Johaugs skis.

Something to think about for those disregarding skis/vax as a major factor in cross country skiing.

I would not have wanted to have had to answer to Therese after she finished her leg. The leaders were sprawled on the floor half-dead, and she was storming off looking like somebody was going to get an earful. And we know that girl can scream.

 

[python]

Every single swede has improved relative to the competition. Men & women. All of them.

1st of all, it is NOT a 100% fact when it is only 99% true
secondly, did you not get the lessons about waxing advantage

what we need now is to wait for at least 10 years and see if they can turn the apparent advantage into a consistent winning machine as the neighbors did in the 90s

 

[the sceptic]

I dont buy the skis excuse. How hard can it be to figure that one out when everyone else is doing it on like 1/10th of the budget?

The irony is beautiful though. in the 90s the norwegians always had the best skis, nutrition, alititude training, talents, etc etc but now suddenly all that has gone away.

 

[MrRoboto]

Almost as ironic as someone who obviously isn't watching skiing but always comments in this thread.

 

[jens_attacks]

I dont buy the skis excuse. How hard can it be to figure that one out when everyone else is doing it on like 1/10th of the budget?

The irony is beautiful though. in the 90s the norwegians always had the best skis, nutrition, alititude training, talents, etc etc but now suddenly all that has gone away.

they also say ivan basso lost 30 minutes on stelvio because of an bed egg. it's crazy out there. fortunately, they will come back from russia and the waxing magical will return

 

[Jaco0505]

I dont buy the skis excuse. How hard can it be to figure that one out when everyone else is doing it on like 1/10th of the budget?

http://www.tv2.no/play/sport/sotsji_ol/slik-saa-skiene-til-johaug-ut-etter-etappen-794152.html
Look under Johaugs skis in this video(14 secs in). It is pretty obvious

 

[Silhouette]

I dont buy the skis excuse. How hard can it be to figure that one out when everyone else is doing it on like 1/10th of the budget?

Do you even ski? Yes, it's a bit weird that the team with the biggest budget makes a mess of it, but just because they usually have better skis/wax than other teams doesn't mean that this is always the case. The margins are much smaller these days than 10-20 years ago. Maybe they didn't bring skis that have the perfect structure for these conditions, they say they haven't encountered this type of snow in their 3-4 years of testing in Sochi. They might also have over-compensated by putting on too much klister since the racers complained about the lack of grip in their last competition.

 

[Wigry3]

Kowalczyk on polish Tv said that girls from norway had weak skis but not as weak as the result at the finish. Even before the race she remarked that the main problem of Team Norway would be the route. To flat, to slow, where it is difficult to drop someone behind. She predicted Finland a a winner but overall she was a bit surprised. As for her skis - no problem so far.
I don't know what she actulally wanted to say . The route was the same for everyone. maybe she knows that Bjoergen and Co. doesn't like cerain conditions ?

 

[Silhouette]

Kowalczyk on polish Tv said that girls from norway had weak skis but not as weak as the result at the finish. Even before the race she remarked that the main problem of Team Norway would be the route. To flat, to slow, where it is difficult to drop someone behind. She predicted Finland a a winner but overall she was a bit surprised. As for her skis - no problem so far.
I don't know what she actulally wanted to say . The route was the same for everyone. maybe she knows that Bjoergen and Co. doesn't like cerain conditions ?

I'm sure the norwegian team ideally would have liked a more challenging course to create some distance down to the other teams on the first two stages, but the fact is we didn't just fail to drop slower skiers on this flat course, we were dropped by others.

The rumours now say that the norwegian team is contractually required to use wax products from one specific supplier, while everybody else uses a different glider that is superior on these conditions. If this is true it is a major mistake by both the team and the wax supplier, nobody would have known if they used the other product but the current situation is bad for the supplier and the team.

Anyway, we have won so much because of better skis compared to Kowalczyk and others that I don't like complaining when we mess up. I just wish we could have avoided doing it in the olympics...

Edit: But I also agree that not all of the results can be explained by skis alone.

 

[Trond Vidar]

the word is that Norway is stuck with Swix, and everyone else is using Gallium - which has proven to be extremely fast on warm, salted snow. It's what the Norwegians used in Worlds 2011 in Holmenkollen - and Swix made a big issue out of it.

But I don't think that's the issue. It would be NO PROBLEM to apply Gallium and hiding this from Swix if they wanted to. Cera F applied with an iron, then Gallium applied with hand afterwards.

I think they peaked too early + and have structural issues. They make it too complex me thinks. Jørgen Aukland (Fredriks brother - Colognas trainer) made this claim yesterday - and I am fairly sure he would know. The Norwegians have been experimenting with deep, open structures - but mixing them up with finer structures in a creative way. No KISS applied.

For those that don't ski much, or don't ski in variable conditions don't usually understand the importance of bad skis. That's just a fact. There are huge differences. I was out yesterday. It rained/slushed from the sky, was 2degrees warm and 15 cm of fresh incredibly heavy and wet new snow. I skated, but my skis could have almost been used for classical skiing. The fine structure got clogged up. I would have lost 2-3 minutes on 10K to my normal self with the right structure. It felt like racing XC mtb on a Bud/Lou combo.