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Doping in XC skiing

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B

BullsFan22

Jun 22, 2010
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python said:
helena vialbe is the president of the russian ski federation as well the chief coach of their national team.

she is also one of the most decorated xc skiers both genders in her time and of all time.

she is a remarkable lady in many respect... very outspoken, visibly obese, a chain smoker (true), has 3 children (the last was born 3 weeks ago at the age of 46 and the oldest made her a grandmom) and is putin's appointee. what's more, her husband mr vialbe (former hubby or current, dont really know) is a waxman on the ski russian team.
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Thank you, but I know who ЕЛЕНА ВЯЛЬБЕ is. I didn't know it was her who you were talking about earlier. I just read the interview, and have been following on skisport.ru. She's definitely made some thought provoking comments, but she tells it like she sees it, in my opinion. I think it's ok when people question injured athletes like Kowalczyk and Cologna, especially how quickly they were able to recover and deliver in difficult conditions. I don't know what's more sketchy, the fact that Cologna only raced one WC this season prior to the Olympics due to an injury he sustained early November and is now toying with a world class field, or the fact that Kowalczyk had a broken foot (I did see pictures of it and it looked as if her foot was run over by a car) and was able to win the 10km classic fairly comfortably. I think it makes sense if people are questioning their results. Swedes on the other hand ski very well technically, they peaked just at the right time and have had great skis so far. Sure, we can speculate about them, no problems about that, but the other two are where it's most interesting.
 
Libertine Seguros

Libertine Seguros

Feb 20, 2010
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Discgear said:
Never seen her name spelled like that before. Yelena Välbe - Jelena Valbe - Jelena Välbe seems more common. :)
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Jelena Välbe is correct Estonian, since that is her married name. However, like most people born in non-Russian SSRs during the USSR, her husband had an Estonian form of his name and a Russified version. As the sound for ä does not exist in Russian, they have improvised using the Я (phonetically [ja], English "ya". You will find this in any German or Finnish name with ä in it as well - the Russians transcribe Kaisa Mäkäräinen as Кайса Мякяряйнен. Hence Вяльбе as your pointed out. The amount of arguments we've had over Gonchar vs. Honchar, Sivtsov vs. Siutsou on the rest of the forum show how hard consistency between these forms can be, before we start with the problem of alternative alphabets like you have with Russian and the Baltic languages!

To transcribe her name from the Russian (without knowing the surname was Estonian) you would arrive at Vyalbe, Vyal'be, Vialbe or some such. Same as back-formations of current names in the world of wintersports, into Cyrillic and out again would give you Taryey Byo, Anne Kyullyonen, Krista Lyakhte'enmyaki and Zhan-Giyom Beatriks.

So while it took me a bit of time to work out who was meant and would usually use Välbe, I can see how we've arrived at the unusual form.
 
python

python

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ls and discgear, i was not trying to confuse anyone :)

there is a rather simple explanation for my weird spelling - i am truly not very cognizant of the language i think in as opposed to the language i use to transcribe my thoughts. yes, as a scientist i should be more accurate and less sloppy, but, unless it was a special subject, i simply do not treat my contributions worth the effort ls spends. in addition, many times i post from the english-locked key board, often from a mobile platform...thus i often convert a phonetic structure in my brain to the best approximation my current key board is capable of.

to my credit, i assumed that in THIS THREAD inhabited by the xc sport fans, such frivolous iterations would have been understood more or less automatically.

all is good :)
 
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Cloxxki

Mar 19, 2009
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BullsFan22 said:
Haven't watched the race, will watch later today. I did see and hear that the conditions changed quite drastically today (obviously with all the new snow).
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OK, Svendsen was literally pushing Moravec around the course. Had good skis in the fresh show.
Commentators said that on the old artificial snow, the Belarussian team was using a "20 year old potion" to get Domracheva's skis to glide just fine. Where she used to be the exciting factor in biathlon, she's now made it boring. Superior ski technique, actually shooting at her own targets in her own lane in the correct pose, and coping with the pressure. I loved Domracheva from the first time I saw her skiing, but her wins barely excited me. Until others learn to ski like her only shooting meltdowns will help medals to be distributed.

Soukalova closed in some though, seemed to be travelling well.

Commentators mentioned that Anais Bescond (FR) raised her ski speed by 5% this season. Even if it's 3% or 2%, that is friggin' huge. 2% in a half-hour average biathlon race is 36 seconds. 5% means 1.5 minute. Is that normal?

WTH is wrong with Tora? Just the skis? Barely hits a target. Overstressed by it being her last Olympics?

Through the snow it rained salt water in Sochi. Svendsen crying like a baby. He's had it tough. Could that have been only the bad skis he was getting revenge for? Press(ure)?
 
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Silhouette

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Cloxxki said:
Commentators said that on the old artificial snow, the Belarussian team was using a "20 year old potion" to get Domracheva's skis to glide just fine.
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Apparently she has a norwegian wax guy. For some reason I've always thought we've let the best wax people go to other nations.
Cloxxki said:
WTH is wrong with Tora? Just the skis? Barely hits a target. Overstressed by it being her last Olympics?
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Tora hasn't been herself all season, always missing the important shots.
Cloxxki said:
Through the snow it rained salt water in Sochi. Svendsen crying like a baby. He's had it tough. Could that have been only the bad skis he was getting revenge for? Press(ure)?
Click to expand...
He's probaby been frustrated because of the skis, he was not in top shape in the first and second competition but he said he felt like he raced a medal/gold race on the 20 km where he still lost one minute to Fourcade.

Might have something to do with almost making a complete mess of it and letting Fourcade take the gold in the finish too. I bet he didn't expect to look up on the screen and see "photo finish" after crossing the line.
 
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wansteadimp

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Cloxxki said:
WTH is wrong with Tora? Just the skis? Barely hits a target. Overstressed by it being her last Olympics?
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She had a fall very early in the mass start that put her to the back of the field. The commentators on the BBC, who I assume you're watching as they were going on about Bescond, didn't get into the coms box until afterward and then spent the rest of the race guessing at why she was at the back.
 
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Cloxxki

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wansteadimp said:
She had a fall very early in the mass start that put her to the back of the field. The commentators on the BBC, who I assume you're watching as they were going on about Bescond, didn't get into the coms box until afterward and then spent the rest of the race guessing at why she was at the back.
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Yeah, they even miss important stuff happening right on screen. I sometimes feel I should be 3rd an in there to notice the action :)
 
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Cloxxki

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@Silhouette
Yeah, even thought it ended well, this was Svendsen's winning entry for blunder of the century.
With the history he's got sprinting Fourcade to FF's, with Fourcade being the ultimate lunger, it being the friggin' Olympics, it being friggin' Fourcade... So careless to do any less than get every millisecond out of himself.
This win was a GIFT to him directly from the Olympus, not a win he truly deserved. He deserved it until he did everything to blow it. Frankly, he didn't give Fourcade the respect he deserves, and that attitude can easily cost him ost medals. It's already cost Fourcade, and HE learned from it. Ever seen anyone take a slipstream like that and time the passing so delicately? Yeah, he was too late. And Fourcade will hate himself for mis-timing the impossible win that was very possible. Then, with the way their respective skating strokes were times in relation to the line, perhaps there was no room for him to clear Svendsen's skis AND make that lunge. We'll never know, but Svendsen will need to up his mental game. Just being the crybaby who wants better skis ain't gonna cut it :)

And really, this time it's the Norwegians having rare ski probs. But imagine if you're in a minor nation, having the race of your life, shooting clear, and ending a minute behind Svendsen and his perfect skis. This is something that happens probably multiple times every season. Why, because some of the minor nations will always have slower skis. They don't get the nice ones from the (few) sponsors, they don't have the $$$ waxmen, nor the shear scale of operation.
I honestly feel that the ski prep is an unwanted cost that drive performances apart. The rich get good skis, and if they don't, they cry. When a minor nation midfielder one day lucks out with good skis, or allowed to borrow a spare from a good team, they're on top of the world.
 
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BullsFan22

Jun 22, 2010
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Cloxxki said:
@Silhouette
Yeah, even thought it ended well, this was Svendsen's winning entry for blunder of the century.
With the history he's got sprinting Fourcade to FF's, with Fourcade being the ultimate lunger, it being the friggin' Olympics, it being friggin' Fourcade... So careless to do any less than get every millisecond out of himself.
This win was a GIFT to him directly from the Olympus, not a win he truly deserved. He deserved it until he did everything to blow it. Frankly, he didn't give Fourcade the respect he deserves, and that attitude can easily cost him ost medals. It's already cost Fourcade, and HE learned from it. Ever seen anyone take a slipstream like that and time the passing so delicately? Yeah, he was too late. And Fourcade will hate himself for mis-timing the impossible win that was very possible. Then, with the way their respective skating strokes were times in relation to the line, perhaps there was no room for him to clear Svendsen's skis AND make that lunge. We'll never know, but Svendsen will need to up his mental game. Just being the crybaby who wants better skis ain't gonna cut it :)

And really, this time it's the Norwegians having rare ski probs. But imagine if you're in a minor nation, having the race of your life, shooting clear, and ending a minute behind Svendsen and his perfect skis. This is something that happens probably multiple times every season. Why, because some of the minor nations will always have slower skis. They don't get the nice ones from the (few) sponsors, they don't have the $$$ waxmen, nor the shear scale of operation.
I honestly feel that the ski prep is an unwanted cost that drive performances apart. The rich get good skis, and if they don't, they cry. When a minor nation midfielder one day lucks out with good skis, or allowed to borrow a spare from a good team, they're on top of the world.
Click to expand...

I love how this went from doping in xc skiing to waxing and how much money each nation has for waxing.
 
D

Dazed and Confused

Jan 27, 2012
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Vino attacks everyone said:
I miss doping. this waxing stuff is so unfair, Froomes wheels are turning much easier around than Contadors :eek::eek:
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Frankly the waxing discussion belongs here:

leg-waxing.jpg


Neutralize this element from the sport and we can get back to talking about the athletes and their capabilities.
 
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maltiv

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BullsFan22 said:
Yeah, what's the deal? No ski/wax/structure problems today? LOL
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Norwegian performance 100% correlated with weather (Great in the first few days while it's cold, horrible when it was warm, good again once the temperature falls) - but you still think doping is a more logical explanation than waxing...
 
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Kokoso

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Cloxxki said:
Commentators mentioned that Anais Bescond (FR) raised her ski speed by 5% this season. Even if it's 3% or 2%, that is friggin' huge. 2% in a half-hour average biathlon race is 36 seconds. 5% means 1.5 minute. Is that normal?
Click to expand...

I think that could be perfectly normal, given her age.

Strange is what's showing old Ole.
 
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