Doping in XC skiing

[Cloxxki]

Fourcade was lying dead on the snow after he'd crossed the line. He certainly didn't hold himself back on the last loop. And spent a lot of energy being at the front for almost the entire race. This is just for the record, I don't really want to take part in any doping speculations.

I'll admit that it comforts me some when a skier is showing technical excellence, such as Fourcade. His style is very dynamic, extremely capable. Makes it look easy. Not the dope in the world can do that. Same for Domracheva and Goessner, in their own unique styles. Svendsen has always been hugely quick, just not always THE quickest. His last 500m is famous though.
The Austrians are different in that they ruled the sport for ski speed, collectively, and then dropped off. And now, they can be back, all on the same day.
When the Austrians were on "form", they made a 7.5km relay leg look like a 1.2km sprint, all the way through.

 

[the sceptic]

Zaitseva suddenly skiing almost as fast as Gössner.

 

[kingjr]

Zaitseva suddenly skiing almost as fast as Gössner.

Or Gössner skiing as slow as Zaitseva?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Mixture. Gössner's not on top form. If you look at the Mixed Relay she was only 10th fastest on her legs, but the skis were a debacle and she was only slightly slower than Mäkäräinen and Solemdal, who you'd say are the more reasonable ones for her to be judged against than surprise packages like Susan Dunklee who put together a really surprising time on Thursday, or Marie Dorin-Habert who skied far above her normal level (almost matching Domracheva) in pursuit of medals.

Today it looks like Berger had the best ski time, and she's typically been around the lower part of the top 5 all season (with Gössner, Mäkäräinen and Domracheva usually being the best and Solemdal being the most common interloper). But Gössner was next best. She's still a few seconds back from where we would expect peak form Miri to be, however judging Zaitseva purely against her is not fair. We need to look at Zaitseva's times against those of Tora, Darya and Kaisa as well (Solemdal had a real jour sans, losing over 30" on the final lap, while Pidhrushna's times haven't been totally consistent this season so it's hard to use her time either).

So Zaitseva's performing up a level in terms of ski speed from where she has been for much of the season (but then, now that she's not capable of fighting for wins on a weekly basis, maybe she's targeted these events, I mean should we be any less suspicious of Ole Einar Bjørndalen earlier?), but Gössner's also performing at a level below where she's been since Pokljuka. She was typically 2nd fastest in Östersund and Hochfilzen, and fastest outright ever since.

 

[kingjr]

I'm not that surprised by Zaitseva, her form was continuously rising throughout the season. Bjoerndalen skiing was amzing today, it seemed dodgy as hell, but before the start of the season he said he was in his best form since 2007. To make a real assessment of his shape I would wait until after the 20k race, cause I've seen it a lot from Bjoerndalen the last 2 years that he does well in the first race after a long break and then starts to fade away again.

 

[Tyler'sTwin]

I'm not that surprised by Zaitseva, her form was continuously rising throughout the season.

Cool story, bro.

Her course time and rank in sprints.

Oberhof

+51.9 6th

Ruhpolding

+1.05.7 15th

Anterselva

+58.2 33rd

 

[the sceptic]

Mixture. Gössner's not on top form. If you look at the Mixed Relay she was only 10th fastest on her legs, but the skis were a debacle and she was only slightly slower than Mäkäräinen and Solemdal, who you'd say are the more reasonable ones for her to be judged against than surprise packages like Susan Dunklee who put together a really surprising time on Thursday, or Marie Dorin-Habert who skied far above her normal level (almost matching Domracheva) in pursuit of medals.

Today it looks like Berger had the best ski time, and she's typically been around the lower part of the top 5 all season (with Gössner, Mäkäräinen and Domracheva usually being the best and Solemdal being the most common interloper). But Gössner was next best. She's still a few seconds back from where we would expect peak form Miri to be, however judging Zaitseva purely against her is not fair. We need to look at Zaitseva's times against those of Tora, Darya and Kaisa as well (Solemdal had a real jour sans, losing over 30" on the final lap, while Pidhrushna's times haven't been totally consistent this season so it's hard to use her time either).

So Zaitseva's performing up a level in terms of ski speed from where she has been for much of the season (but then, now that she's not capable of fighting for wins on a weekly basis, maybe she's targeted these events, I mean should we be any less suspicious of Ole Einar Bjørndalen earlier?), but Gössner's also performing at a level below where she's been since Pokljuka. She was typically 2nd fastest in Östersund and Hochfilzen, and fastest outright ever since.

Zaitseva is 1 minute behind on every sprint this season. So with a bit of targeting she is suddenly among the best skiers a few weeks later? yeah sure.

Also Pidrushna is also extremely obvious. Only 8 seconds behind today.

 

[Tyler'sTwin]

Zaitseva has obviously improved on her WC-form (even recent) quite a bit. You can tell just by watching her ski. The top 3 may also have slowed down a bit. Maybe they botched their peak, maybe their main objective has been the WC or maybe their ski prep was sub-par. They were matched by Berger, Kuzmina and Pidrushna today and course times in general were closer than what we're used to (easy course?). Kaisa won the finnish XC-nationals a couple of weekends ago so you'd expect her form to be good.

Average course times in the 6 WC-sprints this season:

http://realbiathlon.blogspot.se/2013/02/nove-mesto-sprint-preview.html

 

[kingjr]

Zaitseva is 1 minute behind on every sprint this season. So with a bit of targeting she is suddenly among the best skiers a few weeks later? yeah sure.

Also Pidrushna is also extremely obvious. Only 8 seconds behind today.

Do you believe that Gössner is cleaner than any of the names you mentioned?

 

[Tyler'sTwin]

Unless ski prep is an issue here, I doubt Kaisa and Miri will have much success at the XC-worlds if they are only 8-17 seconds faster than the likes of Pidrushna, Zaitseva and Gwizdon on form. Those girls would need an act of god to be a minute off a XC podium.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

The ski times today were very clustered, far more than in a 'normal' women's race (6 women inside 10 seconds?!). The ski times were also a minute faster than in the same event at the same venue last year. Suggests the course might have been a bit too easy for the hares to make any real gains, even if they had been on form. It certainly isn't Pokljuka, that's for sure.

Gößner's been a stupendously quick skier pretty much since juniors. She was in the senior XC World Cup team at 19 for a reason, that's for sure. She does look like she's leapt forward a huge amount this year, but then last year was affected by surgery for her, and her 2012-13 does not seem that odd in comparison to her 2010-11 where she finished on the podium three times and set the fastest course time on 8 occasions and set a top 3 time in over 3/4 of her races, including on 5 occasions beating her training partner Magdalena Neuner. In reality, her skiing has returned more to the level where it should be with natural progression from those performances (remember she was only 20 there), and a vast improvement in her shooting times has been the catalyst for her becoming a frontrunner (along with the retirements of Neuner and Ekholm), as she's still horrendously inconsistent. Pidhrushna is 26 and apart from a couple of races at Östersund a few years ago, all of her top 10 results have come this season. I can see why Gößner might be treated as the more 'natural' talent because there's less of a transformation taking place. But then, Alejandro Valverde was smoking everybody from childhood, didn't stop him doping, of course. And Pidhrushna has been comparatively consistent in terms of the results she's accumulated this year, it's just the ski speed today in comparison to the (comparatively underperforming) Gößner and Mäkäräinen that raises eyebrows. But then, as previously mentioned, the ski times were far more clustered than usual today, all the way down the field, so perhaps that speaks to snow conditions or the course more than the athletes.

 

[the sceptic]

I see everyone was out of shape today as well. Zaitseva with a fall on the last lap only 19 seconds behind the best skiing time.

Gwizdon skiing faster than ever as well

 

[Tyler'sTwin]

I see everyone was out of shape today as well. Zaitseva with a fall on the last lap only 19 seconds behind the best skiing time.

Gwizdon skiing faster than ever as well

33 years old.

 

[kingjr]

Ye the polish are suspicious as hell. All of them collectively in the form of their lives this season. Funny that the commentators just mentioned today that the polish desperately need some good results, cause they got into financial trouble after the retirement of Tomas Sikora last year.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Only the girls though, which is weird. Suppose the men's side had been reliant on Sikora for so long though. Darya and Kaisa up at the top of the ski times where they belong, but still nothing like what they have shown in the past. Gwizdoń's time is eye-popping. Pałka a few seconds slower than Henkel which doesn't seem out of step with her for most of the last year or two but she has definitely stepped up a level over the last two seasons. She had the second best shooting times (Dorothea Wierer almost always has the best time, but her ski speed makes her irrelevant most of the time). Along with Gößner Synnøve Solemdal is having a really bad time at Nové Město with her ski times suffering far more than they typically would. Pidhrushna much slower after yesterday's exertions and Vítková staying in her usual level. Tora Berger's somehow managing to hit something close to peak ski form (best course time yesterday, 9 seconds back today) despite having been at full strength for pretty much the whole season, Pokljuka excepted.

Again the ski times very compressed though, suggests a less challenging course that doesn't really give the top skiers too much opportunity to make major gains (even if they weren't lacking their best form).

So yes, some suspiciously good times, but a comparatively flat course and weaker times than usual from the best skiers make for it being less eye-popping than if, say, Zaitseva was a second quicker than Miri at Pokljuka or Oberhof.

 

[neineinei]

Bengt Saltin: There will be blood doped skiers at the World Championship in Val di Fiemme. If you use EPO correctly there is almost zero chance of getting caught.

http://www.svt.se/sport/vintersport/dopningsexpert-definitivt-fuskare-i-langd-vm Swedish

http://translate.google.com/transla.../dopningsexpert-definitivt-fuskare-i-langd-vm Google Translate


Saltin: In major international competitions in all endurance sports, there is no chance that everyone is totally clean. But it is far better today than it was 10-15 years ago. There will probably be less than ten skiiers who are doped at the championship.

- Are there countries which is systematically doping today?
Saltin: Yes, but I can't say which countries.

http://www.nrk.no/sport/_-finnes-fortsatt-doping-i-langrenn-1.10914407 Norwegian

http://translate.google.com/transla...-finnes-fortsatt-doping-i-langrenn-1.10914407 Google Translate

 

[Nicko.]

So, why is the Norwegian anti-doping-guy "amazed" or "surprised" by the statement from the authority on blood vector doping? When what he's saying is "nothing new"...
Bad journalism?
Sensitive subject?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Saltin does also suggest that, at least a few years ago, biathlon had a bigger doping problem than XC skiing because XC's checks are/were better (which may be true, but is also exactly what you'd expect a guy previously on the FIS medical committee to say), but the biathletes have not gone entirely unnoticed either. Valery Ivanov, Olga Vilukhina's trainer, has said he doesn't know what training procedures are for the Czech Republic and the Ukraine, but their progress is evident even to the pros - "improved by a minute!" - and not just one member of the team but all of them. "To improve your results by a whole minute since last year, what is being done to prepare the athletes?"

At the same time, there may be some frustration being taken out there in the finger-pointing or at least the people targeted by it, since Russia have had a torrid Championships.

 

[Bavarianrider]

As for the stone griding myth.
I just went through a copule of my old books on cross country skiing.
Already in the year 1985 i found an article about it in the German "Skilehrplan". This is an official publishement of the German ski fedration which sets the standards for coaches and instructors.
But yeah surely the Norwegians were the only ones who did stone grinding in the 90es

 

[Cobblestones]

The Norwegian performance in Nove Mesto can be characterized as otherworldly. 8 of 11 gold medals, silver in two of the remaining three races, and one bronze for good measure.

 

[meat puppet]

times are truly bad when stating the obvious stands out as something remarkable, but kudos to saltin once again.

as to the norwegian biathlon dominance... well, stone grinding must be the answer, says the stoned grinder.

 

[roundabout]

It was Berger and Svendsen mostly.

 

[Cobblestones]

It was Berger and Svendsen mostly.

Indeed it was. Berger did medal in every race she entered, which was all the races really, including all the relays. She didn't fade towards the end either. But it's only a one week event, not a three week ordeal like a GT. So...

Hypothetically speaking, would you need a refill for a one week event?

 

[meat puppet]

of course not. but one or two will help some for sure.

 

[Armchaircyclist]

The Norwegian performance in Nove Mesto can be characterized as otherworldly. 8 of 11 gold medals, silver in two of the remaining three races, and one bronze for good measure.

-------
And still, in the after Lance-climate, there is not one single suggestion in the norwegian press, that our biathletes have been up to something.

We have the advantage of no positives, and none of our biatletes/cross-country skiers testing positive, except maybe one stupid caffeine suspension way back.

With the availability of doping, and the way everybody knows its effects, I have no doubt also some of our athletes have fallen for the temptation. The sad thing is you cant tell which one.