Doping in XC skiing

[Bavarianrider]

Nothing will come out of this in my opinion.
Omerta is way too strong in Norway for anyone to come out and admit what was going on in the 90es. (And maybe still is)
It will die as quickly as the Humanplasma story with German biathlon.
National interest is simply way to high.
The smaller the country the worse it it is.
Not even talking about Belarus, of course.

 

[Tyler'sTwin]

The mean values at the 1989 World Nordic Ski Championships were lower than population reference values, as would be expected from plasma volume expansion associated with endurance training.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10755280

 

[Tyler'sTwin]

Nothing will come out of this in my opinion.
Omerta is way too strong in Norway for anyone to come out and admit what was going on in the 90es. (And maybe still is)
It will die as quickly as the Humanplasma story with German biathlon.
National interest is simply way to high.
The smaller the country the worse it it is.
Not even talking about Belarus, of course.

The Humanplasma story died because it was likely false.

* The lab went out of their way to deny only the rumours about germans in the press release in which they admitted to having doped 30-something athletes from several countries (including Austria) and sports until 2006 (confirmed by Bernard Kohl) and named the men who organized it (Matschiner, Mayer, Kessler).

* The austrian anti-doping agency denied investigating germans but confirmed that athletes from a number of other countries (including Austria, Russia, Netherlands, Denmark) and sports were under investigation.

* Matschiner denied, "with 99% certainty", that germans were Humanplasma-clients, but has talked about escorting athletes to humaplasma (or blood bags from HP to athletes) from countries including Italy, Austria, Russia, Denmark and the Netherlands.

* We know the clientel included ~10 cyclists, at least 7 austrian winter sport athletes, at least a handful of rowers and at least a handful of triathletes and track athletes. Reports of 20/30 being DSV does not fit.

I think it's likely that the austrian HP-crew who were busted in Torino said; "they did it too [i.e. doped]" and this was initially misrepresented in the media as germans having been HP-clients.

 

[blueskies]

Nothing will come out of this in my opinion.
Omerta is way too strong in Norway for anyone to come out and admit what was going on in the 90es. (And maybe still is)
It will die as quickly as the Humanplasma story with German biathlon.
National interest is simply way to high.
The smaller the country the worse it it is.
Not even talking about Belarus, of course.

I'm amazed by how low standards some people on this forum set for themselves. I'm sure it feels great to throw around claims of Kristen Skjeldal and Sture Siversten involved in mafia methods and understanding "what's really going on" with no concern of the delicate and complex facts of the matter and the potentially (!) clean athletes involved. There's basically the thought pattern of a conspiracy theorist.

Everyone can agree that doping has been widespread, but that just makes it even more important to treat the complexity of the issue with respect, and out of respect to the athletes who were in fact clean, if any were.

A lot of good things have come out of this subforum, but there are so many losers and conspiracy theorists who subscribe to just as many errors of thought and logic as their naive counterparts. Being "right" about Armstrong and countless other athletes, doesn't mean that one's understanding of the situation is perfect or even good, or even better than those who thought Armstrong and others were clean.

You're just as ignorant of the crucial facts and details of the matter, and the secure knowledge, which is so hard to come by in a field that is filled to the brink with rumours, emotion and ignorance.

The accusations against Dæhlie will now become part of a mythology that you obviously takes part of and believe in blindly, with in fact no solid basis. To implicate doping based on the fragmental, undocumented and highly disputable blood value as SVT does, is wrong in every aspect. I'm not saying Dæhlie was clean with certainty, but there's just nothing there (source material for the documentary), as of now, to depend on with any kind of credibility when making doping accusations.

A serious journalist will have to go much, much deeper into the matter to really uncover something. This documentary is another farce sparked by Kyrö, and since it's produced by SVT, it can very well destroy the good name of Dæhlie.

It's just about the same as 60 minutes claiming Greg Lemond took blood transfusions in order to gain his high max Vo2. That's a ridiculous claim, and the real possibility of Lemond having doped, doesn't change that.

 

[Tyler'sTwin]

I wish they'd publish the entire list of blood values uncensored. If you have a bunch of skiers from the same team close to 170 or higher, that's gonna be hard to explain away. It's a shame they folded and decided to ignore the ones at ~165. Would also be nice to know who the skiers at 14-15 were.

Ulvang must be kicking himself over his failed preemptive strike.

 

[blueskies]

I wish they'd publish the entire list of blood values uncensored. If you have a bunch of skiers from the same team close to 170 or higher, that's gonna be hard to explain away. It's a shame they folded and decided to ignore the ones at ~165. Would also be nice to know who the skiers at 14-15 were.

Ulvang must be kicking himself over his failed preemptive strike.

This article was printed in Dagbladet in 2001, containing the measured blood values of the then active norwegian skiers, given to the paper by the staff and skiers themselves. (Yes, obviously they can just give them random numbers, but in any case, there's nothing reminiscent of the omerta. No one has ever been afraid of discussing doping. It was the norwegian team leadership that demanded the test that eventually got Mühlegg trapped.)

http://www.dagbladet.no/sport/2001/03/06/245493.html

I would personally be extremely surprised if Tore Bjonviken an Verdenius was involved in a team wide doping program.

 

[python]

Nothing will come out of this in my opinion.

there are ways and avenues - if not to get to the bottom - then to at least dig to a reasonably sound depth. but it would require fis and the 2 national federations to become completely transparent.

they could for instance help with things like:
- the instrument error could be easily addressed if the baselines are released along with maximum/minimum fluctuations. If the instruments were high, we'd see high bases
- the specific number of haemoglobin exemptions along with the total number of the tested athletes per year.

- specify what were those widely varying conditions and how they were applied at the time

-publish values of the samples taken at altitude and compare them to published bases for the athletes.................etc

i don't see that happening due a merely journalistic pressure. and as we know there is no police involved here.

is there something to suspect using plain common knowledge of the epo omnipresence and the lack of the epo test at the time ? sure.

is there something to uncover ?

without the fis and the national feds cooperation we will NEVER know.

that's where i stop - i suspect but no more.

 

[the sceptic]

Smirnov supposedly had 19.8 hb in thunder bay. holy ****.

 

[Tyler'sTwin]

Smirnov supposedly had 19.8 hb in thunder bay. holy ****.

Thanks to "incredible altitude training".

 

[ToreBear]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10755280

After having read this:

http://www.nrk.no/ytring/vare-skilopere-var-ikke-dopet-1.10929118


I'm becoming increasingly suspicios that the data these studies are based on have systematic errors in them. Hence any inferences drawn from them are suspect.

Do you or anyone by chance have access to the full article?

There should be a method chapter witch should contain a lot of information. There should also be a discussion on the quatlity of the data.

I don't doubt people were doping but with a worst case error of 15-20% above the real hgb value, the general statistics are questionable.

 

[meandmygitane]

After having read this:

http://www.nrk.no/ytring/vare-skilopere-var-ikke-dopet-1.10929118


I'm becoming increasingly suspicios that the data these studies are based on have systematic errors in them. Hence any inferences drawn from them are suspect.

Do you or anyone by chance have access to the full article?

There should be a method chapter witch should contain a lot of information. There should also be a discussion on the quatlity of the data.

I don't doubt people were doping but with a worst case error of 15-20% above the real hgb value, the general statistics are questionable.

The real question is why there wasn't more debate and temporary suspensions of athletes with elevated HB back in the nineties. Why was FIS not transparent? Who did they protect? Did they protect dopers, did they protect the reputation of the sport, did they try to do both?

I am not sure if Swedish or Norwegian skiers were doping. There were dopers, and dopers as winners, back then; why didn't FIS catch them?
The debate should be more about FIS than athletes I think, if the results of UG are so dodgy as has been suggested by several reports.

 

[the sceptic]

Does anyone except norwegians believe the norwegians in the 90s were clean after this?

 

[ToreBear]

Hey I'm dieing here! My HGB is far over 14 it's 16,5 and I'm not doping! Help!


This program was a massive facepalm.

 

[ToreBear]

The real question is why there wasn't more debate and temporary suspensions of athletes with elevated HB back in the nineties. Why was FIS not transparent? Who did they protect? Did they protect dopers, did they protect the reputation of the sport, did they try to do both?

I am not sure if Swedish or Norwegian skiers were doping. There were dopers, and dopers as winners, back then; why didn't FIS catch them?
The debate should be more about FIS than athletes I think, if the results of UG are so dodgy as has been suggested by several reports.

The blood values are the personal property of the skier. It's personal health information. Remember these rules and the speed limit came in 1997.

 

[The Death Merchant]

Does anyone except norwegians believe the norwegians in the 90s were clean after this?

I guess the willfully blind true believers of cross country skiing will always believe that Norwegians were clean. Nothing short of confession from Dählie and others can open the eyes of the true believers. And after that they start claiming that everyone was doping anyway, so it doesn't matter. They will act just like the Armstrong fanatics have acted.

 

[meandmygitane]

The blood values are the personal property of the skier. It's personal health information. Remember these rules and the speed limit came in 1997.

Speed limit? I am not sure I am following you?

The seasons beginning winter 96-97 until 99-00 the peak HB at FIS-test were 180-184-183-184, keeping in mind that the HB limit was at 185 at the time (until 2001 as I understood), I would surmise that some nations did advanced blood doping to keep athletes HB as close to the limit as possible. The ones who violated the rules probably were non-starts for bogus reasons.

FIS should have done more I think.

 

[Alesle]

I was a bit let down by this documentary. Essentially focusing on a few individuals and basing it on a single blood screening in '97 and Saltin's comments about the Thunder Bay medalists leaves a lot of room for criticism of its "validity". I was also annoyed by how the reporter interpreted Damsgaard's comments about Hb averages (of the entire starting field) approaching 17 being impossible, as anyone with a single Hb measurement above 17 as "impossible". Such a shame, the topic has such a large potential and SVT got their hands on some very interesting documents.

I'm curious if the values listed after ITA, RUS and FIN at the bottom of one of the displayed documents were averages for the nations (respectively 176, 172 and 174).

I also feel the need to say that Lereim sounded like a tool in his brief appearances.

 

[ToreBear]

Speed limit? I am not sure I am following you?

The seasons beginning winter 96-97 until 99-00 the peak HB at FIS-test were 180-184-183-184, keeping in mind that the HB limit was at 185 at the time (until 2001 as I understood), I would surmise that some nations did advanced blood doping to keep athletes HB as close to the limit as possible. The ones who violated the rules probably were non-starts for bogus reasons.

FIS should have done more I think.

Apearently fauner was told by the finnish doctor to go home, drink a liter of water then come back 1 hour later. Something was very weird with how that doctor conducted the test. I wonder if he was the one who provided the document to Kyro.

It was hard to understand what was up with that from the documentary.

 

[Alesle]

Speed limit? I am not sure I am following you?

The seasons beginning winter 96-97 until 99-00 the peak HB at FIS-test were 180-184-183-184, keeping in mind that the HB limit was at 185 at the time (until 2001 as I understood), I would surmise that some nations did advanced blood doping to keep athletes HB as close to the limit as possible. The ones who violated the rules probably were non-starts for bogus reasons.

FIS should have done more I think.

According to the SVT documentary, Fauner originally tested at 192 at the FIS test in Lahti in 97 before drinking a lot of water and returning an hour later with 'acceptable' levels. He eventually dropped out of the race.

 

[ToreBear]

From the svt chat:

David: Hur kommer det sig att den fällda finska killen hade det handskriva orginalpapperet från dopingtestet hos sig. verkar inte det helt ologiskt
UG - Hasse Svens: Testresultaten blev renskrivna och han som testledare tog med sig pappren - dom handskrivna. Mvh/Hasse

It appears the tester gave the the test information to Kyro! And SVT did'nt follow that up?!

 

[jsem94]

This was rather disappointing... a lot of trying to frame people too.

 

[meandmygitane]

According to the SVT documentary, Fauner originally tested at 192 at the FIS test in Lahti in 97 before drinking a lot of water and returning an hour later with 'acceptable' levels. He eventually dropped out of the race.

Says it all really, they didn't record the higher value. Wonder how many times that happened? I will watch the documentary when I have time. Good that you are noticing things in it in the meantime!

 

[the sceptic]

From the svt chat:


It appears the tester gave the the test information to Kyro! And SVT did'nt follow that up?!

Was probably Kyrö that did the test himself, or maybe he faked the documents. All in his quest to destroy norwegian skiing.

 

[ToreBear]

Was probably Kyrö that did the test himself, or maybe he faked the documents. All in his quest to destroy norwegian skiing.

Those 97 values were nothing unexpected and I don't really see them as showing something we already do not know.

But that confidential fis antidoping information finds it's way into the hands of a coach, from the doctor performing the health test is something I find very disturbing.

 

[blueskies]

I guess the willfully blind true believers of cross country skiing will always believe that Norwegians were clean. Nothing short of confession from Dählie and others can open the eyes of the true believers. And after that they start claiming that everyone was doping anyway, so it doesn't matter. They will act just like the Armstrong fanatics have acted.

No, they won't.

Doping is not accepted.

If/when it becomes crystal clear they were all doping, the 90s skiing results will be a source of shame for the great majority of the conscious people (you will always find idiots on the internet and individuals with differing opinions). Doping is really not accepted.

There's a big difference between failing to believe that someone was doping, and failing to judge the doper after it's a fact. Two different processes.

Maybe someone will "respect" them for being honest if they finally come clear, but their accomplishments in sports will be minimized. Trust me.