Doping in XC skiing

[python]

Iourieva took some pics for a magazine before she got caught (the first time) I belive

got a link ?

i dont know much about her specifically, but, unlike in most russian sports, i read someplace that the majority of their national xc team gals are from remote, rural backgrounds. some are still deeply religious (ivanova). many, unlike the western girls, are married and/or are mothers. posting their bodies on internet is likely get them in trouble in the increasingly conservative putin russia and, more importantly, get themselves cut off of the comfortable state-funded income. at least for the majority, that's still the way.

 

[MrRoboto]

 

[Libertine Seguros]

got a link ?

i dont know much about her specifically, but, unlike in most russian sports, i read someplace that the majority of their national xc team gals are from remote, rural backgrounds. some are still deeply religious (ivanova). many, unlike the western girls, are married and/or are mothers. posting their bodies on internet is likely get them in trouble in the increasingly conservative putin russia and, more importantly, get themselves cut off of the comfortable state-funded income. at least for the majority, that's still the way.

I don't know so much about the XC girls, but I do know that the majority of the biathlon girls at the moment are Siberians, a lot from Tyumen' oblast and XMAO, for obvious reasons. Vilukhina was even brought up in a closed town.

 

[Cannavaro]

There are also some fotos of Yuliya Chepalova http://popasnaya-sport.at.ua/photo/julija_chepalova_yulya_chepalova_nju/julija_chepalova_yulya_chepalova_nju/47-0-272.

 

[python]

jeezus, associating those exhibitionist proclivities with their later doping busts, i can't understand why wada wasted so much money testing iourieva and chepalova ?

just google them to death and if they ever were associated with public nudity - sack'em.

2 nudity freaks and 2 dopers.

a bulls eye.

any more ?

 

[roundabout]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/07/s...s-he-suspected-biathlete-was-doping.html?_r=2

It was really bad in 1999. It was really bad in 1998; 2006 it had problems

Pichler on biathlon

 

[neineinei]

I can't be bothered reading through todays posts to see if this already has been posted.

According to allsportinfo.ru (via bt.no/ap.no/adressa.no) the retesting of samples from the 2006 Olympics have produced at least four positives, non of them Russian. They are also hinting at one or two of them being cross country skiers from Estonia. Which makes gold medalists Andrus Veerpalu and Kristina Šmigun suspects.

IOC is going to publish the findings from the retesting after the Sochi Olympics.

http://www.bt.no/100Sport/mesterska...ull---atte-ar-etter-416973_1.snd#.UvQEM2JdXDU (Norwegian)

 

[roundabout]

Smigun is definately suspicious



http://sport.delfi.ee/news/suusatam...takse-keelatud-aine-kasutamises.d?id=67761935

 

[Libertine Seguros]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/07/s...s-he-suspected-biathlete-was-doping.html?_r=2



Pichler on biathlon

Thanks for that. Obviously Pichler will have his own agenda on this, and stops short of saying it, but he certainly gives the implication that he thinks Korol'kevich is shady as all hell.

 

[the sceptic]

Smigun is definately suspicious



http://sport.delfi.ee/news/suusatam...takse-keelatud-aine-kasutamises.d?id=67761935

In the 2010 olympics didnt she basically come out of nowhere to win the first event, and then faded away in the rest of the games? Not hard to guess what was going on there.

 

[roundabout]

silvered, but you remember it correctly

 

[Cloxxki]

Fascinating how the fastest female biathletes are slender, and would hardly be recognized as pro athletes tanning on a beach.
I had a Slavic girlfriend who did ZERO sports, and looked exactly like Domracheva when she was already getting good WC results. And in XC we have Bjoergen, Randall and Kowalczyk who need a couple sizes larger ski suits, as a matter of speaking. They're ready or a high score in their weight class as body builders.

I meant to express that Bjoergen is so openly showing her body builder arms it's like slapping our intelligence in the face. The muscle sure explains her speed, but makes it hard to explain the physics of her being among the very best endurance athletes. How can we NOT conclude that medically there is something really different happening among 3 skiers in particular?

On a side note, I would really, REALLY want to see the top biathletes mix it up in an XC race. Individual and mass start. Bjoergen outrageous strength vs the artistic calm ski painting that is Domracheva.

 

[roundabout]

Gössner got 4th in the xc worlds. but she was 30 seconds off gold as far ad I remember

 

[Vino attacks everyone]

Fascinating how the fastest female biathletes are slender, and would hardly be recognized as pro athletes tanning on a beach.
I had a Slavic girlfriend who did ZERO sports, and looked exactly like Domracheva when she was already getting good WC results. And in XC we have Bjoergen, Randall and Kowalczyk who need a couple sizes larger ski suits, as a matter of speaking. They're ready or a high score in their weight class as body builders.

I meant to express that Bjoergen is so openly showing her body builder arms it's like slapping our intelligence in the face. The muscle sure explains her speed, but makes it hard to explain the physics of her being among the very best endurance athletes. How can we NOT conclude that medically there is something really different happening among 3 skiers in particular?

On a side note, I would really, REALLY want to see the top biathletes mix it up in an XC race. Individual and mass start. Bjoergen outrageous strength vs the artistic calm ski painting that is Domracheva.

Not to defend Bjoergen (who I do belive is doping) but atleast some of her endurance parlamares can be explained by the fact that it is very few female skiers at the top level.

 

[Cloxxki]

In the 2010 olympics didnt she basically come out of nowhere to win the first event, and then faded away in the rest of the games? Not hard to guess what was going on there.

That's the feeling I got from the Canadian men in the TdF. Babikov had a traditional good finish though.
In biathlon you also see some people fading throughout a 3-race world cup, some more than others.

 

[Cloxxki]

Not to defend Bjoergen (who I do belive is doping) but atleast some of her endurance parlamares can be explained by the fact that it is very few female skiers at the top level.

I agree that the top of women's XC is narrow. Being one of those happy few sees you win a lot o races.

But then, this top consists of blatant Bjoergen, Kowalczyk and Randall who are all very much "big" on muscle. Johaug is a very slender type, slow in sprinting, slow in double poling, and unbeatable on long uphill, especially in fresh snow. This is at least predictable. Now if she'd be out-sprinting the friendly lady with twice her arm girth...
Perhaps in a clean XC field, Johaug would be out on her lonesome in anything non-sprint. If women are to peak over 30, well, she has some talent then. That said, before her Oslo 30km win she may not have had much passport data on file yet?

 

[Discgear]

Not to defend Bjoergen (who I do belive is doping) but atleast some of her endurance parlamares can be explained by the fact that it is very few female skiers at the top level.

That's one interpretation. Another, is that doping gives much more edge among female athletes. Kratchilova, Flo Jo to mention a few.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Gössner got 4th in the xc worlds. but she was 30 seconds off gold as far ad I remember

But 0,5 seconds off a bronze medal, 30" faster than her fastest compatriot, and not on her absolute peak form either (she had been noticeably lower in level at Nové Město for the biathlon Worlds than she had been at Pokljuka and the German home events in January). Would she, on peak form, have beaten Johaug or Bjørgen? Perhaps not, but certainly there is nothing to say that if the conditions favoured her and she had a good day she couldn't take advantage and medal, or even if the luck ran the right way win like Lars Berger did. Similarly Kaisa Mäkäräinen coming off the World Championships came 14th in the same event, faster than Lahteenmäki. Selina Gasparin was 31st, one place below Kikkan Randall, and Diana Rasimoviciute was 45th.

Their rankings as skiers among biathletes in the 2012-13 season: Mäkäräinen 1st, Gössner 2nd (Gössner had ranked 1st all the way until the final Mass Start in Khanty-Mansiysk, but Mäkäräinen set a much better time in this race), Gasparin 11th, Rasimoviciute 21st.

It's a shame in that respect that the comparative distance race at Sochi is in Classic as biathletes are unlikely to be tempted to participate.

 

[Pazuzu]

I meant to express that Bjoergen is so openly showing her body builder arms it's like slapping our intelligence in the face. The muscle sure explains her speed, but makes it hard to explain the physics of her being among the very best endurance athletes. How can we NOT conclude that medically there is something really different happening among 3 skiers in particular?

That fact that Bjoergen has been so dominant in all distances, and especially so at the Worlds and Olympics, is curious, to say the least. Of course, the official line is that she's always been this good but was held back by asthma, and from 2010 on, when she was granted a TUE to treat her asthma with an otherwise banned medication*, she's been allowed to reach her potential. And it's also true that she's specifically plotted her season to peak at the big events, sacrificing the overall world cup by skipping less important races.

* From what I understand the asthma medication Bjoergen's been using has been taken off the banned substances list. Now anyone can use it without special permission. So at least, folks can no longer claim she's getting an edge that way.

 

[MustIski]

Is any official information released about Veerpalu and Smigun cought in retrospective testing (Torino 2006)?

 

[antonshipulin]

Is any official information released about Veerpalu and Smigun cought in retrospective testing (Torino 2006)?

The word around the block is that no official statement will be made until after the Games have completed.

But Smigun seems to have been notified weeks ago.

 

[MrRoboto]

That fact that Bjoergen has been so dominant in all distances, and especially so at the Worlds and Olympics, is curious, to say the least. Of course, the official line is that she's always been this good but was held back by asthma, and from 2010 on, when she was granted a TUE to treat her asthma with an otherwise banned medication*, she's been allowed to reach her potential. And it's also true that she's specifically plotted her season to peak at the big events, sacrificing the overall world cup by skipping less important races.

* From what I understand the asthma medication Bjoergen's been using has been taken off the banned substances list. Now anyone can use it without special permission. So at least, folks can no longer claim she's getting an edge that way.

She supposedly did several major changes before the 09/10 season. One of them was changing her training program, another changing her asthma medication. And more obviously changing her racing schedule.

She was supposedly diagnosed with a stronger form of asthma before this season, and given TUE to a stronger medicine than earlier. She later revealed that this new medicine was Symbicort -- A fairly common asthma medicine. It would be interesting to know her old medicine too, because I'm guessing she needed a TUE for her old medicine too (This is of course a point that never was mentioned when it stormed around her medicine use).

Symbicort is a combination drug. It's meant to work immediately *and* long term. This alone means that she will take much more medicine than she needs with it. But yes, it has been removed from the banned list since.

Being diagnosed with asthma is quite common among pro skiers. Breathing some much cold air strains your airways and in many cases leads to a mild form of asthma (Bjørgen has normal exercise induced asthma as far as I know). Supposedly a ludacris amount of norwegian skiers use asthma medication. And this is not the first time some russian have criticized this. I'm really curious if the situation is much better among russian skiers. And in case it is -- Why?

 

[skjoldur]

As skiers train more and get older, their technique gets refined and becomes more efficient. Hence less energy is required to do the same. Add to that, the process of improving your technique also has a bi effect of improving stamina. So IMHO the peak is in the early thirties.

Hadn't thought about efficiency of motion and effort development, relative to time in competition and age. Sports that demand high technical expertise do peak later. Because simply, an athlete gets better. Makes sense that would apply to x-country as well.

If an athlete is genuinely clean and competitive against dopers, what a hard thankless place to be. You'd never get the credit you deserve and the validation of being purely THAT good. It behooves USADA and WADA to get it together. Which they've attempted to do. Or to realize that it's beyond control and change rules to allow performance enhancement.

Apparently I have a firm grasp of the obvious. The correlation between nudity and doping got me a little confused. I had to go down that rabbit hole.

 

[neineinei]

The word around the block is that no official statement will be made until after the Games have completed.

But Smigun seems to have been notified weeks ago.

http://www.thestar.com.my/Sport/Oth...ng/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

"Šmigun-Vähi: Exactly two months ago I received a message that no banned substances were found in the new testing of my A-sample given at the 2006 Turin Olympic Games, during the period 12 - 16th February, but that allegedly it contains molecules from which a suspicion of use of banned substances has been deduced."

Veerpalu was working for Kazakhstan earlier in the season, doing ski preparations and testing skis for Poltaranin. It would be interesting to know if he is in Sochi.

The Russian "leak" about the results of the retests isn't very clear, one, maybe two, maybe Estonia. I suppose something is lost or added in translation. Šmigun-Vähi has confirmed she is involved (and that she had a polygraph test...), maybe Veerpalu isn't involved at all.

 

[neineinei]

yle.fi has an interesting mapping of what areas of their countries the Olympic cross country skiers from Finland, Sweden and Norway are from. 40 % of the Norwegians are from the capital-area, while non of the Finns or Swedes are from Helsinki or Stockholm.

http://svenska.yle.fi/artikel/2014/02/07/skidor-en-citysport-i-norge