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Doping in XC skiing

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Sep 29, 2012
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dearwiggo.blogspot.com.au
I searched this thread but did not see this link / pic, apologies if I missed it.

One skier has a retic% of 3.5% :eek:

http://www.svt.se/ug/several-medal-...oglobin-counts-at-the-salt-lake-city-olympics

Jaak%20Mae.jpg
 
Shardi said:
Heres a page with references to the material used in the program:

http://www.svt.se/ug/ug-referens/ug-referens-skidakarnas-hemliga-blodvarden

the locations and dates of some tests are crossed over unfortunately. Still pretty decent material tho.

links
Stray-Gundersen et al. lahtis 2001 blood doping indications http://www.svt.se/ug/ug-referens/article1863738.svt/binary/blood doping Lahti 2001.pdf
Saltin et al. 6-year blood profile followup http://www.svt.se/ug/article1869659.svt/binary/FIS article Jakob Moerkerberg.pdf
Riders with normal values http://www.svt.se/ug/article1869830.svt/binary/normala värden.pdf
Riders with high, normal values http://www.svt.se/ug/article1869943.svt/binary/Höga godkända värden.pdf
25 riders with varying blood values http://www.svt.se/ug/article1869790.svt/binary/25 skidåkare.pdf
few riders with varying blood values http://www.svt.se/ug/article1869954.svt/binary/varierande värden.pdf
3 estonian riders blood values http://www.svt.se/ug/article1869911.svt/binary/Estland.pdf
list of 25 riders blood vlaues http://www.svt.se/ug/article1869790.svt/binary/25 skidåkare.pdf
per elofssons blood values http://www.svt.se/ug/article1869644.svt/binary/Elofssons värden.pdf
swedish rider with high retics http://www.svt.se/ug/ug-referens/article1870116.svt/binary/svensk åkare.pdf
male rider with high retics prior to salt lake 2002 http://www.svt.se/ug/ug-referens/article1870016.svt/binary/Manlig åkare.pdf
female rider with ramping hb values prior to Salt lake 2002 http://www.svt.se/ug/ug-referens/article1870023.svt/binary/kvinnlig åkare.pdf
2 german female riders with high retics http://www.svt.se/ug/ug-referens/article1870028.svt/binary/landsmaninnor.pdf
Anders Aukland's blood values 2001-2006 http://www.svt.se/ug/ug-referens/article1870141.svt/binary/Aukland.pdf

They have blacked out the testing dates, so it's impossible to find any pattern relating to races. It's almost like they are teasing us with all the info they have without showing it so we can form our own opinion of the data. Thats a little irritating.

Dear Wiggo said:
I searched this thread but did not see this link / pic, apologies if I missed it.

One skier has a retic% of 3.5% :eek:

http://www.svt.se/ug/several-medal-...oglobin-counts-at-the-salt-lake-city-olympics

Jaak%20Mae.jpg

Russian vodka?:p

If you have a look at all the Russians, their retics are markedly higher than the rest. The Russians had two women nailed for darbopoetin. And it looks to me like they have 3 women and 1 man showing the same pattern in this picture.

So I would guess organized use of darbopoetin by the Russians. It would not surprise me if the Russians were responsible for the darbopoetin almost positives Don Catlin talked about as well.
 
To think Elofsson went shoulder to shoulder with these guys with his 15.0g/liter hemoglobin with normal variations.. Its a farce.

Feels like his 2001 and 2003 golds were only possible due to the epo test introduction in 2001 and the salt lake city darbapoietin bust in 2002 scaring others off for the next season.

Look at the mean graphs of hb (the lahthis 2001 paper) dropping significantly at the 2003 season, down to elofssons mean level.

Biggest natural talent of the last 25 years. Robbed of so many olympics golds.
 
Shardi said:
To think Elofsson went shoulder to shoulder with these guys with his 15.0g/liter hemoglobin with normal variations.. Its a farce.

Feels like his 2001 and 2003 golds were only possible due to the epo test introduction in 2001 and the salt lake city darbapoietin bust in 2002 scaring others off for the next season.

Look at the mean graphs of hb (the lahthis 2001 paper) dropping significantly at the 2003 season, down to elofssons mean level.

Biggest natural talent of the last 25 years. Robbed of so many olympics golds.

Indeed. A modern Sisyphus tale.
 
Shardi said:
To think Elofsson went shoulder to shoulder with these guys with his 15.0g/liter hemoglobin with normal variations.. Its a farce.

Feels like his 2001 and 2003 golds were only possible due to the epo test introduction in 2001 and the salt lake city darbapoietin bust in 2002 scaring others off for the next season.

Look at the mean graphs of hb (the lahthis 2001 paper) dropping significantly at the 2003 season, down to elofssons mean level.

Biggest natural talent of the last 25 years. Robbed of so many olympics golds.

You cant say hgb count = better performance. If it were that simple, guys with normal 17,5-18,5 would dominate.

Also, I'm not sure if he should be the standard of what is normal. Normal is a very large range.

I have a theory that the best skiers are not limited in their o2 transport capabilities at low altitude, but are at high altitude. Hence doping at High altitude could be really beneficial, and the o2 dopers will have an advantage.

Thats part of why Muhlegg suddenly became so dominant: The best guys who were skiing clean were going slower.

Now in that 2002 race Elofsson should have let Muhlegg go when he was reaching his limit, the others did and were able to finnish the race not that far down on the list. Had he done that he should have beaten Skjeldal for the bronze(4th at the time). Perhaps even beat out the austrian blood injectors for the gold(2nd at the time).

2001 and 2003 were at low level, and I would think Elofsson like the other best skiers would have an o2 around 90. He would then more be limited by his skill and the skiis. Hence he did better.

Now about those different hb values over time, I havent had time to read this paper yeat(or I have read it before).

The numbers used to inform about the averages are likely skewed:
- The Lahti numbers were with real blood tests(forgot the correct term) that were accurate. They were also taken of all the participans IIRC. So you would get an average similar to the normal population.

- The 1990-200x numbers had a lot of numbers, if not all, were only the top 4 were tested. So lets say 2 were on average clean, while 2 were heavily doped.
This would skew the numbers to a much higher level, while the average for the entire crop of skiers might have been the same as in 1989 though I find that unlikely. Likely there was a lot of doping, but It wouldn't be as much as the numbers with the the average of the top 4 indicate.
- Also they used inaccurate equipment, with no established procedure.

- The 2001 + numers could give indications of less doping due to adjustment to the testing regime, but they could also be due to changes in procedures and equipment. It was likely a bit of both.

Edit:
- Forgot another error, the test retest error: Lets say they are ensuring no one is over the set limit. If someone who should be at 15 is suddenly at 17, there is no reason to retest to see if the number is correct. They would retest if the number goes over the set limit, but not under. Hence that is another element that could have contributed to skewing of the numbers.

Hence I would caution against taking the numbers at face value. I haven't seen many AD experts taking much of this into account.

Why that is I can only speculate.
- It could be I'm reading the wrong papers.
- It could be that the researchers don't bother with such details, and just assume that the numbers represent something they actually do not. (like forgetting how many were tested in each competition etc).
- It could be they just didn't think about it.
- It could be they want to yell wolf to get more funding.
- It could also be that they are just sloppy.

Who knows.


Ups, a bit long post. Sorry.:eek:
 
Oct 30, 2010
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Why they did not show values of Muhlegg or for example Danilova over time or at SLC? I got the understanding that Muhlegg was not on the list of 19 suspects. Did I understand something wrong? From the papers it seems that blood values started to rise again in 2005/2006 (Torino), but the program handled only SLC.
 
MustIski said:
Why they did not show values of Muhlegg or for example Danilova over time or at SLC? I got the understanding that Muhlegg was not on the list of 19 suspects. Did I understand something wrong? From the papers it seems that blood values started to rise again in 2005/2006 (Torino), but the program handled only SLC.

I can not remember anything of that either. The program really only gave us bits and pieces of what they wanted to show to us, so to me it really wasn't that enlightening.
 
A few thoughts on Blodracet 2:
While the first show seemed more concerned about outing suspicious racers, part 2 seems a bit more low key. Altogether it feels a bit more serious -- Something that may have to do with them having found a huge source of information this time. I guess they also realized when seeing these numbers that there are a lot of variables out there, and things aren't as b/w anymore. They take 25 sets of these numbers and present them to several antidoping experts. The experts all say the same thing -- These numbers are extremely suspicious....And that's pretty much it. Just like part 1 I miss a bit of analysis. Explain a bit. Do some direct comparisons. They have the experts right there, why not use them a bit more? Only the Don Catlin interview is really interesting here. Maybe this wasn't their point. But what was it then? To show us that the sport is extremely dirty?

That's fine of course. But why are they using Per Elofsson as their poster child for clean skiing then? Elofsson was one of the absolute best skiers around that time. So if he did it clean, could the sport be as corrupt then? It could be, as Shardi said, that Elofsson just was so much better than everyone else, but I think that means that the sport wasn't as dirty as the show tries to convey(?). Elofsson won the world cup in 2001 and 2002. Two golds in Lahti 2001, and another one in Val di Fiemme two years later. Of course the olympics was special, but even then he got a medal in the mail after Mühlegg had to hand in his medals. He wasn't that far behind.

And again..Why not compare a bit? Why not show us Elofsson's numbers so we can see how a clean champion's number should be in front of a championship? They quickly show us a graph of Aukland's numbers. They also post the numbers and the graph on heir web page. They seem extremely damning. But why don't they show it properly? The graph is extremely low res, and for some reason they won't give us the dates the tests are taken. I get it with the racers they don't want to name, but why do it with the named racers? It seems silly.

Varis' numbers are a bit funny though. Can you get any more clearer signs for blood transfusions?
http://www.svt.se/ug/ug-referens/article1870129.svt/binary/Varis.pdf
 
May 19, 2010
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MrRoboto said:
A few thoughts on Blodracet 2:
...
I get it with the racers they don't want to name, but why do it with the named racers? It seems silly.
...
[/url]

VG doesn't give the dates either. In an online chat the reporter yesterday was asked by someone why they didn't give the dates. He said something vauge like "there is a reason, but I can't say what it is*. (Can't find a link to it now)

The only reason I can think of is that it might give away too much information about the source of the data? But how?
 
MustIski said:
Btw. how has out of competition testing evolved over the years? Do they test more or less nowadays than for example during Saltin's project?

Yes probably more(increased budgets), but at least with more accuracy in when to test due to better monitoring tools.

Also there are probably large differences between countries, since some have a lot better national AD programs than others.

neineinei said:
VG doesn't give the dates either. In an online chat the reporter yesterday was asked by someone why they didn't give the dates. He said something vauge like "there is a reason, but I can't say what it is*. (Can't find a link to it now)

The only reason I can think of is that it might give away too much information about the source of the data? But how?

I think who the source is is pretty obvious. The database with all the fis testing would only be available to a few people. Hint: the data starts in 2001 and ends in 2006-1st day of 2007. They said 2007 in the chat, but werent any more specific.

VG likely got the database from SVT or possibly the source(I think it's from SVT).

It could be they have agreed with the source not to release all dates due to ethical/legal considerations.

Or it could be to hide that the data has info indicating nothings wrong. Or vice versa.
 
May 26, 2009
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Could someone who saw the document (and understands Swedish better than I do..) please clarify if the blood profiles in the document were only from cross-country skiers or from all nordic ski sports? Or was this information given?

What puzzles me a bit is that three Finnish skiers would've had suspiciously high blood values. (Hopefully I understood this part correctly). Kaisa Varis is a given, but to find two other Finnish skiers you have to go quite far down the results lists.
[IF other nordic athletes could be considered, then two nordic combined athletes come straight into mind: Samppa Lajunen and Jaakko Tallus who I both found quite suspicious at the time.]
 
Giving out the dates for a long series of races would probably identify too many athletes uniquely or near-uniquely after internet sleuths started cross-referencing.

BTW, how about that women's biathlon race? Always nice to see hitherto-unknown Austrians and Russians making a big performance leap. To be fair, biathlon results vary a lot due to the nature of the event, the shooting conditions were quite difficult and a clean shooting was very valuable today, the two surprise podiumers may be known as upcoming talents inside their countries, many athletes will have lost their Olympic form, etc etc.
 
Shardi said:
To think Elofsson went shoulder to shoulder with these guys with his 15.0g/liter hemoglobin with normal variations.. Its a farce.

Feels like his 2001 and 2003 golds were only possible due to the epo test introduction in 2001 and the salt lake city darbapoietin bust in 2002 scaring others off for the next season.

Look at the mean graphs of hb (the lahthis 2001 paper) dropping significantly at the 2003 season, down to elofssons mean level.

Biggest natural talent of the last 25 years. Robbed of so many olympics golds.

I always liked Elofsson, seemed like a good, honest, humble guy, great skier, had probably the best technique at the time. Having said that, I am not putting all my money on him being clean. If Don Catlin says that none of those races in SLC seemed clean, and Elofsson was right up there for two of them, not including the 30km which he unfortunately tried to follow Muhlegg. What about the year before? With the Finns doping, Muhlegg doping, Austrians and Italians doping, Russians (although their mens team wasn't as strong and as deep in those years), yet he managed to win two golds, I am not sure about that. He may have been super talented, but in the modern world of professional sports, particularly professional endurance sports, I am not gonna be completely sold on him and suckered in by the Moncoutie effect.
 
May 19, 2010
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RdBiker said:
Could someone who saw the document (and understands Swedish better than I do..) please clarify if the blood profiles in the document were only from cross-country skiers or from all nordic ski sports? Or was this information given?

What puzzles me a bit is that three Finnish skiers would've had suspiciously high blood values. (Hopefully I understood this part correctly). Kaisa Varis is a given, but to find two other Finnish skiers you have to go quite far down the results lists.
[IF other nordic athletes could be considered, then two nordic combined athletes come straight into mind: Samppa Lajunen and Jaakko Tallus who I both found quite suspicious at the time.]

Bengt Saltin gave an interview with Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten in 2006 (right before the Turin Olympics when FIS had given Notification of Start Prohibition to a bunch of cross country skiers because of Elevated Haemoglobin Value) where he says "Nordic Combined is a completely clean sport". This is after the Lajunen era, but Tallus is still going and he took bronze in the relay in Turin and gold in the World Championship in Sapporo in 2007. It doesn't mean that he was clean in 2002 of course, or that Nordic Combined was clean in 2002 or earlier.
 
May 19, 2010
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alternator said:
Giving out the dates for a long series of races would probably identify too many athletes uniquely or near-uniquely after internet sleuths started cross-referencing.

They are giving the names of these skiers, but not where and when the samples were taken.
 
BullsFan22 said:
I always liked Elofsson, seemed like a good, honest, humble guy, great skier, had probably the best technique at the time. Having said that, I am not putting all my money on him being clean. If Don Catlin says that none of those races in SLC seemed clean, and Elofsson was right up there for two of them, not including the 30km which he unfortunately tried to follow Muhlegg. What about the year before? With the Finns doping, Muhlegg doping, Austrians and Italians doping, Russians (although their mens team wasn't as strong and as deep in those years), yet he managed to win two golds, I am not sure about that. He may have been super talented, but in the modern world of professional sports, particularly professional endurance sports, I am not gonna be completely sold on him and suckered in by the Moncoutie effect.

Thing with elofsson is, the tests in the aftonbladet link are from the active season unlike the norwegians values, including the 2001-02-20 test in the middle of the Lahtis WC.

1993 (16y): 15.1
1994 (17y): 15.6

1998-11-08: 15.8
1998-12-11: 15.9
2000-11-09: 14.8
2000-02-02: 15.0
2000-02-27: 15.6
2001-02-20: 15.1

It is sparse and there are no retics but.. The blood value after the first two stages in lathis was similar to those when he was 16-17.

Then again Armstrong worked magic with his doping controls so nothing is certain..
 
neineinei said:
They are giving the names of these skiers, but not where and when the samples were taken.

Only some of them, based on some agenda I am not sure about... after all Jaak Mae, for example, hasn't been actually sanctioned for doping has he?

Or did I miss something and they actually published the names of all the skiers who we have blood results for?
 
neineinei said:
Bengt Saltin gave an interview with Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten in 2006 (right before the Turin Olympics when FIS had given Notification of Start Prohibition to a bunch of cross country skiers because of Elevated Haemoglobin Value) where he says "Nordic Combined is a completely clean sport". This is after the Lajunen era, but Tallus is still going and he took bronze in the relay in Turin and gold in the World Championship in Sapporo in 2007. It doesn't mean that he was clean in 2002 of course, or that Nordic Combined was clean in 2002 or earlier.

It was amazing how Lajunen burst onto the scene as a 17 or 18 year old. Lajunen could fit the profile of an Olofsson-style prodigy who got somewhat worn out or burnt out in his early 20s and tailed off, or else the profile of a doper that got what he wanted and then retired while the going was good and his luck held.
 
Jul 15, 2012
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BullsFan22 said:
I always liked Elofsson, seemed like a good, honest, humble guy, great skier, had probably the best technique at the time. Having said that, I am not putting all my money on him being clean. If Don Catlin says that none of those races in SLC seemed clean, and Elofsson was right up there for two of them, not including the 30km which he unfortunately tried to follow Muhlegg. What about the year before? With the Finns doping, Muhlegg doping, Austrians and Italians doping, Russians (although their mens team wasn't as strong and as deep in those years), yet he managed to win two golds, I am not sure about that. He may have been super talented, but in the modern world of professional sports, particularly professional endurance sports, I am not gonna be completely sold on him and suckered in by the Moncoutie effect.
Don't think you've seen this, or you would have been completely sold...
http://vimeo.com/m/9642428
He's was supposed to comment the finish of the mens skiathlon in Vancouver olympics, live on national TV...

Imagine one of these guys in the same situation, commenting OTHER athletes:
Armstrong
Mühlegg
Dählie
Wiggins
...
 
May 19, 2010
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alternator said:
Only some of them, based on some agenda I am not sure about... after all Jaak Mae, for example, hasn't been actually sanctioned for doping has he?

Or did I miss something and they actually published the names of all the skiers who we have blood results for?

They only gave the names for some of the skiers. Prior to the airing of the program they said they would only name some that "stood out", by for instance having tested positive. After airing they said something like "Mae and Aukland was named because they stood out by agreeing to be interviewed."

The VG journalist (who also has the data) said in his online chat yesterday that the "suspision list" didn't contain names, but that one could compare it to the other data and find who matched.
 

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