August 26th, 2009
Egorova (twice positive) – Multiple Olympic and World Champion
Tchepalova – Multiple Olympic and World Champion
Lazutina – Multiple Olympic and World Champion
Danilova – Multiple Olympic and World Champion
Akhatova – Olympic and World Champion Biathlon
Pyleva – Olympic Silver Medalist and Multiple World Cup race winner Biathlon
Dementiev – Olympic Champion
Iourieva – World Champion Biathlon
Yaroschenko – World Champion Biathlon
Rysina – U23 World Champion
Matveeva – World Cup race winner
Baranova – Olympic Champion
Shirayev – 2nd place in a World Cup race
5 more Russians reportedly tested positive last winter but their B probes were mishandled so the positive result had to be thrown out. Numerous Russian biathletes have had hematocrits that were too high and had to sit out, but that does not constitute a positive test. Additionally, Andrey Prokunin und Veronika Timofeyeva, both biathletes, had positive A-samples at this year’s Russian National Championships.
Here’s a fun little game for you. Name a Russian skier from the past 8 years who has not tested positive. There are some, but not too many!
Tags: Doping
August 26th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Yes I seem to recall some dork who used, of course, an anonymous name informing me the Russians were no worse than anyone else. Thanks for doing this Ian because I am certain
if you track the cross country skier infraction by country, the Russians win this event hands down!
August 26th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
So, are Russians just winning everything, or are the ones who win the big races usually doped? That’s one impressive result list for one country over just a decade, and then to think these are only the confirmed dopers!
It must be frustrating though, to have such a powerful sports nation, and finding yourself midpackers due to slightly out-dated training or nutricional regimes. And then those Norwegians with their folkore and supportive King…
I would actually be most interested to see a list of Russians that have not produced a positive A sample.
How does this work for the fans? Are those sticking around for their “hero’s”?
August 26th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
Thanks for that perspective Jan.
Yes the best and the worst, nice perspective.
Heija Norge!
August 26th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
To Dave Knoop. I believe that that person was me. I try to stay away from forums like this because I don’t want to waste time arguing with posers and people that pretend to know a lot about skiing, when in fact they don’t, but that’s a discussion for another topic/time. You seem like an intelligent person who knows (i would assume) a fair amount about skiing, so this isn’t directed straight at you, and you can look at this whichever way you want: I had a talk about this with a friend who skis on a foreign national, and that person said that “he/she” was not sure who to trust because “he/she” thought that even skiers on “his/her” country’s team might be doping. Yes the Russians have a long history of doping in all kinds of sports, and I’m not sure what to call them anymore, stupid, naive, persistent, desperate or all of the above. To use a drug, EPO, when clearly you are going to get caught using it seems weird to me, especially when there is CERA, which cyclists use like it’s water. I think I might be taking back my comments of thinking the Russians are purposely targeted now days, but to suggest that other countries do not use one or another form of doping/performance enhancing mechanisms is ludicrous. Maybe the Russians don’t have enough money to get better drugs (CERA)? Maybe the Norweigans, Swedes, Germans do. Do they use it perhaps, have the Italians used them at one time or another, you bet, have the Austrians killed nordic racing with their spiels, ja gern? Who really knows? What I do know is that this is really sad and frustrating, because these guys are supposed to be the toughest athletes out there, and then they do something like this. It’s a shame
Sorry maybe it’s the eastern european in me, but I think I am starting to lose a lot of respect for a lot of these skiers.
p.s., i didn’t use an anonymus name
Davor Danevski
August 26th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Thanks for your perspective Davor.
To be fair we have our own athlete’s who are quite stupid, persistent, naive, etc..
Yet Ian’s list is what it is, Russia wins this event for Cross Country skiing for whatever reason. I am also hoping that your big guy Vladimir Smirnoff (sp?) remains a great champion without being traced to doping.
If we ever cross path’s sometime I would gladly have a beer with you and we could discuss the finer aspects regarding my favorite movie… “Dr. Stranglove”.
August 26th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Rotchev (’05 world champion, former world junior champion, many time world cup winner) has not tested positive. And to claim their ways are outdated is naive. Russian bio-mechanical and physiology testing is far ahead of the US’s.
August 26th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
Rotchev. Boyfriend and father of TChepalova’s child. But I’m sure he doesn’t dope too.
August 26th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
Kris, good point. Rotchev is part of his father’s club: “The Rotchev’s Club” and I believe Julija changed over from her father’s coaching (Sergey Shiriaev’s coach) Anatoli Tchepalov to the Rotchev group. Man, this sounds like watergate or the “Bush Doctrine.” Seriously though, this is getting ridicilous. I also would like to put another couple of names out here: Veerpalu, Mae, Botvinov and Hoffman. These guys are notorious for skiing ‘average’ during the season and then come up trumps for Worlds and the Olympics, time after time, makes you wonder….
August 26th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
touche, mr. freeman. you’re logic is brilliant. anyone else to directly accuse? let the yearly witch-hunt begin…
August 27th, 2009 at 1:02 am
While Kris’ logic is, well, logical, it’s dangerous as well.
Any fellow country(wo)man in his sport (or any athlete of personal proximity) that gets caught doping during Kris’ glorious racing years, could in this way well reflect on Kris himself this way. If he would be sadly forced to quite the sport due to injury, he’d look even more suspect. How is one to defend itself against such logic?
The guy that’s not getting caught may well never had the NEED to even try doping, as he’s winning at any level anyway, with moderate training only. Sports was never meant to be fair that way, talent wins. The only way to without superior talent, is well documented in the newspapers… This never-caught guy may also be a positive influence on his teammates, motivating them to win clean this time around.
August 27th, 2009 at 8:54 am
I do not believe that there is any way that Rotchev could be living and sleeping with Julia without knowing that she was injecting herself with drugs. Continuing his relationship with her shows that Rotchev is at best ambivalent about doping. Not turning her in is a crime in itself.
August 27th, 2009 at 10:39 am
As we know from Operation Puerto that doping cost money, lots of money. Doping at the high end of the sport requires three things:
Money
Knowledge
Access
Whether it is a large club, national team or a professional team they have all three.
August 27th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
In 1988 when I was a coach on the Canadian National Team I was skiing at the Dachstein glacier in September when Ben Johnson was caught for steroids at the Seoul Olympics.
On the day that he was caught we were been razzed by the Italian team coaches for being a doping country. I was standing beside the track with Gerhardt Taller who was the head of the racing service dept for Fischer at the time. Fischer was one of the two main suppliers of skis to the Soviet team at the time.
I was lamenting being a Canadian that day to him and he said to me “Jack, the difference between your team and their team (he was pointing to a Russian skier) is that when your team gets tested in your country for doping they are tested to be caught, but for the Russians they are tested so that they don’t get caught.”
I believe that the Russians (Soviets) have had a systematic doping program for a long, long time. The difference since 1991, when the Soviet Union broke up, is that the coaches and doctors and athletes are on their own in their little small groups and do not have the state to help them to be tested so that they are not caught. The knowledge from the pre-1991 era is there with the coaches and ex athletes who are now coaches, but not the ability to test everyone all the time to create the doping schedules that they had in the past.
The top xc skiers and biathletes in Russia are now sponsored by the Oil companies. The money is there, I think, to buy the drugs, but they don’t have the state scientists and doctors to direct and administer the program that they had in the past.
We know that this is also true for the East Germans before the wall came down. There was a big expose in the mid 1990′s in Germany. At the time it was shown that at the 1998 Winter Olympics only 2 East German athletes were not on a systematic doping program. They were Katarina Witt, a figure skater and Jens Weisflog, a ski jumper. All of the xc skiers and biathletes were doping.
Don’t forget that there has been a doping scandal in the US in Nordic Combined in the past. In 1987 Kerry Lynch was caught for blood doping. He was not caught by any testing, but months later the “secret” came out and he was outed by coaches in the US. This doping was organized by 4 people – the skier (who had a silver World Champs medal taken away and was banned for 2 years), the coach (who was banned from coaching for life), the doctor and the head of the Nordic Combined program at the time. So, it can happen on a team that one person is doping but no one else knows and it should not taint everyone else in the program if it happens.
However, if you are living with someone you have got to know what they are doing.
None of the other skiers were aware of what was happening.
August 27th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
These particular EPO positives serve as anecdotal proof on one hand that EPO does not guarantee success – and on the other hand that it is possible to do well clean.
Dementjiev was caught during Tour de Ski where he placed 9th. A great result, but there were 8 athletes in front of him. Tchepalova, also caught for EPO during the Tour de Ski, placed 23rd.
With the introduction of the hemoglobin limits, the blood profilding done by the FIS and the EPO doping tests that can now detect any larger dosages, it would seem that the benefits gained from EPO are not what they used to be during the wild mid-1990s. Which should be encouraging for the clean athletes – looking at the list of World Cup podium finishers from last year, the conclusion must be that it’s possible to win without doping in our sport.
Pro cycling has the added recovery-drug problem thanks for the “grazy” grand tours, so the list of doping substances is longer. And the money in that sport is much greater, giving the athletes both the means and the motivation to cheat.
August 28th, 2009 at 8:37 am
It like they say on Law and Order about murder suspects. Did they have opportunity and motive?
August 28th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
Interesting comments by Jack Sasseville. Yes I too have heard on an anecdotal basis that the “control” factor from the Soviet days are less. Meaning a large govt. central lab near Moscow no longer does “quality control”
on how to disguise the systematic doping process.
The culture, “motive and opportunity” remains.
As Mr. Klok also accurately points out to look at two divergent ski cultures, i.e. Norway and Russia. A continuim exists of what is acceptible to achieve “so called” success. Other offenders in terms of ski cultures and NGB’s potentially fall somewhere inbetween as Davor would like to remind everyone of as well.
As far as cycling and a myriad of other sports involved with pervasisve doping, this is the slippery slope of sports culture in general. However getting back to what is the subject at hand, Ian has accurately and factually provided an accounting of what everyone already seemed to intuitively know and he basically has said YES the elephant is in the room.
Thanks Ian!
August 29th, 2009 at 2:40 am
Babikov. If the guy skis like he does without taking anything in the face of plenty of motive (feeding a family) and opportunity, he’s my hero.
Oh wait, he’s Candadian
August 29th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Babikov is just a road runner, he’s the equivalent of Nikolay Davydenko a tennis player from Russia. He’s got lot’s of energy, grinds away, and if there is a start and a finish line anywhere in the world, you will likely see him there. I very much doubt he’ll be on anything other than pride and sheer determination. Plus, he probably skis as big as anyone else out there, great technique.
August 30th, 2009 at 8:05 am
There was an interesting quote in the story announcing the positive tests. Russian Ski Federation president Vladimir Loginov is quoted as saying “We have no chance to check everyone every day or even every minute, even the national team, but at the end of the investigation the necessary decisions will be taken.”
He almost sounds wistful, doesn’t he? He is also saying that it is not the federation that is doing it, but the athletes and their coaches and doctors.
Ivan Babikov does ski to feed his family. More than that he has been skiing to get his family out of Russia and over to Canada. His motivation is very high.
August 31st, 2009 at 12:52 am
Another thing is that at the time that Ivan left, he was a pretty good skier, just not top notch in Russia and he wanted to take his skiing to another level, preferably somewhere with slightly less competition (no offense to Canada, who at that time wasn’t as dominant as it is now). You can see perfectly what hard work, persistance, trusting in your training can do for someone. This is the total opposite of for example some of the Kenyan or Ethiopian distance runners (and believe me, there are millions of them) who vehemetly disagree with their federations due to money and sponsorships thus moving to places such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, or Turkey with money galore at their disposal. Ivan is a class act and if their is one guy you want to cheer for it’s the “Russian” and now “Canadian Slayer.”
September 1st, 2009 at 6:55 am
I think the fact that Ivan Babikov skis to feed his familly proves that he is clean. Would he really be on the positive side of the budget if he was on an expensive doping program?
September 1st, 2009 at 7:01 pm
You can’t prove by that. You look at some of the Bulgarian biathletes in the past and you wonder. Now, they are nowhere to be found. Obviously I am going off in a different direction here, but just wanting to put this up here. Bulgaria was a ‘satellite’ nation under the Soviet Union, and they got their hands on some pretty strong stuff during the Cold War era. A good example was Ivan Lebanov in Lake Placid 1980. He was a solid skier, but not a world beater, yet he gets a bronze medal during the 30 km. He got passed by Zavjalov early in the race, and then just stuck to him like glue, getting the medal. If the Soviets were on something in those days, so was he, no doubt. At that time, Bulgarians were one of the first groups to play with blood lactate testing on the glaciers.
Going back to Ivan, I would be very shocked if he was on anything, if there is one person you can trust, it’s probably him.
November 19th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
[...] Before Kamenov was caught Ian Harvey provided this view of Recent Russian Doping History [...]
December 2nd, 2009 at 11:47 am
[...] the last months much has been made about the issue of doping in Russia – from Ian Harvey’s list of Russians caught since 2001, to the meeting called by USST Coach Justin Wadsworth in Norway to [...]