March 27, 2010 – The Kornelia Marek doping saga continues on as more information is released through Associated Press and Langrenn.com. As Marek related to the disciplinary committee of the Polish Ski Federation she thought the injections she was receiving for the past three years from her physical therapist, Vitali Schevchenko Trypolskij, were vitamin injections not EPO as  suspected. Marek was tested by the Polish ADA after the 4x5km relay event at the Olympics this February in Vancouver.

Both her A and B samples tested positive and Trypolskij was fired as soon as this information was known. Marek was quoted as saying “I had unlimited confidence in my physical therapist, and believed the injection contained vitamins.”  Trypolskij will appear before the disciplinary committee in the next week. Marek adds further comment that if she is banned for two years, it is not a problem for her as she is a sports person for life and will return to skiing – read more at AP and at Langrenn.

All of this raises some issues for me:

You can tell from her comment about the two-year ban, that it’s a brief respite in her career as she is 24 years old and will be back when she is 26. Look at Virpi Kuitinen from Finland, who has just retired after skiing for seven more years following her doping suspension that ended in 2003.

The first law/rule of doping is that all athletes are responsible for anything that enters their bodies be it self induced or via extraneous sources. Does this automatically take Trypolskij off the hook? Marek is suggesting that he doped her and he’ll likely be in complete denial as she is banned for two years whether he did it or not.

If Trypolskij has been injecting Marek for three years with banned substances, how is it possible that she’s fallen through the cracks? Has she never been tested in those three years by FIS or PADA? I also wonder why PADA was at the Olympics all of a sudden testing its skiers?

Is Marek the culprit and she just threw Trypolskij under the bus? Hopefully the truth with come out as I think there are way more questions to be answered here. Stay tuned!