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October 19, 2010 – Russian skier Yevgeny Dementiev, who won Olympic gold in the Pursuit in 2006 in Torino, plans to return to competition after he completes his two-year doping ban in August 2011, reported langd.se. Dementiev announced his retirement from the sport after he tested positive for EPO during the Tour de Ski event in Val di Fiemme in 2009. Read the langd.se story (Swedish) HERE.
Eugeni Dementiev of Russia at 2006 Torino Olympics. © Heinz Ruckemann
October 22nd, 2010 at 8:09 am
I sent this e-mail off to a bunch of heavies at FIS—no answers or feedback from any of them—but this explains my feeling on the doping situation—too lenient —so the doping will continue on at about the same pace. I don’t understand why the FIS and IOC keep playing this game, when it would be so easy to increase the sanction.
I have found out since that FIS can take away any prize money they won while the skier was still racing after being notified about their doping offense.
The cheaters still have a future!!
http://fasterskier.com/2010/10/russian-dopers-must-repay-prize-money-to-rejoin-biathlon-world-cup/
Hello All—I’m sure many of you know about this and the other sanctions that the IBU has levied on these skiers. Since it seems that many of you are reluctant on increasing the years of sanctioning on FIS athletes, these additional steps increase the burden for resuming their careers and I hope I can encourage you to consider such sanctions
It would be interesting to know what percentage of skiers that have been caught doping that return to competitive racing at the international level. My guess is that it would be close to 90% which tells me the current sanction is not a big enough deterrent.
By increasing the sanction to life on the first offense you will deter more athletes from doping, which will save sport all over the world millions of dollars. It is time to make this move as science will continue to make it easier to dope and harder to detect and deny the clean athletes their due.
Best regards,
Marty
October 24th, 2010 at 4:52 am
Marty, I wouldn’t worry about something you have no control of, if I were you. The guy aknowledged that he made the mistake, and blamed nobody else, not the coaches, not any anti-doping agency, and has vowed to comeback and leave a great mark while being a clean athlete. FIS has said that the Russians are on schedule to meet the Nov. 1 deadline of a report on their anti-doping work. I don’t think FIS would be lying about that and I don’t think they would let the Russians off the hook if something came about. 2 years is pretty much the universal sentence in professional sports. Cycling, track and field and skiing have had this for a while now. I think you are just jealous that an olympic champion gets a second chance at proving he is an honest athlete. The Russian Federation has made a massive overhaul of pretty much all of their olympic sports this past spring/summer and I am pretty sure they wouldn’ be stupid and naive to get in more trouble.
October 25th, 2010 at 6:02 pm
Hello Federer—if you believe that Yevgeny made a mistake you are just another naive skier or reader who was fooled—his actions were pre-meditated with the intention of taking advantage of all the clean skiers—he was a cheater. I am complaining that he is getting off too easy and that his sanction or penalty should be longer so as to complicate his ability to be able to start up again. I know what is going on with the sanction period for all sports—2 years—I have been against this number of years from the beginning—it needs to be 4-5 years so a skier can’t make such an easy return to the sport as Dementiev is doing.
Here in North America we are able to speak our minds with open and honest concerns for fairness in sport as the rules are written. Europeans on the other hand are handicapped in most cases as many of them think doping is part of the sport scene.
I have nothing to be jealous about, but I am angry that these same politicians that have set such a low penalty are also the same politicians who let the Russians run around from the early 70’s until just the last 10 years doping with a very weak detection system and no system in place for many of those years..
Just for instance, go take a look at the Women’s 10km Championships at the 1974 FIS World Championships in Falun and tell me you have a good feeling about the honesty and integrity of the finish order. Doping was rampant then—and if you are in question—look at all the races and tell me you full good about the Iron Curtain’s results.
In the years that I was in the international arena my budgets were predicated on the results my skiers were able to accomplish in these unfair environments—therefore the skiers were screwed out of the rightful results and our budgets were less then we deserved. to run our programs with.
Another point, I think you’ll find these past few years of doping incidents by the Russian cheaters is more athlete, coach and club driven then by the Russian Nordic Association. Just a strong feeling. If it is true, stopping these problems may be harder to control and there could be some surprises, yet.
“The Russian Federation has made a massive overhaul of pretty much all of their olympic sports this past spring/summer and I am pretty sure they wouldn’ be stupid and naive to get in more trouble.”
This could be true, but it is the past that they are guilty for and the FIS President Kasper’s threat of non-participation in 2014 in Sochii is a sanction I don’t think they can afford to fool with.
WE NEEDED THIS KIND OF THREAT 40 YEARS AGO AND WE WOULDN’T HAVE HAD THE CHEATING THAT HAS TAKEN PLACE SINCE THEN. ALL SPORT WOULD BE SO MUCH CLEANER NOW.
October 25th, 2010 at 6:30 pm
Ok. That’s one way of looking at it. Not the way I look at it, but I will respect your opinion. What do you think about the Estonians, namely Veerpalu, Mae and Smigun? How about the Czechs 2002-present with Neumannova, Bauer and Koukal? Poland with Krezelok, Krezcmer and Kowalzcyk? Kazakhstan has been climbing steadily, Slovakia has established several podium threats over the years with the likes of Bajcicak, Batory and Prochazkova. Teichmann, Kunzel-Nystad, Goering, Sommerfeldt. these skiers were brought up in the East Germany sports institutes and have all thrived under the leadership of Jochen Behle in the 2000’s. Care to lend your thoughts on them?
October 25th, 2010 at 11:25 pm
That’s easy—they’ve all been tested—no positives—so what’s your point—the Russians have incriminated themselves—they’ve had15-20 (possibly more) positives in the last 2-3 years—don’t try to blame me.
All I ever wanted for my skiers and programs was a level playing field and it was never there—but, we are getting there. It would have been faster if the sanction had been stiffer.
Do you realize how clean the sport of nordic skiing would look if the Russians had been clean.
The other thing to think about—there is individual domination or excellence by individuals now, but not by countries. There are countries who are always around the top—Norway, Sweden right now and this line up is even more international now—but they are not intimidating like they use to be—the results of all top races are truly international now—the way it should be.
Have you ever read “Faust’s Gold”? It’ll give you some good insight into what these monsters running the DDR doping program in the 70’s and 80’sdid to their skiers. It’s a great read!
October 26th, 2010 at 5:29 am
What’s my point? My point is that you continually target skiers from Eastern Europe. Again, same argument, no substance, no backbone. Sorry, I won’t debate with someone who is being redundant. Do you have proof of the Russians doping back then? I could easily say that Americans have a long history of doping in track and field, and that Italians and Spaniards have a long history of doping in cycling. This is one of the reasons why our sports society doesn’t move as fast as we would like, finger pointing, stereotypes and just pure anger. You talk about East Germany, what about the others? It’s funny how sometimes ignorance and lack of knowledge get in the way of rational thought. Here, take a look at this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2003/apr/24/athletics.duncanmackay
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_online/scorecard/news/2003/04/15/sc/
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/17/1050172709693.html
You say that it’s easy, because they haven’t tested positive. Ok, were there any tested samples that came in positive in nordic skiing back in the 70’s and 80’s? When you start using the term “Iron Curtain,” one already knows where the discussion is headed. That’s all I have to say, but I am afraid I’ll be getting the same ‘geschichte’ from you, so with that in mind, I will abandon all hope and end this discussion.
Cheers.