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November 18, 2013 (Lausanne, Switzerland) – The Swiss-based World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has provisionally suspended the Russian lab entrusted to oversee anti-doping controls at the 2014 Sochi Winter Games because of quality control issues reports AP.
Normally, such a suspension is for a six-month period, which would cover both the February 7-23 Sochi Olympic Games and the March 7-16 Sochi Paralympic Games. The provisional suspension, which was announced last Sunday, would affect both the Moscow lab and a satellite lab in Sochi. This could mean that Russian organizers will be obligated to airlift almost 2,500 samples to another country for testing, a huge logistical challenge.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC), meanwhile, has now guaranteed the “integrity” of the drug-testing program in Sochi, expressing confidence in Russian testing facilities. WADA has given the Russian lab a December 1 deadline to improve the quality of its results; if the lab meets that deadline, and another one set for April, 2014, the suspension may never come into effect. The second deadline is for many changes to be: “drafted, finalized, implemented and embedded.”
AP article here.
Watch video here.
November 18th, 2013 at 8:41 pm
Considering that neither WADA nor the IOC do their jobs right, i find it funny they would critize the Russian labs at this point. Considering how many top athletes in virtually every sport go untouched (think Lance the Uniballer Armstrong, Marion Jones, Carl Lewis, Usain Bolt, Marit Bjoergen…) you have to wonder what is being done behind the scenes. We now know that Armstrong’s and Lewis’s numerous positive dope tests were swept under the rug they stole a lot of money in the process, not to mention the trust of millions of fans all around the world. Now look at Jamaican and American track and field sprinters. Tyson Gay, Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery, Kelli Clark, Veronica Campbell Brown, Justin Gatlin, Asafa Powell, Yohan Blake, etc, etc have all tested positive in recent years. What are we to think of a guy like Usain Bolt? That he is clean, while every other top name/rival has been caught with one or more stimulants being used on a regular basis? Fat chance. The USOC and USATF quietly kept Carl Lewis’s positive tests away, and (for some stupid reason) he still gets to keep his records and medals even though he was doped to the eyelids throughout his career. Exactly the same with Armstrong. Now we truly see that he is a walking, pathological psychopath who bullied anyone and everyone that spoke out against his and his team’s systematic doping throughout the 90’s and early 2000’s. And to our sport, nordic, what about Marit Bjoergen? This woman was winning races left and right back in 2002-2005, then disappeared, struggling to make it into the top 10 on the world cup, and not winning any championship medals until the Vancouver 2010 season when she discovered asthma and then was untouchable again, winning some races by a minute. What about the Italians and Norwegians bringing EPO into the game back in the late 80’s and early 90’s? Does Manuela DiCenta ring a bell? The Italians and Norwegians were working very closely with Armstrong’s doctors (and many other pro athletes at the time, mostly from Italy and Spain) Conconi and Ferrari. We all know what happened later with the Austrians and Finns, and with other sports like Baseball and American Football, with BALCO, the Mitchell Report, etc.
When the powers that be start to actually put the iron fist down on the table and start doing something about the doping problem, then we might see some changes. Otherwise, don’t expect anything positive out of this. When big $$$ get dished out in front of the big athletes, expect anything and everything. When people like Pat McQuaid, Hein Verbruggen, Bud Selig, Juerg Capol let these sort of things go without any consequences and even protecting big name players, you won’t see any good news. Time to man up and clean up professional sports!!!
Oh, and btw, this is very interesting as well:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/09/sports/west-germany-engaged-in-sports-doping-in-1970s-study-says.html?_r=0
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23573169
http://blogs.fasterskier.com/insidetrack/2013/02/28/finnish-film-accuses-daehlie-and-others-of-doping-in-the-90s/