Russia Doping Report

[hurrah]

If a sport industry knows that being seen to be lacksadasical about preventing doping and having a corrupt culture will lead to the disintegration of the whole sport as an industry, then everyone in it, from top to bottom, will be well-motivated to catch a cheat/corruption and expose a cheat/corruption so that ferreting out the cheat/corruption becomes the integral culture of the sport. It's sad that such a policing culture becomes intrinsic to the sport, but since even biological passport can't catch a cheat---only eyewitness account and whistleblowers can catch a cheat---and whistleblowing is so difficult to do, I don't see what else could be done to rid sports of doping, cheating, and corruption.

Maybe we are about to see an era when sport organizations go out of business in the way that companies do, which, quite frankly, is conceivable because there are tons of possible sports that can unionize and organize and even professionalize to replace the spot that has been emptied by a defunct sport.

That is maybe how organized sport has to operate in the neoliberal era we live in.

 

[alebi]

As long as no one has the power/will to directly touch the interests of the pharmaceutical industries, doping will be intrinsic with sport activities. And the most worrisome problem is the diffusion of doping substances between amateurs, who are outside of any control.

 

[hurrah]

Actually, I just had a great idea how to catch cheating and corruption within a sport:

IOC should announce that they are going to lessen and limit the number of organized sports than can take part in the Olympics, and that those sports which have the proportionally largest number of reported cheats will be the ones kicked out of Olympic participation. Then, athletes/coaches/federation members from another sport would be motivated to catch doping/corruption in a sport that they would need to see kicked out of the Olympics in order for their sport to be able to participate in the Olympic.

Totally diabolical and distasteful to think about, but what else to do?

 

[hurrah]

Or another idea is:

At the beginning of the Olympic cycle, randomly assign athletes in e.g., figure skating to either of Team A or Team B. So you've got ladies/men/dance/pairs figure skaters who are in Team A and Team B; the number should be roughly equivalent. Tell them that the team that has the most number of reported doping infractions will ALL be disqualified from participating in the Olympics, regardless of their personal score, and that if both teams end up with a signifiant number of reported doping infractions, both teams will be disqualified from participating in the Olympics, and that the only way members of both teams will be considered for Olympic candidacy would be if both teams have no or equally low number of reported doping infractions.

That, I feel, is a fairly sophisticated system of internal policing.

 

[alebi]

OMG no way athletes should spend their time training and stop.

Different countries and different federations have different rules in this subject. So, first of all, there should be an absolute and international regulation by IOC.
Then the establishment of an international court with the only task to judge every doping case (you know doping cases are judged by a national court, many times tied to the very same national Olympic committees?)
Then there must be an international and independent agency who has to provide for doping tests. Again, now doping tests are mainly done by national authorities.
The problem is... MONEY! They need lots and lots and lots of money to create something like this.

 

[hurrah]

OMG no way athletes should spend their time training and stop.

Yeah. It's totally disgusting. If only people didn't cheat.

The problem is... MONEY! They need lots and lots and lots of money to create something like this.

My way doesn't cost money. It's only cost is a loss of sense of comradery. But then, if you really have sense of comradery, you wouldn't cheat, so no one would have to report you, so there never was a sense of comradery on the part of the cheat in the first place.

Also, as is established, there is no doping test that is reliable. The only way to catch cheats is eyewitness accounts and whistleblowers.

 

[gmyers]

Why is that? There's no evidence against her as far as I know. And I don't think that russian track & field athletes will be banned from Rio if there's no evidence against them. And she'll keep her medals. There's a lot of talking going on right now, but I don't take this seriously. I'm pretty sure that we'll see Yelena Isinbayeva in Rio.

She can't compete now because IAAF ruled she and all Russians are probably doping. Why wouldn't she lose medals?

 

[solani]

She can't compete now because IAAF ruled she and all Russians are probably doping. Why wouldn't she lose medals?

The IAAF has only suspended the Russian Fed provisionally. The Russian Fed has to take certain steps (there'll be a list) before russian athletes are allowed to compete again. So basically he structures of the Russian Fed are under suspicion, not its athletes.

 

[peg]

I really believe she didn't use drugs. And no one said about her losing her medals, only gmyers.

Yes, but you posted this in response to gmyers comment about her being stripped of her medals, so I expected it to be about that

I have no opinion either way about whether she doped as I know next to nothing about her.

 

[gmyers]

The IAAF has only suspended the Russian Fed provisionally. The Russian Fed has to take certain steps (there'll be a list) before russian athletes are allowed to compete again. So basically he structures of the Russian Fed are under suspicion, not its athletes.

Yes but athletes are banned because IAAF says russian fed is probably doping all of them

 

[solani]

Yes but athletes are banned because IAAF says russian fed is probably doping all of them

No. Here's the IAAF press release: http://www.iaaf.org/news/press-release/iaaf-araf-suspended
And the IAAF might as well ban itself. :dev3:

 

[plushyfan]

Yes but athletes are banned because IAAF says russian fed is probably doping all of them

Where is the evidences? She was a top athlete, she had many-many doping tests after every competitions, under the preparations.I can't imagine that the WADA couldn't eliminate her if she used doping.

Plus she wrote an open letter in yesterday, she denied it. Maybe that was also a news in your media.

 

[gmyers]

The way doping works is that you dope up to a point where any tests would be negative during or after a competiton. That's why all Russians are banned even if they never failed a doping test.

 

[plushyfan]

The way doping works is that you dope up to a point where any tests would be negative during or after a competiton. That's why all Russians are banned even if they never failed a doping test.

No!!! They punished the Russian Federation! thus they punished all athletes what is unjust! With your logic all American and all athletes use doping in the World if the WADA's control is a joke.

 

[gmyers]

No!!! They punished the Russian Federation! thus they punished all athletes what is unjust! With your logic all American and all athletes in the World use doping if the WADA's control is a joke.

If IAAF had faith in the athletes they wouldn't be banned as well. Just the events would have been taken away.

 

[plushyfan]

If IAAF had faith in the athletes they wouldn't be banned as well. Just the events would have been taken away.

I hardly believe that every athletes used drugs. There are many Russian athletes who aren't worse than others, who don't want to cheat. Thus to say they all used drug is unjust and offensive. They had tests during the preparation, the WADA knows every steps, because the WADA used to control them in the most unexpected situations. One of the Hungarians swimmer, Agnes Kovács Olympic Champion was in trouble some yeras ago because she was one of the guests of honor on a laundry day, and she had no time to the test. The next day she gave a sample....

 

[hurrah]

An interesting article in the Mirror, of all places:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/east-germanys-forgotten-olympic-doping-6949436

I haven't read any articles about it, but I have heard that Chinese athletes used to get doped by the state quite extensively until fairly recently, and that these former athletes now have a very limited quality of life due to their broken bodies.

There's so much articles out now about doping in all kinds of sport, I really have some hope that we are going to be seeing less doping.

 

[hurrah]

An athlete has been caught for a case of doping 10 years ago due to her sample being tested with new technology:

http://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/summer/trackandfield/andrianova-russia-suspended-fifa-1.3352329

She is now banned.

This is interesting in that it solves the conundrum that cheats are always ahead of the game. It makes sense that there should not be any statue of limitation for catching a cheat. Murders, rapes and such shouldn't and often don't have statue of limitation, so neither should there be for cheats.

So a doper may not get caught at the time, but as long as their urine/blood samples are preserved, they could always be tested years later with new testing technology that would catch them.

 

[solani]

An interesting article in the Mirror, of all places:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/east-germanys-forgotten-olympic-doping-6949436

I haven't read any articles about it, but I have heard that Chinese athletes used to get doped by the state quite extensively until fairly recently, and that these former athletes now have a very limited quality of life due to their broken bodies.

There's so much articles out now about doping in all kinds of sport, I really have some hope that we are going to be seeing less doping.

I don't have much hope unless the public forces the federations/countries to do something (like giving the WADA and the NADA's the money they actually need and to let the WADA control the NADA's). These articles are around for a couple of years. The newspapers are bringing up a bunch of old stories now. It's good that they do it, everyone who's interested in sports needs to know what's really going on.
China has (had?) a huge doping problem and some very cruel coaches. Female runners in the 1990's were treated badly (some cannot even walk after their career ended because of doping combined with excessive over-training (one coach drove behind the runners in a car and bumped into them when they running too slow)). The problem in China is that the athletes are not supported by the state after their careers end, so if they have physical or mental problems afterwards they are on their own. There's this touching story about a female weightlifter, she was doped with steroids and didn't look very feminine because of it. With the help of international donations she was able to have some minor plastic surgeries (like body/facial hair removal and skin smoothening processes.). She and her husband were very happy and thankful afterwards, there even was some money left so she could open a laundry shop, but she cannot have children.

 

[solani]

Press release: ARAF Reinstatement Verification:
http://www.iaaf.org/news/press-release/araf-reinstatement-verification-criteria