doping in skiing

ut_och_cykla

News from Sweden is that a former Finnish cheat (caught using EPO in World Championships 2003) has been caught again in the A test in her new sport biathlon and has also missed several out of competition tests.
Swedes only focus on it because of the relationship they have with Finland (bit like England France). The latest Swedish star has had a meteoric rise and some very surprising wins of late.Swedish skiers are squeaky clean of course.

But do the media scream DOPED about skiing?
Even those of you that don't speak Swedish will know the answer

ricadus

Who is this new Swedish star you refer to? Bjorn Ferry and Helena Jonsson have both being doing better this season than before, but the Swedes have one of the best coaches in the sport working for them at the moment.

Bronzie

ut_och_cykla wrote:

But do the media scream DOPED about skiing?

Certainly not in the UK because biathlon and cross-country skiing are right up there with tiddly-winks in terms of coverage. At least Joe Public has heard of the Tour de France.

The commentators on Eurosport made passing comment a couple of weeks ago when one of the (Russian?) biathletes had been prevented from competing because his haemoglobin level was over the 17 threshold - they then went on to mention that the normal explanation used by athletes for this was that they had been training at altitude. Almost as an aside, it was mentioned that EPO can produce a similar thickening of the blood. You don't say!

But I think I'm on safe ground in saying that cross-country skiing has at least as much of a dope problem as cycling, and if anything, is some way behind cycling in terms of trying to sort it out. The shenanigins with the Austrian cross-country skiing coach at the Turin Winter Olympics made some of the shite that goes on in the peloton look tame(ish).

Matchstick Man

ut_och_cykla wrote:

But do the media scream DOPED about skiing?

It's all about timing - 2007 = no major football champs and the Rugby World Cup wasn't on in July. SO what do you fill your sports reports with?
Druggie cyclists in France.
However, once the football season is back in full swing with reports of headbutting footballers, January transfer windows, clubs going into administration etc, who cares about doping in minority sports?

This is the same reason why Big Brother, the Soham murders and the McCann girl all make big media stories - Parliament is in recess and there's no footy to fill the pages.
It's called the "silly season"

here's hoping UK Athletics gets caught with a positive drug test in this year's Olympics, then we'll see cycling being let off a bit....
Remember, England isn't in the Euro Champs this year so expect a big deal to be made of the Olympics as footie journos try and find English sports stories to report on.....

pat1cp

Matchstick Man wrote:

ut_och_cykla wrote:

But do the media scream DOPED about skiing?

It's all about timing - 2007 = no major football champs and the Rugby World Cup wasn't on in July. SO what do you fill your sports reports with?
Druggie cyclists in France.
However, once the football season is back in full swing with reports of headbutting footballers, January transfer windows, clubs going into administration etc, who cares about doping in minority sports?

This is the same reason why Big Brother, the Soham murders and the McCann girl all make big media stories - Parliament is in recess and there's no footy to fill the pages.
It's called the "silly season"

here's hoping UK Athletics gets caught with a positive drug test in this year's Olympics, then we'll see cycling being let off a bit....
Remember, England isn't in the Euro Champs this year so expect a big deal to be made of the Olympics as footie journos try and find English sports stories to report on.....

I fail to see how that will help :?: :?:

timoid.

Don't give a monkeys about skiing.

Cycling has a huge problem. The media did not create it and are free to write what they like while the sport is in the toilet as it is.

iainf72

Timoid. wrote:

Don't give a monkeys about skiing.

Cycling has a huge problem. The media did not create it and are free to write what they like while the sport is in the toilet as it is.

If many sports are hiding a dirty secret surely concentrating on cycling is counter productive? It's just picking on the guys in lyrca.

Cycling is the easy target - Going after tennis / fitbae / drugby, now that would take some balls. Until dopage is addressed as a whole I don't believe we're going to get anywhere.

ut_och_cykla

<Rant on !>
Perhaps the media did not create the huge problem cycling seems to have with drugs, but the focus the problem is given is most definitely unbalanced.

Ice hockey (and other big earners in American sports - baseball(basketball etc) as well as long distance skiing are all plagued , probabaly to a similar extent, but positive tests or missed testing are brushed aside or ignored or expained away partly because there is so much money involved.

Parents here in Sweden will happily encourage their lads to play ice hockey (at great personal expense in financial and time terms) but actively discourage them joining a cycle club because of the percieved doping aspect. Ice hockey teams receive a lot of sponsor money (including state and local council assistance), cycling receives none.

I know that 15-18 year olds take anabolics to build bodies quickly for ice hockey. I know that field athletes that compete do not have to have a UCI type of 'test anywhere' agreement card. Other sports are doing it - but it doesn't make the headlines.

I can only assume that this is by choice of those who present sports news to us. Where there is big money involved the 'excuses' are presented, when it comes to cycling it has come to the point that doping is assumed until proven otherwise.
A ridiculous state of affairs and highly detrimental to the sport we pupport to support and enjoy.
<Rant off>

renard

"In Search of Robert Millar"

At the end of the book Robert quotes the levels of haemocrit allowed.

50% for cyclists.

54% for cross country skiing.

How is that justifiable?

Titanium

Matchstick Man wrote:

It's all about timing - 2007 = no major football champs and the Rugby World Cup wasn't on in July. SO what do you fill your sports reports with?
Druggie cyclists in France.

So do you think Equipe overreacted to the Vino positive test story? Were the editorial team sitting around, bored by the lack of any major sports contest, so they thought, "hey guys, let's focus on doping in cycling!" Face it, cycling has a serious problem with doping. Cross country skiiing too. Both are aerobic fitness sports where doping makes a real difference to performance. But cycling has gone through so many scandals, then onto Landis, Basso and the collapse of a couple of teams, only for contenders for the overall to test positive mid-race!

I don't understand this "other sports are bad but no one's pointing the finger at them" attitude. If you care about rider health and your own sport, quit pointing fingers at other sports, we need to make a difference to our own sport. Riders are dieing prematurely and risking cancer, heart disease and more. Maybe tennis or ice hockey have problems too but we can't influence them, and besides, just saying "everyone's at it" is the first step to accepting it, it's code for "so what?".