Was Olympic race walking medal tainted?

We reported -- from other media -- that several Russian race walkers stayed home due to positive doping tests.  However it seems Valery Borchin flew to Beijing, and walked away with the gold medal.  This didn't please other competitors in the event. To the Independent:

The pace was hot and the sun was getting hotter but Robert Heffernan from Togher in Cork was going very well yesterday morning until "the Russian" materialised alongside him in the leading pack.

They were some 12 kilometres into the Olympic 20km walk final when Valeriy Borchin joined the front group. Heffernan had been up at the front from the start but now, said George Hamilton in commentary for RTE, "you'd be concerned about the ominous presence of the Russian."

How right he was -- Borchin went on to win it. He was "ominous" in more ways than one: it turns out that Borchin is a drugs cheat who had reportedly tested positive for EPO just before the Beijing Games but ended up taking gold anyway.

Yes, suddenly Borchin re-appeared in Beijing.

...Borchin's gold has made a mockery of the event, and of every clean athlete who took the line in Beijing yesterday morning. Only ten days ago, the Russian athletic authorities admitted that Borchin was one of a clutch of athletes who had tested positive for EPO, from samples taken in an out-of-competition test last April.

It was reported that he had been dropped from their Olympic team. How he ended up competing at the Games is still not clear. Borchin had already received a one-year ban in 2005 for taking the stimulant ephedrine. He was just 18.

Competitors feared Borchin's compatriot more:

And it could have been much worse for Perez and the rest of the race walkers if Vladimir Kanaikin hadn't been one of the athletes caught with EPO in his bloodstream just before the Games. 

Kanaikin smashed the world record for the 20km walk in 2007. His record in turn was broken by another Russian, Sergey Morozov, earlier this year. Morozov was favourite for the gold medal won by Borchin. But he withdrew in mysterious circumstances from the Games last week. No-one offered an explanation. "He has not come here," said an official from the Russian athletics team. "We waited for him but he did not come to Beijing."

How do the clean competitors feel about the cheaters?

As the Marion Jones saga proved conclusively, a cheating athlete is a compulsive liar. Confronted by the evidence and faced by a world of suspicion, they will look you in the eye and swear that they are clean. They are deeply dysfunctional people, immersed in a moral universe where cheating is validated by their peers and vindicated by the medals around their necks.

Valeriy Borchin, you can be sure, celebrated his medal without a shred of guilt, among peers who wouldn't even question how he did it. Physically they are supremely healthy human beings; morally they are sick to the core.

Seriously, people call for legalizing PEDs and doping....

Comments

[Tim Watt]

" Borchin, you can be sure, celebrated his medal without a shred of guilt, among peers who wouldn't even question how he did it. Physically they are supremely healthy human beings; morally they are sick to the core."

I can't know or guess the inner feelings of morality if he is guilty, but I'm damn sure your comment,"Seriously, we call for legalizing PEDs and doping...." makes no sense in the light of the above given how much of a moral leadership is shown by clean athletes such as Jefferson Peréz.

[Steroid Nation]

Yeah, sorry mistyped on that didn't we?

In a way, legalizing some PEDs might slightly clean up sports, in that competitors who want to use PEDs would do so under medical supervision. However, that is a slippery slope that might require all athletes to use PEDs to keep up with the others. And lord knows this world has an illicit drug problem the way it is (you are correct we need leadership on the issue).

We corrected our line above...

[chiefhiawatha]

Racewalking is a joke anyway. If you cannot qualify for the olympics as a runner, then do something else with your life. There isn't olympic swimming and then olympic sidestroking for people who chose to sidestroke because all the better athletes swam real events.

They should test the racewalkers for presence of testicles, I'm sure it would be 100% negative.

[Didac]

After all, professionalism is a kind of PED. Money is a good performance enhancement device for almost everything.

[Nick]

chiefhiawatha, if you're looking for a joke just in the mirror - a@@.

[Zvgn]

chiefhiawatha: I agree with Nick. These athletes train hard and give it their all. If you knew a little bit about the sport and the effort that goes into it, maybe you'd think differently. But I doubt it. Why don't you do something else with YOUR life instead of making fun of people who work hard.

[Gary]

chiefhiawatha: When was the last time you saw your toes? Or those other things you mentioned? Better go take a walk!!

[Nancy Leo]

How sad that chiefhiawatha is so ignornant of the sport of race walking which has a long and proud tradition in the Olympics. If he or she, since the chief chooses to hide his/her identity behind a psuedonom, researches the history of past Olympics, it will be to discover that right from the get-go race walking was a separate and respected event apart from running. As to the allegations of race walkers using PEDs, I suspect that some of them are, just like the participants of other events. We have to hope that the majority of elite walkers are clean and in the absence of any hard evdience to the contrary, we simply admire the walkers for their superb physical conditionning.

[Dave McGovern]

"There isn't olympic swimming and then olympic sidestroking for people who chose to sidestroke because all the better athletes swam real events."

This is an absurd argument that invalidates the point you're trying to make. There IS Olympic butterfly, and backstroke and breaststroke for athletes who may or may not be the best freestyle swimmers. They are ALL great athletes. ALL Olympic runners and ALL Olympic racewalkers are great athletes--even if some of them have to dope to be the best athletes.

Dave McGovern
www.racewalking.org

[antidoping]

His peers did question how he did it and voiced their disgust to the waiting media after the Olympic 20km walk, see post race interviews with Australian Luke Adams the 6th place getter. Jefferson Perez was basically forced to shake the cheating bastard Borchin's hand at the medal ceremony. It's very sad these systematic dopers keep getting away with it! Kanykin has walked 1.16.20 in 2009 (56 seconds under current WR he set before going positive) whilst serving his doping ban! WADA need to get in there again and again and test every last one of them until they're all gone and banned for life! One positive test should equal a life ban but unfortunately we need them to go positive twice in their career to be banned for good!