Steroid Nation

Harold Connelly dies: Olympic champion and early steroid pioneer

Former Olympian Harold Connolly died at 79 last week.  He died in the gym, with his boots on.

Connolly lived a full and interesting life as documented in the New York Times. He was an Olympic hammer throw champion, a man involved in a huge international controversy based on love, and an early user of anabolic steroids.

In 1991, during a relaxed and lubricated private dinner, I said to Harold Connolly, winner of the 1956 Olympic hammer throw and a perennial world and United States champion: “It’s all timing. If you’d been born later, taken steroids, you could have won a few more gold medals.”

He looked at me incredulously. “You kidding? I was using after 1960. We all were.”

Connolly recognized aggressiveness as a steroids side effect:

When I first met Harold at a Randalls Island track meet in 1966, I didn’t suspect that his crusty demeanor, generally ascribed to fierce competitiveness and self-consciousness about his arm, was probably made even edgier by drugs. Surly that day, he tried to psych out the young hammer thrower who eventually beat him, and he was dismissive when I asked him about reports that he had subverted the youngster’s Olympic training with misinformation.

Twenty-five years later, at that boozy dinner, and then again last October, in a long, sober interview, he admitted that drugs were certainly heightening his “aggressiveness” back then, which he still felt was their only significant downside for older athletes. Harold was against punitive testing, which he thought did no good (“Most of the athletes I have known would do anything short of killing themselves to improve performance”), and he had come around to oppose drugs for youngsters, although I was never sure whether he really thought there were dangers to developing brains and bodies or whether he was finally being politic. 

Connolly relates a day when to achieve at the highest level in the Olympic field events, anabolic steroids was required:

It was after watching American doctors routinely give athletes testosterone injections that Harold decided he could use a little help, too. He started with one or two 10-milligram tablets a day of Dianabol along with proteins. When that had no discernible effect, he moved on to Winstrol and other drugs in “stacking” combinations. It was a standard regimen in the days before testing and prohibition.

As he later told a Senate subcommittee: “I learned that larger doses and more prolonged use increased muscular body weight, overall strength, and aggressiveness, but not speed, flexibility or coordination. My vertical jump went up but so did my blood pressure and cholesterol levels.” 

He had plenty of teammates with whom to compare notes. He remembered that during the 1968 Olympic trials, many athletes “had so much scar tissue and so many puncture holes in their backsides that it was difficult to find a fresh spot to give them a new shot.” 

Although he had some reservations (“Every time I felt unusual physical reactions, a twinge here a twinge there, a headache, disrupted sleep or diminished libido, I retreated from the testosterone or steroids — too apprehensive to take them regularly.”) they were not enough to preclude offering his seven children drug advice in pursuit of their athletic careers. Apparently, they didn’t want to use or they listened to Harold’s second wife, Pat Connolly, a three-time Olympian and coach, whose opposition to drugs has been fierce and unrelenting.

Connolly argued that pro athletes should be allowed to use PEDs.  However like most of these arguments he likely didn't understand the pragmatic issues involved: at what dose, for what period of time, for what indications, and who will pay the malpractice insurance?  (American medicine does not approve medications willy nilly; double blind, controlled research studies are required for EACH indication and EACH compound.  There are not even the preliminary studies on these drugs to begin to delineate the benefits and risks.)

“Pro athletes who can pay for medical guidance should take steroids,” he said. “They can give fans a better performance, a nice luxury. The argument against it is that they are role models and kids will find the black market.

“But the danger factor is ridiculous. How about Nascar and boxers and football players, even without drugs? Maybe some good will come from all this fuss. We’ll find out more about drugs, like we found out more about alcohol and marijuana.”

The romance?  Connolly pursued a Czech discus athlete despite the cold war:

He’s been appropriately celebrated as a role model for disabled athletes (he was born with a withered left arm) and as a lead in one of sports’ most romantic love stories (he married Olga Fikotova of Czechoslovakia, the ’56 Olympic discus winner) but he should also be appreciated as a complex and seminal elder of the Age of Enhancement.

PED using Olympian Antonio Pettigrew found dead at 42; PED use involved?

Forty two year-old former Olympian and admitted PED user/drug cheat Antonio Pettigrew was found dead at age 42.  Pettigrew served as a track coach at The University of North Carolina.

ANTONIO Pettigrew, who was stripped of a 2000 Olympic 4x400m relay gold medal for doping, has been found dead at the age of 42.

There was no word on the exact time or possible cause of death for Pettigrew, whose body was discovered on Tuesday according to a spokesman for University of North Carolina, where Pettigrew was an assistant athletics coach.

Pettigrew, who won the 1991 400 metres world title in Tokyo, was a member of the 4x400 metres American relay team that won the gold medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

But the International Olympic Committee (IOC) stripped Pettigrew and his teammates - including Michael Johnson - of their medals after he admitted, during a trial against former coach Trevor Graham, to doping.

Pettigrew qualifies as a "non-analytic" PED user: He never tested positive for PEDs, however he admitted to use under oath in court.

Pettigrew used at least EPO and HGH. Studies have shown HGH enlarges the heart muscle.  EPO is related to sudden death in cyclists -- it changes hemodynamics.

Could HGH and EPO use have lead to a cardiac problem in Pettigrew produced sudden cardiac death? No one will know exactly, but it's intelligent speculation.

It is reported Victor Conte thought EPO was one of the best PEDs.  Will we now start to see 40+ former athletes drop dead from PED side effects?

Marion Jones's tainted Olympic gold goes to waste, rather than to Katerina Thanou

The New York Times says that Marion Jones's tainted gold medals from Sydney will in part be distributed and in part will rot in purgatory.

Greece's Katerina Thanou will not be elevated to gold, after her second place finish in 2000 in Australia.  Obviously Thanou's behavior in her native Greece  during the 2004 Olympics left a bad taste in the IOC's mouth.  Thus Thanou, who has never tested positive for steroids but whose behavior reeks of a PED cover up, will be ignored in the record books.  Interesting message from the IOC, and not entirely consistent with logic. (but check out Thanou's photo and one sees why she might fit in better with the men's 100M; those are impressive traps for a female)

However in the 200M, the Jones gold wil be awarded to that 2nd place finisher.

 The International Olympic Committee redistributed the medals won by the disgraced sprinter Marion Jones at the 2000 Olympics on Wednesday, but it refused to award her gold medal in the 100 meters to Katerina Thanou of Greece, who was barred from the 2004 Games because of a missed drug test.

Jones surrendered the medals when she admitted in 2007 to lying to federal investigators about performance-enhancing drug use. Normally, the other competitors are moved up in order when medals are surrendered, but Thanou’s later drug testing issues prompted the committee to leave the top spot in the 100 meters vacant. In record books, Thanou and Tanya Lawrence of Jamaica will be listed as silver medalists and Merlene Ottey of Jamaica, who finished fourth in the race, will hold the bronze.

Thanou did not fail a drug test, but she and her teammate Kostas Kenteris missed drug tests  before the 2004 Games in Athens and were kept from competing by Greek Olympic officials after it was determined they had staged a motorcycle crash to cover up their absence. Track and field’s international federation, the I.A.A.F., barred them for two years.

Jones’s gold medal in the 200 meters was awarded to Pauline Davis-Thompson of the Bahamas, with the silver going to Susanthika Jayasinghe of Sri Lanka and the bronze to Beverly McDonald of Jamaica. Jones’s bronze medal in the long jump was given to   Tatyana Kotova of Russia.

Apparently  if the IOC can't catch a drug cheat the first time, they may make a statement some 10 years later...

The fate of the Jones relay medals remains tainted at this point.

The fate of the two medals won by United States relay teams that included Jones in the 2000 Games is still being decided by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. When those medals were stripped from the American teams by the I.O.C., the other members of the relay appealed the decision to the Court of Arbitration, which is expected to issue its ruling by Dec. 18.

Female nigerian sprinter Amaka Ogoegbunam tests positive for steroids at Berlin world championships

A Nigerian hurdler reportedly tested positive for an anabolic steroid at the Berlin world championships this week.  To the AP:

Nigerian hurdler Amaka Ogoegbunam has tested positive for steroids and has been suspended for the rest of the world championships.

She is the second athlete to fail a drug test at the worlds following steeplechaser Jamal Chatbi of Morocco.

Ogoegbunam was disqualified from the semifinals of the 400-meter hurdles Tuesday. Track and field's governing body says Ogoegbunam tested positive for the anabolic steroid metenolone after the race.

The 19-year-old Nigerian also was to have run in the 1,600-meter relay.

'Greatest athlete of all time' -- Usain Bolt -- sets world record time of an 9.58 second 100M in Berlin

Jamaica's Usain Bolt once again lowered the world 100M record by a full 0.10 seconds from his 2008 Beijing Olympics mark to an astonishing 9.58 in the Berlin IAAF world championships yesterday.  Bolt's startling times ignited world controversies about the legitimacy of his mark.  However, controversy is all naysayers have at this point.  Bolt has never tested positive for PEDs, had never been caught in a buy, and has never admitted to illegal drug use.  Nonetheless, obliterating world marks in the 100M with astonishing regularity is such an incredible feat, doubters are working overtime.  (from the Telegraph)

That's what athletic miracles do today. They bring as much suspicion as awe, as much skepticism as joy. Yet, while Bolt was being hailed by the head of world athletics Lamine Diack as the greatest athlete of all time, the subject of all the frenzy, last seen being pursued by screaming fans down Jesse-Owens-Allee outside the stadium, just ignored it all.

A breakdown of the Bolt run goes like this:

It is the "you never know" bit which he knows tantalises us. Yesterday, the biomechanical analysts from the IAAF produced a statistical breakdown of the final which suggested that what we saw in Sunday was Bolt's Bob Beamon moment, a barrier-shattering, never-to-be repeated annihilation of the sport's blue riband record. But you never know...

Eleven hundredths of a second slashed off the mark in one hit was sprinting's equivalent of the moment in Mexico City in 1968 when long jumper Beamon decided to bypass the 28ft barrier altogether as he took the world record to 29ft 2½in with one leap.

But the IAAF's split times confirmed that Bolt's astounding improvement on the 9.69sec record he had set exactly a year earlier in Beijing was due almost entirely to the fact that this time he did not showboat over the last few of his 41½ strides as he had done in China.

He was actually slower over the first 20m than in Beijing (2.89sec to 2.87sec) but what made the vast difference was his lack of concentration as he covered the final 40m in Beijing in 3.37sec. On Sunday, in contrast, he covered the equivalent stretch in 3.27sec, a whole tenth of a second quicker. Between 60m and 80m, he topped 46kph (28.58mph).

There was one quick look right and a glance left towards the clock, so perhaps he could even have gone a fraction quicker but, realistically, there looks to be no section of the race where he can in future trim off more than the odd hundredth of a second at a time. He has just made those $100,000 (£60,700) world-record bonuses hellishly difficult to annex now.

Until proved otherwise, the Bolt record must be considered legitimate.  The athlete apparently has the neuro-muscular development to produce stride frequency times stride length to generate sprint speeds never achieved in recorded history at sanctioned track meets.

 All the logical arguments in the world about doping hold no merit if the athlete maintains clean testing.  Other factors come into play -- a better track surface, improved shoes, perfect conditions,  high quality competition -- to push these world records into new territory.

There was a Roger Maris to beat Babe Ruth's single season home run record.  There was a Mike Powell to surpass Bob Beamon's long jump record.  It appears the thrust of DNA and technology to lower or lengthen previous marks in performance.  Thus, it is not impossible to go where no man has gone before in history.  Just damn tough to do it twice.

New Jamaican track doping case: Stimulant detected before World Championships

More Jamaican controversy.  Apparently Jamaican track athletes tested positive for a stimulant, however information is murky.  (AP)  This is the problem with athletes from the Island: murky procedures that keep the world doubting the athletes.

The world athletics federation is still awaiting information on a ruling that cleared five Jamaican athletes of doping and a decision on their participation in the world championships is likely to come close to Saturday's opening.

"We are following the matter. We are not saying anything today," IAAF secretary general Pierre Weiss said at the federation's congress on Wednesday.

The IAAF would have liked to have dealt with the issue well ahead of their biennial championships and has been sharply critical of the way the Jamaicans have addressed the situation and the lack of urgency with which it has been transmitting information.

"It is an amazing situation we are facing," said IAAF council member Helmut Digel.

Jamaica's Anti-Doping Commission said Monday it will appeal a ruling that had cleared five Jamaicans after a disciplinary panel appointed by the island's sports minister found there wasn't enough evidence to prove substance abuse.

The runners had previously been identified as Yohan Blake, Sheri-Ann Brooks, Allodin Fothergill, Lansford Spence and Marvin Anderson.

They reportedly tested positive for the stimulant methylhexanamine. The disciplinary panel cleared Brooks last week and she is on the provisional list to compete in the 100 meters on Sunday.

The IAAF had hoped to receive information from the Jamaican federation right after Monday's ruling, and has a review panel ready to assess the case on short notice. As long as no information is forthcoming, it cannot tackle the issue.

Doping in track is alive and well: Five Brazilian track athletes named as drug cheats

A number of Brazilian track athletes will receive an early exit from the world championships in Germany, reported as doping suspects.  To the AP:

Brazilian officials say five athletes preparing for the upcoming world track and field championships in Germany have failed doping tests.

The Brazilian athletics confederation says Bruno Lins Tenorio de Barros, Jorge Celio da Rocha Sena, Josiane da Silva Tito, Luciana Franca and Lucimara Silvestre presented "adverse results" in out-of-competition tests conducted by the confederation on June 15.

The athletes, who were already in Germany for this month's competition, requested their B samples be tested and are returning to Brazil to present their defence.

Three of the five athletes were at the Beijing Olympics last year - Barros helped Brazil finish fourth in the 4x100 metre relay, Silvestre competed in the women's heptathlon and Tito was in the women's 4x400 relay.

A number of Beijing 2008 Olympians included in this group.  One would not expect them to have suddenly become dopers in the past year...if you catch our drift.

The photos of Franca and Tito appear a bit strange....androgen influence?

UK 800M champ Jemma Simpson looking for redemption, and weighing in on doping

After suffering stress fractures in her foot, British 800M runner Jemma Simpson is looking to get back on track during the UK's upcoming national trials.  A article in the Times documents her comeback. We look at her doping attitudes.

In Simpson's event -- the 800M -- Russians form a major component of the competition, and a major part of the doping contingent.  Her opinion:

It may be this optimism that informs her opinions about doping. The 1,500 metres, which is likely to be her ultimate destination, has been destroyed by Russian drug cheats. The IAAF, the world governing body, is awaiting the Court of Arbitration for Sport to decide whether to indulge Russia’s cynicism and backdate bans to free the cheats to compete at the World Championships in Berlin next month. With 29 Russians banned for doping, isn’t that depressing?

“No, it’s good,” Simpson said. “The more they catch, the better. You talk about it with other runners and you have suspicions, but you can’t let it affect you. It’s not a level playing field, but the more positive tests there are, the more likely we are to have a clean Games in 2012. You need the stigma. Japan never seems to have a problem and I think that’s probably because it would be considered a terrible thing there. That’s the way it has to be.”

What?  A country with honor?  Heresy.  And how about Dwain Chambers?

But what of Britain, given Dwain Chambers is vying for a place in the Great Britain team today? “I honestly don’t think British athletes are doping,” Simpson said. “Our controls are so strict now. It’s not the culture.”

She avoited that questions quite well...

More Beijing Olympians tested positive for PEDs; Report says 1500M champ Rashid Tamzi included

The AP carries a story today of positive doping tests in the rerun of samples taken from the 2008 Beijing Olympics.  Apparently a rerun for CERA EPO netted a few more PED cheats, including the men's 1500M gold medal winner. These results ave been hinted at for weeks. (Let's Run link too)

An official familiar with the results tells The Associated Press that backup tests came back positive for 1,500-meter champion Rashid Ramzi and four others accused of doping at the Beijing Olympics.

The athletes tested positive for the blood-boosting drug CERA in retests of their "A" samples earlier this year, with the results announced in April.

The official told the AP on Wednesday that the "B" samples have been analyzed and confirmed the positive findings. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the results have not been announced.

The athletes face being stripped of results and medals.

The others are Italian cyclist Davide Rebellin, German cyclist Stefan Schumacher, Croatian runner Vanja Perisic and Greek walker Athanasia Tsoumeleka.

CERA EPO (the newer large molecule EPO) tends to be abused by endurance athletes.

Although this will not make as large a splash as Ben Johnson's Winny positive, an Olympic 1500 gold medalist positive for PED cheating is every bit as disgusting.

Justin Gatlin speaks about track and about steroids..a walk through someone's reality

Let's Run anchors a section on Justin Gatlin talking about track and roids.  Gatlin's recent interview, found here, meanders around a number of subjects, none of which include responsibility for Gatlin's positive testosterone test.

What was your immediate reaction when you found out the "A" sample was positive?

Shock. You’ve heard of somebody saying they were so in shock they fell out of their chair? That’s what really happened. I was in my house in my office, I was on the computer. I got the call and I remember breaking down and crying right there.

How long were you upset?

I was upset for almost a straight week. I was trying to get everything in order, trying to figure out why this is happening to me and if this is true. I remember breaking down in public at some points. This was my life. I feel like I’m a victim to the situation.

Worst moment of your life?

Worst moment of my life...

What do you feel bitter about?

A lot of misquotes from the press. Nike not standing up and saying anything. I fell they rode the fence and they still ride the fence until this day. I had a great rapport with Nike past a business relationship. I felt that when everything happened they kind of put themselves back into the crowd, slunk into the shadows. They suspended me while they fired Trevor and fired Chris Whetstine. That was their way of saying, ‘hey, we’re gonna hold this guy. And we’re gonna jump back on the bandwagon and if anything bad happens, we’ll just let him go’. Instead of saying ‘Justin, we believe in you, you know what the contract is, this is what it is.’

I was very upset with the sport about a lot of things. When everything was going good, everyone was patting me on the back. When things started going bad, everyone was shaking their finger in my face saying, see I told ya.

A lot of blame goes to Chris Whetstine and Trevor Graham as well. Obviously, they were there to be my inner circle and protect me. You discover a lot of things about different people. I found out Chris Whetstine could not get a credential to the (2004) Olympics because he had a criminal record.

Chris was more of a renaissance masseuse. He understood biomechanics, alignment of your body, muscle therapy, trigger points, how to stretch you, acupuncture. This guy had the total package.

When you have someone like that who has those kind of credentials to understand the body wholly, that eliminates you from working with three other masseuses or chiropractors. Though Nike wouldn’t do anything to hurt any of its athletes, if they’re going to pay this guy they knew he had some kind of record. That’s when I felt really upset. They put this guy on the payroll and they have got to do a background check on everybody you’re paying.

Gatlin appparently continues to blame his masseuse and Trevor Graham with sabotague.  In fact it was a conspiracy..somneone or oragnization was out to get him.

Do you thing it will ever come out how you tested positive?

I don’t know.

Do you think you should be looking into this more yourself?

I’ve been doing that from day one. I feel like (rappers) Biggie (Smalls) and Tupac (Shakur, both who were murdered in the late 1990s). Maybe I’ll never find my killer. That’s how things are.

Come on, man, do you really think people buy that you have no idea of PED use?  The referrals to Smalls and Shakur are unbelievable.

More on 2008 Beijing Olympics positive doping tests: Davide Rebellin, Rashid Ramzi & Stefan Schumaker

More news emerges from the news wires today on the new 2008 Beijing Olympic doping results.  Focus is directed on 2 sports and 3 athletes:

Cycling: Stefan Schumaker, Davide Rebellin
Track: Rashid Ramzi (Gold medal 1500)

Again, it appears CERA-EPO constitutes the doping agent.

From Monsters and Critics:

Stuttgart - Olympic 1,500 metres gold medallist Rashid Ramzi of Bahrain and Italian cycling  road race silver medallist Davide Rebellin have tested positive for the latest generation of the blood booster EPO at retests of samples from the Beijing Games.

German cyclist Stefan Schumacher was also named by the German cycling federation while the ruling athletics body IAAF confirmed reports that three of the overall six suspects are from its sport.

Ahmad Ben Hamad Al El Khalifa, deputy general secretary of the Bahrain Olympic Committee, told German Press Agency dpa on Wednesday that the committee has been informed about Ramzi's positive test.

At the same time the Italian Olympic Committee CONI named Rebellin as a doping suspect and summoned him to a hearing on May 4.

And Germany, hit with a spate of blood doping scandals, announced this:

The Germany cycling federation then confirmed that Schumacher had also failed a retest for CERA. Schumacher had already tested positive for CERA at retests of 2008 Tour de France samples.

If found guilty, the athletes face disqualification, will be stripped of their medals and banned from the 2012 Games on top of sanctions from their respective sports federations.

More 2008 Beijing Olympians test positive for doping: Cyclist Davide Rebellin and unnamed track gold winner

News agencies report today that several 2008 Beijing Olympians tested positive for doping. (NBC)  A cyclist from Italy -- Davide Rebellin -- was named.  Also interesting was unnamed male track gold medal winner.  Appears CERA-EPO was the culprit.

A person familiar with a new round of drug tests from the Beijing Olympics says two medalists were among six athletes who turned up positive when their blood samples were rechecked.

The person tells The Associated Press the tests nabbed three track and field athletes, two cyclists and one weightlifter.

The person also says one of the track and field athletes is a male gold medalist. The other medalist was in cycling.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the names haven’t been officially released by the International Olympic Committee.

The Italian Olympic Committee says one of the six was an Italian athlete. The Italian news agency ANSA identified him as cyclist Davide Rebellin, silver medalist in the road race.

Unnamed male track gold medalist.  Hmmmmmmmmmmm. Any guesses?  CNN reports 7 positive tests from 6 athletes; one doper was a double winner.

A total of 948 samples were analyzed, with seven tests, from six athletes, coming back as positive.

More from the NY Daily News:

The IOC announcement didn't identify the six athletes, who each failed a newly-designed test for CERA, an endurance booster. They are being notified through the governing bodies of their sports. CERA, which stands for continuous erythropoietin receptor activator, is an advanced version of erythropoietin, which increases the development of red blood cells, bringing more oxygen to the muscles.

The IOC's anti-doping rules allow for the storing of samples for up to eight years so athletes tempted to cheat know that they may test positive even if the anti-doping technology hasn't yet caught up to cutting-edge doping products and techniques. The testing took place in accredited laboratories in Switzerland, France, and Germany, and targeted samples from athletes in cycling, rowing, swimming and track and field.

The IOC said it tested a total of 948 samples after developing new tests for CERA and insulin, the diabetes treatment that has some performance-enhancing properties. The insulin re-test, performed on 101 urine samples, didn't result in any positives. But the CERA test identified seven positives for six athletes.

Greek racewalk champion Athanasia Tsoumeleka might be walking in jail yard

From Hellenic Athletes comes a story on champion Greek race walker Athanasia Tsoumeleka.  Appears the Olympic athlete caught doping with CERA EPO may be spending time in the pokey.

Olympic race-walk champion Athanasia Tsoumeleka was charged under Greece’s penal code earlier this week with using an illegal performance-enhancing drug.

Athens prosecutor Costas Simitzoglou charged Tsoumeleka with breaking the country’s strict anti-doping laws, recently revised to include jail-time, after she tested positive in January for the drug CERA, an advanced version of the blood-booster EPO.

Last month, Greece's track and field federation handed her a two-year ban from competition, while this week's charge carries a maximum two-year jail term.

Tsoumeleka finished ninth in Beijing in the 20k walk event in a personal best of 1 hour, 27 minutes, 54 seconds. She was almost 3½ minutes behind winner Olga Kaniskina of Russia.  In 2004, she won Athens gold in 1 hour, 29 minutes, 12 seconds.

Tsoumeleka, 27, denies knowingly using the substance, has expressed doubts about the whole testing procedure, and upon learning in

January that she had tested positive announced her immediate retirement from competition.

Sprinter Justin Gatlin settles with anti-doping agencies in civil lawsuit

Beleaguered American sprinter Justin Gatlin settled out of court in a lawsuit involving anti-doping agencies.  Gatlin sued because the agencies suspended him over Adderall (apparently the anabolic steroids he also used didn't enter into the suit).  From Universal Sports:

Suspended American sprinter Justin Gatlin has agreed to a settlement with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), the United States Olympic Committee (USOC), USA Track and Field (USATF) and the International Associations of Athletic Federations (IAAF) in a civil suit Gatlin filed claiming the four groups discriminated against him based on the Americans for Disabilities Act, Universal Sports has learned.

Gatlin, the 2004 Olympic gold medalist in the 100m and the 2005 world champion in the 100m and 200m, is serving a four-year suspension for testing positive for  testosterone in 2006.

Court documents show that Gatlin agreed to the settlement on Feb. 9 in the U.S. District Court for Northern Florida. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed. Gatlin and his attorney, Joe Zarzaur, refused to comment about specifics of the settlement.

And some details:

It's unclear if the defendants admitted any guilt in the settlement.

“The fact that they settled has nothing to do with the merits of the case,” said John Collins, an attorney who has represented athletes against doping charges, including Gatlin. “You have to figure if the settlement is greater than the attorney’s fees, then there may be some admission of guilt. If not, than all they settle for is nuisance value.”

Gatlin filed a civil suit against the four groups on June 9, 2008, claiming they discriminated against him based on his disability, Attention Deficit Disorder. Gatlin tested positive for amphetamines from tests taken June 16 and June 17, 2006 during the U.S. Junior National Championships.

Gatlin claimed the drug Adderall, which he was taking for ADD, was the source of the amphetamines. He further claimed there were no forms to fill out at the junior national meet allowing him to declare that he was taking the medication.

This is how Usain Bolt rolls: World's fastest human knows ganja

USA Today discusses Usain Bolt's pharmacologic menu.  A little weed when he was younger; some Red Bull and ale now when he is older:

Turns out Olympic speedster Usain Bolt is not unfamiliar with the ganja.

Bolt, a triple gold medalist who set world records in the 100 and 200 meters in China, tried marijuana when he was young reports the German newspaper Bild

"In Jamaica, you learn as a child how to roll a joint. Everyone here has tried it. I did too -- but I was real young then," Bolt said. "My family and my friends don't smoke and I don't hang out any longer with people who smoke." (Photo by Mark Dadswell, Getty Images)

The story also said that Bolt has two bodyguards supplied by the Jamaican government and that he drinks Guinness mixed with Red Bull.

So will this change budding track stars training habits all over the world?  High rolling and lower times...

More on caffeine as performance enhancing

Well written article, originally from the New York Times, but reprinted in the Arkansas Times-Democrat on the use of caffeine as a PED.  Notable was the opening paragraph discussing an episode where 'Let's Run' founder Weldon Johnson discovered the benefits of caffeine in running.

Weldon Johnson first tried caffeine as a performance enhancer in 1998. He was not a coffee drinker but had heard that caffeine could make him run faster. So he went to a convenience store before a race and drank a cup of coffee. For the first time in his life, he ran 10 kilometers in less than 30 minutes. "I remember being really wired before the race," he said. "My body was shaking." From then on, he was a convert. Johnson, co-founder of racenews aggregator letsrun.com, would avoid caffeine, even in soft drinks, for a few weeks before he competed in a race, wanting to have the full stimulant effect. "It may have been a huge placebo effect, but I swore by it," Johnson said. "Having a cup of coffee exactly one hour before the race was part of my routine." Or maybe it wasn't a placebo effect.

Caffeine, it turns out, actually works. And it's legal, one of the few performance enhancers that is not banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Is caffeine a PED?

Exercise physiologists have studied caffeine's effects in nearly every iteration: Does it help sprinters? Marathon runners? Cyclists? Rowers? Swimmers? Athletes whose sports involve stopping and starting like tennis players? The answers are yes, yes, yes and yes and yes and yes.

Caffeine is a anatagonist of adenosine A₁ and A₂ receptors and a phosphodiesterase inhibitor (we originally said xanthene oxidase inhibitor, which is incorrect; caffeine is a xanthine compound, if anyone cares about that), which acts as a mild stimulant.  And why do we remember this obscure fact from school, although we can't remember 90% of anything any more?  The compound may act on dopamine receptors to produce stimulation.

Because of the morning Red Bull.  Caffeine also affects the muscles too.

For many years, researchers thought the sole reason people could exercise harder and longer after using caffeine was that the compound helped muscles use fat as a fuel...(however) caffeine increases the power output of muscles by releasing calcium that is stored in muscle. The effect can enable athletes to keep going longer or to go faster in the same length of time. Caffeine also affects the brain's sensation of exhaustion, that feeling that it's time to stop, you can't go on any more. That may be one way it improves endurance, Tarnopolsky said.

Be careful though, too much java and you may experience negative effects.

More on the Matschiner Austrian doping scandal: Kohl, Rasmussen, Vroeman, and more

From Earthtimes comes news of the latest in the burgeoning Austrian/Bulgarian doping scandal. The scandal extends now into cycling (Tour de France contestant Bernhard Kohl), skiing, and track.

Vienna - Austria's cycling doping scandal widened Thursday as three more people were detained, according to media reports. The reports come on top of four arrests of alleged doping suppliers in March.
 
The latest development came after Stefan Matschiner, the former manager of disgraced Austrian cyclist Bernhard Kohl, was detained Monday night for allegedly supplying athletes with a range of performance-enhancing substances and blood transfusions.

Prosecutors in Vienna did not comment on the reports by Austrian press agency APA and the daily Die Presse, which attributed its story to unnamed investigators. According to the reports, at  least one of the arrests took place Wednesday. Earlier in March, police detained Austria's former cross-country ski coach Walter Mayer on charges of having bought the blood-booster EPO from a pharmacist. The pharmacist and a professional cyclist were also taken into remand but have since been released. Their names have not been made public.

From OE24.at comes a graphic of the athletes involved with the trainer Matschiner.  The group includes the pro cyclists Kohl and Michael Rasmussen, and the triathlete Lisa Hutthaler.  Also note Simon Vroeman, who tested positive for doping last year, was a client of this 'manager'.

 Meanwhile, public attention was focused on the Humanplasma laboratory in Vienna, where Kohl said he went three times to receive blood transfusions before buying a transfusion machine together with other athletes.

The laboratory said it could not confirm or deny Kohl's presence on its premises, but claimed it had never "approached, invited or received" athletes for blood doping.

The Austrian cross country skier Christian Hoffmann, as well as Danish cyclist Michel Rasmussen have denied reports that they also paid for and used the machine that was allegedly set up in Matschiner's home.

This article failed to mention Bulgarian sprinter Ivet Lalova, who is linked to Matschiner too.

Bulgarian sprinter Ivet Lalova denies doping charges

The Austrian press yesterday implicated Bulgarian sprinter Ivet Lalova in doping sponsored by the Bulgarian manager Stephan Matschiner.  LaLova answers the critics.

Another Bulgarian athlete was involved in a doping scandal. In the center of the problem was the sprinter Ivet Lalova. According to publications in the “Courrir” newspaper the manager of the Bulgarian Stephan Machiner has regularly given to his athletes forbidden substances. 

The newspaper’s publications are based on the triathlon athlete Lisa Huthaller, who claims that the agent has made a special calendar with the specific substances  and when they should be taken. Machiner has denied Huthaller’s accusations.

Ivet is in the committee of the European association athletes where she was elected not only  because of her sport qualities but also for her personal ones. The bad thing is that the involving in this scandal is coming in a moment when she is recovering from a new injury”, said Lalova’s coach Konstantin Milanov.

Ivet’s sister – Ani was also surprised with the accusations. “Ivet is impeccable”.
Ivet Lalova made an official statement. “It is highly unpleasant to me that exactly in this moment my name is involved in a scandal.  In a moment when my returning to the sport is the most important of all, the media cite an Austrian newspaper that is involving me in a scandal.

My relations with Stephan Machienr have only been as between a manager and an athlete. With which other sports people he was working and what were their relations I am not aware of and I haven’t been interested professionally.

After the first doping scandal with his cyclist in the end of 2008 I announced my intention not to work with him anymore. As a result after the end of the last winter season I canceled my contract with him. I don’t want to bare responsibility for the actions of someone else. I am attacked by an Austrian journalist whom I have “allegedly” refused an interview.

This is absurd. I haven’t even been contacted for a comment from that newspaper. For nearly 5 years I am in the list of 24-hour checked athletes. I have more than 15 controls every year.

Did American sprinter Jordan Vaden ride Winny to new personal bests?

American sprinter Jordan Vaden burst on the sprinting scene last year.  He surprisingly finished 2nd at the US Outdoors with a 200M of 19.98, better than his 2007 200M at 20.42.  He also ran a 10.2 100M

However he was busted for stanozolol (Winny, Winstrol).  To Universal Sports:

The IAAF has sanctioned American sprinter Jordan Vaden, who has been suspended for two years for doping violations. Vaden, who starred collegiately at Division 2 Livingstone College, tested positive for stanozolol during an out-of-competition screening on August 19.

Vaden was a surprise runner-up in the men’s 200m at the 2006 U.S. Outdoor Championships with a monster personal-best of 19.98 seconds. He also finished fourth in the 100m in a PR 10.20. In 2007, his best performance was a sixth-place showing in the 200m (20.42) at the U.S. Outdoor Championships.

Bulgarian sprinter Ivet Lalova implicated in doping scandal

Guilt by association?  The Austrian press implicated top Bulgarian female sprinter Ivet Lalova in doping because of links with manager Stefan Matschiner.  Matschiner supplied pro cyclist Bernhard Kohl with juice.

(Update here)

To Novinite for the story:

The Austrian media has accused Bulgarian top sprinter Ivet Lalova of close links with manager Stefan Matschiner, who has allegedly forced athletes to  take banned substances.

Lalova, Bulgaria's best athlete for 2008, explained that she stopped working with Matschiner at the end of last year when the first reports of his clients failing doping tests surfaced.

"My relationship with Stefan Matschiner is purely businesslike," Ivet said after Austrian media reported the two were seen together at a local  restaurant.

Lalova's coach Konstantin Milanov has also denied the allegations.

Apparently this is similar to the guilt by association when Lance Armstrong was linked to Italian uber-dope doctor Michele Ferrari.

Lalova has quite a following with fansites.  You can also find plenty of online pics of the photogenic athlete with a Google search.

This should improve relations between Austria and Bulgaria.

Catching up with steroid and PED stories

1.  Bike Radar reviews biological passports.

2.  Ex-Olympian ran steroids smuggling scheme...David Jenkins.  Evening News, Edinburgh.

3.  Get your steroids at a Dominican pharmacy, it's easy.  Newsday.

4.  Former 'roider in New York blames his cardiac problems on past steroids use.  Metrowest Daily News.

Austrian triathlete champion Lisa Huetthaler on doping: "You have to lie"

Austrian triathlon champion Lisa Huetthaler came clean about her doping regime.  She named suppliers up the food chain, and as we contend behind every doper is a trainer, coach, and doctor who encourages or enables the cheating.  Here to Asia One News:

Austrian triathlete Lisa Huetthaler, who was suspended last October for doping, named names in an interview with the daily Kurier published Friday, as Austria once again faces a doping scandal.

A former European champion at under-23 level, Huetthaler, 25, revealed in the interview that she had obtained banned substances from Stefan Matschiner, the former personal manager of Austrian cyclist Bernhard Kohl, who was also suspended last year for doping.

She also named a doctor at a Vienna children's hospital, Andreas Zoubek, who has already come under suspicion in recent months for supplying doping substances but has always denied the charges.

Huetthaler, who had until now always rejected doping allegations, said Matschiner sold her EPO (erythropoietin) half a dozen times between 2007 and 2008, as well as testosterone. He also gave her a blood transfusion on one occasion.

'When you're really in it, you have to lie. You have to make lying systematic. It's routine. You lie so much that after a while you don't even really know anymore what's the truth,' Huetthaler said in her interview.

Her revelations come days after the arrest of Walter Mayer, a former Austrian national ski coach, on suspicion of dealing in illegal doping substances, including EPO.

Another cyclist, Christof Kerschbaum, was also arrested but later released, while a Vienna pharmacist suspected of supplying Mayer and Kerschbaum with banned substances is still in custody.

Mayer was already involved in the Austrian cross-country and biathlon doping scandal at the 2006 Turin Olympics.

Huetthaler was handed a two-year suspension by the Austrian national anti-doping agency (NADA) in October after testing positive for EPO.

BTW, nice delt-bicep tie-in in the photo.  Very testosterone-like.

Dwain Chambers still hanging with Victor Conte, despite BALCO history

In the 'They never learn' category', it appears ex-BALCO client and current comeback sprinter Dwain Chambers continues use ex-BALCO boss Victor Conte as his go-to expert in performance enhancement.

You would think Chambers, now trying to work his way back into track, would refrain from association with the man who supplied him with illegal steroids and PEDs.  Apparently not the way he thinks.

Athletic's world governing body has admitted it is shocked that Dwain Chambers has reunited with controversial coach Victor Conte.

Conte spent four months in jail for his role in the Balco Laboratory scandal that rocked athletics.

Chambers tested positive for the banned substance THG in 2003 and served a two-year ban.

But the sprinter is using a hi-tech breathing device to boost his oxygen capacity under the supervision of Conte.

The IAAF said the disgraced sprinter, who won the 60 metres title in the European Indoor Championships last week, should distance himself from Conte.

"We're very surprised that he's still associating with people like Mr Conte," an IAAF statement said.

"And if he's looking forward to a career and claiming that he's doing that in all legality, it's probably wise to disassociate yourself with people with a reputation for being involved in doping in sport."

The device simulates high altitute.  And Victor Conte simulates a coach

Dwain Chambers names track athletes, coaches, and contradictions in new book

The AP discusses UK sprinter Dwain Chambers's new book as more of the text is revealed.  Not surprisingly Chambers names more track athletes who used BALCO for doping including Kelli White.
British sprinter Dwain Chambers names several doping-tainted American athletes in his autobiography chronicling his use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Sprinters Kelli White, Chryste Gaines and Alvin Harrison, all of whom were busted for doping and served suspensions, are all mentioned when Chambers recounts his ties with BALCO founder Victor Conte.

"He kept telling me to talk to the other athletes, talk to my coach Remi (Korchemny), Chryste Gaines and Kelli, Alvin Harrison to name a few. I told him I would," Chambers writes in the book "Race Against Me: My Story...

"In time I became fully aware of Victor's role and his purpose in recruiting the best athletes in the world," Chambers writes. "Victor was a pharmacologist with a living to make."

Chambers says he started taking THG, also known as "The Clear," and other drugs such as HGH and EPO, in 2002 after meeting Conte in the United States while training.

"As time went on, I became more and more familiar with associating certain athletes with certain drugs. ... I made Kelli White my main confidante and the attraction grew by the day," writes Chambers, who says he dated White for more than a year.

White won the 100 and 200-meter races at the 2003 world championships in Paris, but both her medals were stripped after she tested positive for modafinil

Chambers, who admitted using 300 combinations of illegal PEDs assumes a strange and paradoxiacally moral attitude toward illict drug doping:

Although Chambers says both he and White "agreed that we hated having to cheat to win," he later says he didn't know THG was on the World Anti-Doping Agency's list of banned substances.

"If THG was on there I was out of America on the very next flight and Victor Conte was history!" Chambers writes, but then later in the book adds, "I printed the list off. It ran to nearly eight pages. I went over it three times and found no reference at all to THG. Victor was right: it wasn't on the banned list."

"In my own mind, I wasn't cheating."

In earlier excerpts from the book printed in the Daily Mail, Chambers says he was a "walking junkie" and took "more than 300 different concoctions" of performance-enhancing drugs that cost him $30,000 a year.

"It wasn't a problem. I was earning big money at the time," Chambers writes.

White (photo right) who to her credit confessed to all the doping, is an example of how the drugs produce an incredible physique.  Once again, consider all records in the 'steroids era' to be at risk of PED taint. 

Chambers also hits the syringe on the head in the last statement.."The money..."

Also note the irony of calling Conte a 'pharmacologist'.

UK Sprinter Dwain Chambers lays out chilling inside look at track doping via BALCO

Carrying excerpts before the mid-March publication of Dwain Chambers new book "Race Against Me", The Daily Mail shows the chilling (and expensive) world of big time track doping.  Chambers admits to more than 300 drug cocktails from BALCO (and other sources).  To Earth Times:

London - Disgraced British sprinter Dwain Chambers admits in his forthcoming autobiography "Race Against Me" that he took a concoction of over 300 performance-enhancing drugs. In an installment published in Tuesday's Daily Mail ahead of next Monday's release, Chambers, who served a two-year ban after being found guilty of doping offences in 2003, said he had paid out 30,000 dollars a year for doping substances.

"I wasn't just on THG, EPO and HGH, but testosterone to help with sleep and reduce cholesterol," he said. "On Christmas Day (in 2002), as I sat in the bathroom with 'The Clear' (THG), I realized I had been taking drugs - more than 300 different concoctions - for 12 months.

During that time, Chambers says he passed 10 doping tests as well as winning the 100-metre gold medal at the 2002 European Championships. However, his times hadn't improved that dramatically and he was also often troubled by stomach cramps.

"When I was clean, my personal best was 9.97 seconds. A year on, after the sleepless nights, the anxiety, the pain of the cramps, the blood draws to make sure I wouldn't suffer a stroke, or worse, the inconsistent races and the disappointment of missing events, my PB (personal best) was 9.87 seconds," he wrote.

Some of the drugs: The clear (THG), testosterone, insulin, HGH . Provigil, T4, and EPO.  Dangerous...Yes.  Effective...apparently.  Chambers says his time went for a PB of 9.97 to 9.87, nice gains.  The cost, you can see above the price.

The discussions?  This discussing with Tim Montgomery about Conte and BALCO:

I  (Chambers)should have seen the danger signals when Montgomery snarled at me one day: ‘Yo, Dwain! You wit that n***** Conte? Don’t go anywhere near that c********r. Let me tell you, Chambers, he’s bad news.’

I was unnerved, but he didn’t elaborate. I didn’t know there was a huge row brewing between Montgomery and Conte. Tim had probably taken a well-educated guess that I was clean and didn’t want me dragged down. I just wish he had been more constructive, instead of hurling obscenities in the direction of Victor.

And a discussion with Conte:

Conte had convinced me that a new drug meant I could train harder and more often. He called it The Clear (THG) and The Cream.

‘Is it illegal?’ I asked.

‘It’s undetectable.’

‘Is it banned?’

‘The Clear is not on the prohibited list and neither will cause a positive test.’

‘Isn’t that cheating?

‘They’re cheating you, Dwain. You’re a talented athlete and you’re not competing on a level playing field. Most of the top sprinters are on steroids. Every time you race you’re at a disadvantage.’

Ah, rationalizations...

Anti-Steroid, anti-doping crusader and IRS agent Jeff Novitzky under the spotlight

ABC News posts a story on the journey of IRS agent Jeff Novitzky, who once tried out for Lute Olson at Arizona basketball, as he crusades against steroids and  doping and some say too zealously Barry Bonds.

The story starts in a California courtroom where Novitzky participated in the BALCO trial of Victor Conte.  And it will continue in the same courtroom:

Sometime in the next few months, Jeff Novitzky will walk back into the same 10th floor courtroom, raise his right hand and swear to tell the truth in the case of the United States v. Barry Lamar Bonds. He will say that Bonds lied in that same courthouse five years ago when he told the grand jury he never knowingly took steroids. And then he'll wait for the jury to decide if baseball's home run king was telling the truth.

But no matter what the jury decides -- and face it, most of us have already made up our minds about Bonds -- it is clear that the detective and his gun has replaced the scientist and his test tube. What isn't clear is whether Jeff Novitzky is part of the solution -- or if he's now the bigger part of the problem. 

Novitzky's early life was highlighted by the Olson connection:

There is nothing about Novitzky's life before Balco that suggests a man destined to direct the biggest investigation in sports history. Or one who would crave or abuse power. He grew up the son of a Bay Area hoops coach, a basketball and track star who still owns the San Mateo County high jump record of 7 feet. Coming out of high school in 1985, he tried out for Lute Olson's Arizona University basketball team. When he fell short, Novitzky returned home to play backup forward and teammate to his big brother at San Jose State.

His athletic career over, Novitzky got a degree in accounting and took a job in San Jose with the IRS's criminal division, a select group of agents who use tax laws and their guns to bust up all sorts of criminal operations.

After the jump we examine more of the extended story on Novitzky...

Dope and steroid testing comes down hard on Jamaica

The Globe carries a story documenting the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAFF) hard come down on Jamaica during the past year's dope testing.

The International Association of Athletics Federations is delighted to see Jamaica's athletes doing fast times — as long as they're not doing it on banned drugs.

The little Caribbean nation was listed yesterday as one of the five most tested nations in IAAF figures for out-of-competition testing released yesterday by the federation's head office in Monte Carlo.

Jamaican athletes, led by the world-record 100- and 200-metre times of sprinter Usain Bolt, dominated the 2008 Beijing Olympics, with 11 medals — six of them gold — in distances of a lap of less. Bolt, who set or shared in four world records last season and won a series of races in Europe, was one of the most tested athletes in the world.

More on dope testing Jamaican athletes after the jump...

Lance Armstrong backs out of Don Catlin anti-doping protocol

Lance Armstrong announced he will be butting out of UCLA doping guru Don Catlin's custom made anti-doping program.  Armstrong announced -- amid huge fanfare at a Bill Clinton conference last fall -- that he would undergo Catlin's state of the art anti-doping program to prove he was ahead of the curve in dope testing, and to prove he was clean.  Does this mean he is neither?  What spin will be weaved on this announcement.  To the Sydney Morning News:

LANCE ARMSTRONG may have scrapped plans to put himself through an independent anti-doping program run by world-renown expert Don Catlin but he will undertake the control system in place for his Astana team.

Armstrong's management was quick to clarify the status of his testing protocols after news reports said Catlin and Armstrong's management had been unable to put their proposed testing regime in place.

Armstong's agent and lawyer, Bill Stapleton, said: "After a thorough review of the efficiency of a separate testing program, the decision has been made to transfer the comprehensive program we had planned to do with Don Catlin to Rasmus Damsgaard, a renowned anti-doping expert who runs the Astana team's internal testing program."

Armstrong will go with Astana's anti-doping program...Astana which withdrew from the Tour de France in 2007 when Vino Alexandre Vinokourov tested positive for blood doping.

More on Armstrong and Catlin after the jump...

UK Heptathlete Sotherton to Ukranian Blonska: "You cheating cow"

The UK's favorite all-around female athlete had something to say to The Ukraine's doping heptathlete Lyudmila Blonska: "You cheating cow".  Yes, Britain's Kelly Sotherton offers her 'high' opinion of the bovine-ous Ukrainian opponent (cow photo below right).  To the Daily Mail:

Kelly Sotherton received her official certificate from the Beijing Olympic Games only last week. It states baldly that she finished fourth in the heptathlon.

But behind that simple confirmation of how close the 32-year-old came to adding to Britain's impressive medal haul in China lies a story of deceit, dismay and bitter disappointment that only now, five months later, has Sotherton been able to tell.

When the two days of competition in the heptathlon ended, Sotherton found herself placed a disappointing fifth in the final standings. In the aftermath of the event, it was revealed that silver medallist Lyudmila Blonska had failed a drug test for testosterone Blonska was thrown out of the Games and subsequently banned for life, along with her husband and coach, Sergii Blonskyi.

Sotherton had seen this cheating heart before:

It was a wearily familiar story for those in track and field. The Ukrainian had failed a drugs test in 2003 for steroids and banned for two years, and Sotherton had regularly attacked her return to the sport as that of a drug cheat.

Last week, Sotherton revealed to The Mail on Sunday exactly how blatant and cynical Blonska's behaviour in Beijing had been.

Sotherton said that she became suspicious of her rival when she saw the Ukrainian being handed something by her husband as the competitors walked into the stadium to take part in the heptathlon's long jump.

And the painful doping exposed:

'During our long jump event in Beijing I saw Blonska take something,' said Sotherton. 'I was sitting next to her during the event, watching her doing it and thinking: "You cheating cow".

'It had started when we were called out of the holding room for the long jump and I saw her husband, who's also her coach, hand her something. We were walking out in single file, with the judges in the front, and he just back-handed her something in a tissue.

'I thought, "I'm going to sit next to you and see you do it. You're cheating. I know you are". I  followed her right to the long jump - maybe that's why I messed up my own long jump - and she had a phial. Maybe it was the thing that should have masked her drugs or a stimulant. But she was taking something.

'I think she thought she could do it subtly, but I decided I was going to stare her in the eye. And I thought: "Go on then, do it". And she did!

'It had happened before at the World Indoor Championships in Valencia. Then her husband threw something to her (from the crowd), which you can't do. I didn't see it but all the coaches did and thought it was wrong, but no one reported it. When he did the same again in Beijing, I reported it to the British team and they notified the athletics authorities, the IAAF, and they found something in the warm-up area.'

Blonska cheating at the Beijing Olympic Games, blatant manipulation of the rules and ignorance of the integrity of the Games.  However, like many cheats, she posed as the persecuted:

'Maybe she thought she was going to get away with it,' said Sotherton. 'But a couple of hours later she was testing positive. When I spoke out against her in 2007, I think people thought I was out of turn and that I should have been looking forward to getting my bronze medal instead of talking about someone I know is cheating. 

'But everyone who had said that I ought to be quiet then came up to me this year and said: "Oh you were right!" Even the organiser from the most important multi-events meeting in Gotzis (Konrad Lerch) said: "Kelly, you knew, didn't you? You did a good job speaking out". He obviously felt remorseful as he had let her back into his meeting.

Sotherton appears to have come to terms with the cheating.  The article closes as such:

'There is nothing you can do about it. Cheating is part of life. There will always be cheating but you know what your medals represent. I just think that if you believe you can do it clean, do it.'

Sotherton has at least scored that small victory. 'I got my fourth-placed certificate from the Olympics this week,' she said. 'I had to fight to get it because they weren't going to give another certificate out. But I never came fifth. I came fourth.'

Interesting how many cheats have been revealed over the past few weeks:  R-Rod, Bonds, and the Olympians...

Ex-Olympic gold medalist positive: Greek Athanasia Tsoumeleka, 20K walk athlete tested positive for EPO

Athanasia Tsoumelek -- a gold medal winner at the 2004 Athens Olympics in 20K Walking -- tested positive for EPO in a blood sample obtained prior to Beijing. This test must be a product of the IOC retest of blood samples from Beijing 2008.  To the Canadian Press:

Former Olympic champion Athanasia Tsoumeleka tested positive for the banned blood-booster erythropoietin in a retesting of a sample she provided two days before the opening of the Beijing Olympics.

Tsoumeleka, the 20-kilometre walk champion at the 2004 Athens Games, confirmed she was told that a retesting of the urine sample she gave on Aug. 6 tested positive for EPO.

But she expressed doubts about the second procedure and announced her retirement from competition, effective immediately.

"I was informed that there is a problem with a positive test for (EPO) in a sample I submitted on Aug. 6, 2008. I will not try to excuse myself, even though I have not knowingly made use of this substance," Tsoumeleka told radio station Skai. "The fact that samples are tested more than once - that is, opened not in my presence - makes me feel uneasy about the whole process.

"My unfortunate involvement . . . forces me to put an end to the high-level competitive sports I love so much and not wait to continue after the expiration of my expected punishment."

In Beijing, Tsoumeleka finished ninth in the 20-kilometre walk in a personal best of one hour 27 minutes 54 seconds. She was almost three and a half minutes behind winner Olga Kaniskina of Russia.

Tsoumeleka's positive test result was the latest affecting Greek athletes.

The Greek Olympic athletes are compiling a heinous record of Olympic doping.  Fania Halkia, several sprinters and strength athletes either were banned form Beijing or tested positive at the game.

Fani Halkia, the 2004 Olympic 400-metre hurdles champion, was dropped from the team in Beijing and expelled from the athletes' village after testing positive for the anabolic steroid methyltrienolone. Fourteen other Greeks, including 11 weightlifters, tested positive for the same substance before the Olympics.

Vassilis Sevastis, the head of Greece's athletics federation SEGAS, said he would not comment on Tsoumeleka's case and her statement.

"Greece is full of EPO ... nothing has been done to curtail doping in the past 20 years," sports doctor Stavros Hatzos told Skai radio station.

Lance Armstrong on eve of comeback down under

Lance Armstrong will take to the race course down under in Australia tonight for a challenging warm up as he competes in the "Race Down Under" later this week. Did Armstrong set up his 'state of the art' anti-doping system?  To the Sydney Morning Herald:

LANCE ARMSTRONG concedes there are very real dangers about kicking off his comeback in a criterium such as tonight's Cancer Council Classic in Adelaide, in which the pace will reach breakneck speed on a tight inner-city circuit...

However, Armstrong is wary about the style of racing he will confront in tonight's criterium, in which the field will race 30 laps of a 1.7km circuit - for a total of 51km - around Rymill Park in Adelaide.

In recent weeks he has reiterated his need to re-adapt to the speed and flow of racing in a tightly compacted bunch, such as the 133-rider pack made up of 19 seven-man teams that will feature in Adelaide.

Asked about his first pedal strokes in international racing since winning the 2005 Tour being made in a criterium rather than a road race, he said: "It wouldn't be my first choice."

Armstrong also discussed the doping program he designed:

Armstrong also confirmed the independent anti-doping program to be run on him specifically by American expert Don Catlin was now in place. Armstrong, who has been tested in and out of competition 12 times since announcing his comeback in September - and twice in Adelaide - said Catlin's program would start at the Tour Down Under

"It's formalised," Armstrong said. "It is under way. It is the most comprehensive anti-doping plan in the history of sport. I am proud of it.

"If anybody has any questions about any performance this year it can hopefully answer some of those questions, but we are under way.

Sound like there were logistic problems:

"It was slightly complicated because there are a lot of people involved and obviously a lot of other agencies involved.

"Outside Don Catlin there has been 12 other anti-doping controls out of competition.

"I would challenge anybody else to show me 12 anti-doping controls in the past few months."

He said the delay in getting the Catlin program up and running was due to "getting everybody synched up, getting everybody together".

And the strategy for the course:

"[The course] has changed a little since last year where there were a lot of turns, and times when [riders] would have been really breaking hard and accelerating out of corners," he continued. "That makes it harder when you are 50 to 60 to 70 guys back. The other ones are sprinting out of the corner when you are braking into the corner. It looks on paper to be something that you can roll around a little easier on.

"But it sort of goes full circle. I started off in the late '80s doing criteriums in the

United States. The main thing is to stay out of trouble, stay up front and avoid the drama."

Legendary Olympian Gail Devers weighs in on steroids -- crush them

Gail, Devers the legendary Olympic sprinter weighs in on PEDs and steroids, and she doesn't mince words.  According to Devers a 2 year ban is a 'slap on the wrist'.  Report here from Indopia:

Former Olympic and world sprint champion Gail Devers wants drug cheats to be barred from continuing their career in sports and should not given a second chance as is the norm currently.

" There should be zero tolerance to drugs in sports. By zero tolerance I mean that if you are caught (doping) you don't get a second chance and your name gets erased from all records. It's as if you never existed,"said Devers at a media conference here today.

The former American sprint queen, who overcame the debilitating Grave's disease affliction in 1988 before the Seoul Games and went on to pick up the 100m sprint gold four years later in Barcelona and repeated it in 1996 at Atlanta, is here with her family as Brand Ambassador of the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon to be held this Sunday.

" Taking (performance-enhancing) drugs is a big no-no. Banning them for two years (for first time offence) is just a slap on the wrist. They can then come back and avail of new technology and continue to cheat. It should not be allowed,"she said."(My wish is) Once caught you are gone and we don't even know you existed anymore", said the 42-year-old mother of two daughters who won the 100m hurdles title too at Barcelona.

 Devers, who won the 100m sprint as well as the 100m hurdles in the 1993 Stuttgart World Championships, described the case of her American successor in sprints, the drug-tainted Marion Jones, as"very sad"."We should not compromise our integrity. We also should educate our children (about drug abuse),"she said.

Strong words, indeed.

Dwain Chambers threatens to quit unless someone hires an ex-drug cheat

Dwain Chambers, fastest man in England, says he needs money, and he needs it now.  The UK's top sprinter who feasted on a BALCO regimen of steroids, HGH, and the other BALCO PEDs now cannot run in international track meets due to bans on ex-drug users.  Seems it isn't fair to ban a guy who cheated once, and may still benefit from the long term effects -- although it has been some time since he used PEDs.  Chambers also owes payback for earnings during his doping days.

To the Sporting Life:

Former drug cheat Dwain Chambers admits he could quit athletics if he cannot make it pay financially in 2009.

As a result of his two-year drug ban, Chambers is currently barred from competing in over 50 meetings organised by the Euro Meetings Group including those staged in this country.

The 30-year-old is also burdened by having to repay to the International Association of Athletics Federations over £100,000 pounds he earned during the period he was using the banned substance THG, beginning in 2002.

UK Athletics (UKA) have now welcomed the sprinter back into the fold after unsuccessfully preventing him competing in a British vest at last year's World Indoor Championships where he shared the 60metres silver medal.

That will see the Londoner initially bid for a place in the national side for the European Indoor Championships in March and then the World Championships in August.

But Chambers is hard up and must start earning cash in the next few months, otherwise he will have to retire from the track.

"I'm able to continue competing as long as my lady is still in a job," Chambers told PA Sport. "I have no one other than Leonie supporting me."

Chambers is currently searching for money paying races, particularly in Europe, and continued: "The duration of my career will depend on how well I'm treated by the meet promoters.

"But it's not going to be easy. If I can't earn anything next year then I'll have to seriously consider finding some other kind of living."

Sorry about that Dwain, we all have to earn a living at some point in time.

However, he insists that although he is banned from competing at Olympic level after his drug offence, he will try every possible avenue to continue.

Chambers was Europe's quickest 100m sprinter last summer and he has been hammering out the training in his bid to bring more medals home for the Norwich Union GB side at next year's major championships.

Chambers said: "I plan opening my season at the Birmingham Games in January, then the trials as I want to run in the European Indoors and at the World Championships in the summer.

"I'm the man - I want to win medals for my country. I can achieve that and get the job done."

Meanwhile he is hoping to have a meeting with UKA chief executive Niels de Vos and see if there is any possibility of competing in the Aviva-sponsored British meetings.

"I'll try and arrange a meeting with Niels de Vos in the New Year and we'll see what happens."

Too bad 'the man' was a drug-cheat, huh?

 

Bulgaria can manipulate urine samples too: Bulgarian track athletes suspended for doping

A trio of Bulgarian track athletes will be sitting out 2 years due to doping violation.  One is sprinter Texdzhan Naimova, who -- taking a page out of the Russian playbook -- manipulated urine samples. (To Focus)

Board of Managers of Bulgarian Track-and-Field Athletics Federation (BTFAF) decided to penalize Tezdzhan Naimova, Vantya Netova and Raya Stoynova for two years, BTFAF told Focus News Agency.

Naimova is sanctioned because of manipulating urine example in doping test. After collecting indisputable proofs about her deed BTFAF immediately initiated an inquiry including hearing to Naimova and presenting her proofs. According to regulations of International Association of Athletics Federations BTFAF ceased her competition rights on 30 September 2008. Naimova admitted her guilt and is ready to bear any sanction.

The sanction comes into force on 30 September 2008.

The others used an anabolic steroid:

Vanya Netova and Raya Stoyneva have given positive doping results on metanolon. The first athlete was tested during competitions for Europe Cup in Istanbul and the second one was tested at Balkaniada in Kastoria, Greece. Netova replaced contused Dobrinka Shalamanova in 3000 m of hurdle-race and Stoynova took part in 400 m of hurdle-race instead of tsvetelina Kirilova that was preparing for Olympiad.

B examples of both athletes that have confirmed the positive results of A examples are opened.

Netova’s two-years of penalty comes into force on 28 July 2008 and the Stoynova’s sanctions is in force since 19 August 2008. Their competition rights were stopped on the same dates.

The head of Bulgaria's anti-doping agency says he is shocked:

I was shocked by these two athletes’ behavior and mainly by Tezdzhan Naimova, President of BTFAF Dobromir Karamarinov commented. The positive moment in Naimova’s case is that she confirmed her guilt and declared her readiness to bear any sanction. That is the motive accepted as mitigating circumstance by BTFAF’s Board of Managers so it imposed a minimal sanction in these cases - two years.
Netova and Stoynova are athletes of club stage and the fact that they have not prepared for championships purposefully does not exculpate them. Stoynova and Netova were imposed with two years of sanction each.

Details behind the 2008 Russian track Olympic doping scandal: How Yelena Soboleva went down

In July 2008, world class Russian track stars -- including world record holder Yelena Soboleva -- found themselves banned from the Beijing Olympics for a urine doping scandal.  Some of the details emerged as recounted here (IOL, South Africa).

It appears that the IAAF suspected the Russians (inside informant?), and thus laid a trap -- a sting operation involving DNA.  Obviously the IAAF compared DNA of prior urine samples with DNA of current urine samples; a discrepancy revealed the cheats.

Untroubled access to elite Russian track and field athletes for unannounced random dope tests triggered suspicions among the testers that all might not be as it seemed.

The athletes were always ready for the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) anti-doping officials and always provided clean urine samples.

"There were no 'no shows'," one official told Reuters. "The Russians were always there."

Suspecting that the results were too good to be true, the IAAF started storing Russian dope samples taken during competition throughout the 2007 season.

The upshot was a meticulous sting operation this year, after which seven Russian women were informed that the urine they had supplied was clearly not theirs because the DNA did not match that in the stored samples.

Five of them, including the world number one 800 and 1 500 metres runner Yelena Soboleva, had been bound for the Beijing Olympics.

A clear victory for the testers over the cheats, 20 years after the Ben Johnson doping scandal had revealed the extent of illicit doping in the central sport of the summer Olympics, was rightly trumpeted.

No more track and field world records without steroids or doping?

As noted by the Irish Times, there were 11 track and field world records broken in 2008, which the author considered remarkable (nothing like the deluge of swimming records).  There was also this statement:

...the only way a world record is likely to be broken is if the athlete is on industrial amounts of steroids or a product of genetic doping, or indeed both.

Lets go to the set up for this conclusion.

Although 13 world records were set during 2008, one French study suggests the days of this happening are now numbered...

Seven of the world records were in men's events: the 100 metres (twice, by Usain Bolt); the 200 metres (Bolt, again); the marathon (Haile Gebrselassie); the 110 metre hurdles (Dayron Robles); the 4 x 100 metre relay (Bolt, again, with some Jamaican company); and the 50 km walk (Denis Nizhegorodov).

The women didn't do badly either, with six world records: the 5,000 metres (Tirunesh Dibaba); the 3,000 metres steeplechase (Gulnara Galkina); the javelin (Barbora Spotakova); and the pole vault (thrice, by who else but Elena Isinbaeva).

Given it was an Olympic year there was always going to be some exceptional performances, and yet the flurry of records during the summer still caught a lot of people off guard. Actually, at the start of the year, a study carried out by the French Institute of Sport (Irmes) concluded that the days of world records in athletics were numbered, and would run out in 2060 - after which date no more world records would be set.

Why would there be a limit to human performance?

Irmes analysed all 3,260 world records set since the first modern Olympics in 1896, and, in the end, reckoned athletes are coming very close to reaching their physiological limits. They noticed a common pattern for all events, and based on their mathematical model, estimated that athletes were operating at 75 per cent of their potential in 1896, while in 2008, they would be operating at 99 per cent.

By 2027 the athletes in about half of the events will have reached 100 per cent, and by 2060 they all will. After that the only way a world record is likely to be broken is if the athlete is on industrial amounts of steroids or a product of genetic doping, or indeed both.

That's a study for another day, and in the meantime it's up to athletic freaks such as Usain Bolt.

Exactly.  What about the influence of drugs, and of technological advances in the sport?  We have argued that doping pulls along the non-doped competitors, although we have no data to support that conclusion.

But what the Irmes study didn't predict was where exactly the records will finish at. Some may well be finished already. The 10.49 that Florence Griffith-Joyner ran for the 100 metres back in 1988 hasn't been touched in the years since, nor does it look likely to be. Without going into the gruesome details of the rise of Flo-Jo, as she was affectionately known, (widespread rumours of steroid abuse, dead at 38) only one other women has run under 10.7 seconds for the 100 metres, and that was Marion Jones.

In other words Flo-Jo's record is unlikely to be broken before 2060.

There are several other dodgy records in the books and they are unlikely to be broken before 2060 either. Unless of course the IAAF finally gets some sense and remove all world records from the drug-infested 1980s.

As the author  points out, other studies suggest that the limits of human performance have not been reached:

In another study just published by the Journal of Experimental Biology, Mark Denny of Stanford University looked at the limits to running in humans, compared to dogs and horses, and came to some conclusions of his own.

Denny reckoned that the 9.69 seconds that Bolt ran for the 100 metres in the Beijing Olympics can definitely be improved, and put the absolute human limit at 9.48.

Likewise, he believes Flo-Jo's record will go and that a woman can someday run the 100 metres in 10.39.

Dogs and horses, he says, already reached peak speeds in the 1970s, while humans are still getting faster. And Bolt is ample proof of that.

A more basic study was carried out on Bolt shortly after Beijing, when Norwegian physicist Hans Eriksen analysed TV footage of the Olympic final and estimated that Bolt would have run 9.55 seconds had he not slowed down to punch his chest and acknowledge his own extraordinary performance.

Even the long distances have some room for improvement. When Gebrselassie ran his 2:03.59 for the marathon last September it seemed the magical two-hour barrier was edging ever closer, yet Denny puts the human limit for running 26.2 miles at 2:00.47.

The women are already closer to their limit, as he reckons Paula Radcliffe's world record of 2:15.25 can only be trimmed to 2:14.97.

(more after the jump, if you can break the record)

Elite Belarus hammer throwers get nailed with steroids: Vadim Devyatovskiy and Ivan Tsikhan lose Beijing medals

Belarus hammer throwers lost their sliver and bronze medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics as the result of doping offenses reported the IOC today.  The IOC identified the pair as drug-cheats last summer following the Beijing Olympics.

The two hammer throws clawed their way with the help of exogenous testosterone, according to lab tests.  Devyatovskiy appears to be a chronic drug-cheat.

To the BBC:

Belarus hammer throwers Vadim Devyatovskiy and Ivan Tsikhan have been stripped of their Olympic silver and bronze medals for doping offences.

Devyatovskiy, who served a two-year ban in 2000-02 and now faces a lifetime ban, and Tsikhan both tested positive for abnormal levels of testosterone.

Tsikhan, the 2004 silver medallist and a three-time world champion, faces a two-year ban for his first offence.

The silver now goes to Krisztian Pars and bronze to Koji Murofushi.

Slovenia's Primoz Kozmus won the gold medal.

Both Devyatovskiy and Tsikhan denied the charge but were found guilty at a hearing in front of the International Olympic Committee disciplinary commission in Lausanne in September.

Japan's Murofushi is making a career of waiting out the dope cheats.  He was elevated a few years ago to a medal.

It is the second time Murofushi, from Japan, has benefitted a rival's doping misdemeanour. Four years ago, he was upgraded to the gold medal in Athens after Hungary's Adrian Annus was stripped of first place.

The IOC also noted a Polish canoe competitor doped with clen.

The ICC also disqualified Polish canoeist Adam Seroczynski, who was out of the medals in the flatwater K2 event in Beijing.

Seroczynski, who was fourth in his event in Beijing, tested positive for the steroid clenbuterol.

The three cases bring to nine the number of athletes caught for doping in Beijing.

The IOC disqualified six athletes during the Games - Ukrainian heptathlete Lyudmila Blonska, Ukrainian weightlifter Igor Razoronov, Greek hurdler Fani Halkia, North Korean shooter Kim Jong Su, Spanish cyclist Isabel Moreno and Vietnamese gymnast Thi Ngan Thuong Do.

Blonska was stripped of her silver medal, while Kim had his silver and bronze medals taken back.

The IOC to retest 400 Beijing Olympic samples for CERA EPO and 100 for insulin

The new year may bring some new surprises from the old year Olympics.  The IOC is saying it will retest 400 samples from the 2008 Olympics for CERA EPO (AP) and 100 for insulin.

Some 500 doping samples from the Beijing Olympics will be retested in January, the IOC said Tuesday.

About 400 blood tests searching for the illegal use of CERA, a new version of the endurance-enhancing hormone EPO, will be conducted at World Anti-Doping Agency-accredited laboratories in Paris and Lausanne, Switzerland.

A further 100 urine samples will be checked for insulin at a WADA lab in Cologne, Germany. The lab recently perfected a test for the hormone, which can serve as an anabolic agent to enhance an athlete's performance.

The International Olympic Committee said in a statement that the tests "will primarily target endurance events in cycling, rowing, swimming and athletics."

The first results are expected at the end of March.

Very interesting.  A medal in Beijing must be considered temporary if the testing is on-going over years... like 8 years

The IOC said in October that it would recheck Beijing samples to look for CERA, after a new blood test was developed by the French Anti-Doping Agency. The test was used to catch four riders from the Tour de France in retesting after the July race.

Samples from the Olympics are frozen and stored for eight years, making them available when new detection methods are devised. Any athletes caught by new tests can be sanctioned and stripped of their results and medals.

The IOC says it conducted 4,770 doping tests during the Beijing Olympics, including nearly 1,000 blood screenings.

There are 3 doping cases pending form Beijing, still on the books (or in the lab).

Six athletes tested positive, while three additional cases became known after the games and are still pending.

Rulings on the cases of Belarusian hammer throwers Vadim Devyatovskiy and Ivan Tsikhan — who won the silver and bronze medals respectively — and Polish canoeist Adam Seroczynski are expected at the IOC executive board meeting which begins Wednesday in Lausanne.

IOC Chair Jacques Rogge expresses sad words for Olympics cheating, and discusses retro-testing (8 years) of samples

IOC boss Jacques Rogge discusses retrospective anti-doping testing back 8 years on Olympic dope samples.

We suppose it is true, athletes are human, humans will cheat, and thus the Olympic Games athletes will cheat.  Considering the hyper-competitiveness of the elite athletes one might expect even more cheating when the stakes are incredibly high.  However, when the International Olympic Committee boss Jacques Rogge lays it out, it sounds depressing.

As here it is, IOC boss Rogge telling it like it is about doping and the Olympics  (AFP)  No more holding athletics up as the paragon of fair play and sportsmanship.  Sad.

International Olympic Committee (IOC) chief Jacques Rogge has said that those who hope for a 100 percent drug-free Olympic Games were "naive" and that cheating was part and parcel of human nature.

"I think one has to be realistic," Rogge said in an interview with the BBC's Inside Sport programme.  "Drug-free sport in general is Utopia. It will be naive to believe that no-one will take drugs.

"There are about 400 million people practising sport on this globe, there are not 400 million saints on earth.  Cheating is embedded in human nature and doping is to sport what criminality is to society.  You will always need cops and judges and prisons and jails and rules and regulations."

Rogge outlines the retrospective testing protocols.  Specimen samples will now be banked for 8 years, as new tests develop.

Rogge was speaking ahead of re-testing procedures from samples taken at the Beijing Olympics and he has already said that he expects further positive doping cases to emerge from these.

"We are going to re-test all the blood samples from Beijing," said Rogge.  About 980 blood samples will be tested for erythropoietin [Cera], the new EPO test, but also insulin.  So we are starting this re-testing, it will last a couple of weeks, so we'll see what comes out of it."

All the samples currently held will be available for testing by any new techniques that emerge between now and the 2016 Games.  We are keeping the samples for eight years and we are going to re-test them," said Rogge.  "And ultimately the judgement on the Beijing Games will be given in eight years' time, because each time a new scientific test is coming up we are going to re-test."

Interesting.  Rogge describes retesting for the CERA EPO, and for insulin.  Furthermore, it may be more common to see medal winners lose medals over time -- as Tim Montgomery and Marion Jones have -- with retrospective testing.

Tim Montgomery outlines doping and steroid use that led to Olympic gold medal in Sydney

HBO interviewed Tim Montgomery -- once the world's fastest human -- who admitted to the doping and steroid protocol that promoted him and his teammates to Gold in the 2000 Sydney Olympics.  (Sydney Morning Herald)

ONCE, he was the world's fastest man. Now, in jail for laundering more than $US1.7 million and separately for dealing and supplying heroin, disgraced sprinter Tim Montgomery has been exposed as a golden fraud on the track.

Montgomery, 33, has revealed that at the time of the Sydney Olympics, where he was a member of the triumphant US 4x100 metres relay team, he had been taking a cocktail of banned drugs, including human growth hormone and steroids.

"Prior to the 2000 Olympic Games in Australia, I broke the rules," Montgomery told US television network HBO. "I used testosterone, and then I used GH [human growth hormone] four times a month. I have a gold medal that I'm sitting on that I didn't get with my own ability."

Montgomery focused on that 4x100M relay team, which caused so much controversy in 2000.

But he has now put the international spotlight on that 4x100m relay team - at the time notorious for their posturing, removing their shirts and bragging with their medals - and Montgomery and his teammates are likely to be stripped of their medals, even though the normal seven-year retrospective window has closed. Those who witnessed that bizarre, brash celebration by Jon Drummond, Bernard Williams, Brian Lewis and Maurice Greene - the four who ran in the final - might think the reallocation of the medals would be poetic justice.

Montgomery lost his 100M world record, and now may be losing much much more (his freedom is gone too).

Montgomery has already had his world record 100m time of 9.78 seconds expunged from the record books after his drug links were exposed during the BALCO investigation. But the officials only went back to March 31, 2001. Now, they will go back much further. The US Olympic Committee has already urged Montgomery to return the medal voluntarily. USOC spokesman Darryl Seibel said: "He owes it to his sport and to the athletes against whom he competed."

The ex-sprinter knows the consequences of his words...perhaps the loss of one more compliment of medals: Marion Jones and her teammates lost the 4x100 Sydney Olympics relay medals due to PED use, and Michael Johnson's Sydney 4x400 relay team lost medals after Antonio Pettigrew admitted to doping.

(more after the jump, including Montgomery's  words on Conte)

Wife of Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes talks: Cristina Perez says Operation Puerto's doctor hyperdoped 1992 Spanish Olympic team

An insider on the Spanish doping scene says Dr. Eufemaino Fuentes doped the 1992 Spanish team to Olympics glory.  How inside?   How about Dr. Fuentes wife, Cristina Perez, herself a former Olympian.

In Barcelona, Spain won (G/S/B) these medals: 13/7/2. (which included 4 in track, and one in cycling; also teams in field hockey, water polo, and many in sailing)  How many medals did Spain win in 1988 in Seoul: 1/1/2.  Quite an improvement in schievement in 4 years.   To AFP:

The wife of the doctor at the centre of the 'Operation Puerto' doping affair said she could bring down Spanish sport if she revealed all to which she was privy.

In an interview with La Provincia newspaper, the wife of Dr Eufemiano Fuentes, Cristina Perez, a European 400m bronze medallist in 1987, said: "I know what happened at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992."

Perez said "many Olympic medals" were won by Spain thanks to her husband. Spain won a record 13 gold medals at the Barcelona Games.

"It's a Pandora's Box and if opened one day, it could bring down sport," Perez said.

"But out of respect for my companions, to the people who sacrificed so much, I'm keeping mum although I could speak out and ruin all those caught up in this little world."

Fuentes is reported to have been the mastermind of a vast blood doping network, which was dubbed 'Operation Puerto' in May 2006 following a police raid on his Madrid laboratory which uncovered doping products and blood bags.

While names of around 200 'clients' from the world of sport were reportedly found, only a few have been sanctioned.

Perez, 43, herself suspected of doping at the Seoul Olympics in 1988, defended her husband, saying he had been a victim of a campaign by the Spanish government.

"To call a doctor dedicated to sports science who has killed no one a criminal mastermind seems shameful to me."

Apparently a doctor who breaks sporting rules, breaks the law, and encourages fraud and cheating  might feel a bit shameful to Perez.  Then again, is she is a doper herself...

Fuentes also appears to be at the heart of the huge cycling doping scandal, Operation Puerto.

New transgender pole vaulter Yvonne Buschbaum comments on effects of testosterone use: "felt like an over-bred pitbull"

Sounds frighting, the quote from the former Yvonne Buschbaum (now Balian Buschbaum), however that is how the 'once she' describes taking testosterone to enhance her transition from female to male (Earth Times).

"Some friends said happy birthday. As if the first testosterone shot was my second birthday. It was the start of a new life," she said in her diary shorty before christmas 2007 as the treatment started.

Buschbaum recently underwent gender changing surgery because he felt 'like a man trapped in a woman's body' (most of we males feel like males trapped in a man's body, and ruled by females, but that's another issue).

Only the sky was the limit when Yvonne Buschbaum soared to big heights as one of the leading women's pole vaulters in Germany. Now the sky is wide open for Buschbaum, who feels the lightness of being after revealing her transsexuality last year and undergoing a gender change to Balian Buschbaum since then.

"Courage is the road to freedom. I woke up in complete freedom today. The sky is wide open," said a recent diary entry on his website.

Buschbaum is not ready yet for interviews as "I am still flying on my clouds of freedom and won't land until the end the November, at the earliest."The necessary operations have also taken a toll on the 28-year-old.

"He is still a little weak from the surgery. But he can get up and is upbeat that he can leave for home on the weekend," said Buschbaum's former coach Herbert Czingon.

Buschman needed to withdraw from competition when she(he) began taking testosterone for the gender change.  However she noted a huge boost in her pole size (no pun inteded)

A year has passed since Buschbaum revealed that she felt like a man trapped in a women's body and would undergo the gender change to find her personal freedom.

...But the medical implications of the gender change - the use of doping substances - required Buschbaum to quit pole vaulting, with European championship bronze medals from 1998 and 2002 the best results for the athlete with a personal best of 4.70 metres.

The shortly-cropped hair always made Buschbaum look boyish, but now facial hair and muscles are growing, and the voice is deeper. Buschbaum also has a new ID card as Balian Buschbaum.

The use of testosterone has also given him a unique outlook at the doping issue because "I am living these changes" through the use of the forbidden steroid. "I felt like an over-bred pitbull," Buschbaum recently told the Frankfurter Allgemeinen Sonntagszeitung, saying he was far more aggressive in training and could jump with poles Yvonne Buschbaum only dreamt of using.

Buschbaum is keeping fit through this training for an upcoming new role as pole vault coach at the USC Mainz club in central Germany. "I wanted to leave my sport behind but I am more addicted to this drug pole vault than I thought," he said.

The sport may stay the same but Buschbaum will be a different person once the gender change is complete. "The journey continues," he said in September ahead of another operation.                           

Why you should not buy Marion Jones' stock, even with a bailout

Athletics in the News blog recently published #26 in the series entitled "Why you shouldn't believe Marion Jones".  For instance:

(This is the 26th part of a long series titled, "Why You Shouldn't Believe Marion Jones". This series depicts the life and times of a (former) woman sprinter whose lies and cover-ups about doping in sport continue even through this day.)

Nearly two entire years after giving birth for the first time, and having had five successive, uninterrupted, dedicated seasons full of training and racing, Marion Jones ran out of luck and could not break 55 seconds (55.03) for 400m in a race at Mt. Sac in the 17th day of April 2005, this despite the fact that Riddick, her fourth coach in less than three years, predicted a week earlier that Marion Jones would run “under 50 seconds”, and added the day of the race that “Marion is in fantastic shape.”

As a matter of fact, she lost three of four races in 2005 against very mediocre competition, running 11.29 for second in Hengelo on 2005-May-29; 11.67 for second place in Milano on 2005-June-1; and cutting her 100m season short with a fourth-place 11.40 in Monterrey 10 days later at a competition which she determined prior to the race, “it’s time to put it all out there” [2].

Her performances were so inferior that they cast even further doubt on how Marion Jones achieved her previous marks in such a short period of time, and with so much full-time work missed on the track.

The article goes on to lay out the evidence that Jones doped to put herself into the midst of the world's elite runners at the time.

Part 26.  Man, that's a lot of evidence against the former World's Greatest Female Athlete.

IOC expects 7 more doping cases from 2008 Beijing Olympics, Jacques Rogge says

More doping cases coming from the 2008 Olympics says the IOC president, Jacques Rogge (San Diego Union-Tribune).  As we know, the IOC announced re-testing of Olympic medal winners, focusing on endurance events.

IOC president Jacques Rogge expects at least 15 doping cases from the Beijing Olympics.

“We had 39 positive cases in the run-up to the games, eight during the games, and seven more possibly coming up,” Rogge said yesterday. “Doping in sports is like crime in society.”

In October, the International Olympic Committee said it would retest samples from the Beijing Olympics to search for CERA, a new generation of the endurance-enhancing hormone EPO.

Actually there were more than 39 positive cases in the Olympic run-ups as we documented, although the number is hard to define.  The culprit for the late cases seems to be CERA EPO.  We suspect the new large EPO form (the CERA EPO) which athletes thought was undetectable will account for the 7 late additions to the doping list.

The IOC conducted more than 5,000 drug tests during the Beijing Games, including nearly 1,000 blood screenings.

BTW, The president of the IAAF track federation Lamine Diack took some shots at IOC present Rogge.

Four more Russian track athletes see red: Suspended for doping

Four Russian track athletes will be on the sidelines for a few years, the IAAF reported in Europe.  To CKWS TV:

MONTE CARLO, Monaco - Four more Russian athletes have been sanctioned for doping, bringing to 16 the number of Russians caught for drug violations in recent months.

Race walker Anatoly Kukushkin, distance runner Anton Jarov, steeplechase runner Roman Usov and runner Julia Smirnova are the latest athletes punished by the Russian athletics federation, the International Association of Athletics Federations said on its website Thursday.

The steeplechaser Usov bit the dust before the Beijing Olympics, but the other names are apparently new.

Italian Olympic marathon runner Alberico Di Cecco tests positive for CERA EPO

The 9th place finisher in the 2004 Olympic marathon Alberico Di Cecco tested positive for CERA EPO in his native Italy.

He won the 2005 Rome marathon in 2:08.02.  To the Canadian Press:

Italian marathon runner Alberico Di Cecco has tested positive for EPO, the Italian Olympic Committee said Monday.

Di Cecco, who finished ninth at the 2004 Athens Olympics, failed a test at the Italian championship in Carpi on Oct. 12. Di Cecco, who won the Roma marathon in 2005, would face a two-year if found guilty of doping.

EPO is a blood-boosting hormone that enhances endurance.

Wonder why he didn't compete in Beijing?  Worried about CERA EPO?

Lengendary Canadian shot putter Bishop Dolegiewicz dies 'young'; Steroid shorted?

Legendary Canadian shot putter Bishop Dolegiewicz passed on to his eternal award last week.  The large shot putter admitted to the infamous Canadian Dubin Commission that he utilized steroids when competing. (New York Times from 1989).  Bish was a frequent Olympian, who's records were wiped out when his drug use was exposed.  By all accounts he was a good guy.

''At the higher levels of competition,'' he said of the throwing events of track and field, ''I would be hard-pressed to find the name of an individual who hasn't used steroids.''

Although the athlete himself, his friends, and reasonable medical opinion strongly speculate that the drugs cut his life short, denial continues to reign at this level.  (to The Star)

Canadian shot putter Bishop Dolegiewicz, a three-time Olympian who had a larger-than-life personality to match his mountainous physique, died Tuesday night in his sleep at the age of 55.

Dolegiewicz, a Toronto native who starred at Parkdale Collegiate, won two gold medals at the Pan Am Games, two silver medals at the Commonwealth Games and 13 medals at Canadian championships. He was 11th at the 1984 L.A. Olympics and fourth in 1980 in a world's strongest man contest.

He was later stripped of his Canadian shot put record after admitting during the Dubin Inquiry to using steroids for more than a decade.

Bis not only lost his medals, he lost his life early, leaving a 30 year-old widow.

Dolegiewicz, who had success as a coach at Southern Utah University, was suffering from cardio and circulation problems. He died in Lehi, Utah, leaving behind his wife Anna, 30, a thrower he coached.

Former teammate Bruce Pirnie said Dolegiewicz's testimony at the Dubin Inquiry, where he also admitted to supplying steroids to athletes, cost him his coaching job at the University of Saskatchewan and took a toll on his health. Justice Charles Dubin also died this week.

"It's definitely (a coincidence) that Bish and Justice Dubin should pass away at the same time," said Pirnie, adding that Dolegiewicz had a positive coaching legacy in Canada. "Saskatchewan still sees the benefit of Bish's imprint. They turn out more throwers than anyone in the country."

Former Canadian discus champ Rob Gray was saddened by the news. "Whatever you say about the guy, he was a great competitor, a mountain of a man and a great athlete," said Gray, who also admitted to steroid use. "He was a big, strong guy because he worked his butt off and showed us how hard you had to work to get to the next level. It's hard to call him a role model, but he was in some ways."

Dolegiewicz told the inquiry he regretted using steroids because of the toll it had on his mind and body and that as a coach he strongly warned athletes against them.

"I give people the examples of individuals that I have known that have gotten sick from the use of steroids and I try to come across and give the kids the message, `Look, you're going to pay the price at some point in time,'" Dolegiewicz said during his testimony.

Interesting that Bish's fellow athletes don't make a connection between 'roids, weight, cholesterol, high blood pressure, lowered HDLs and increased LDLs, all medical measures that bode harm in a big guy.

Pirnie said he had been pondering whether steroids had a role in Dolegiewicz's health issues. "I would be very surprised if there wasn't a connection," he said.

Gray said, "I suspect it has got a lot more to do with that he was a 6-foot-6, 330-pound man who was probably overweight."

Not to moralize too much on the high horse, however those athletes should consider reality when juicing.  Nothing comes free; that's not a moral lecture but a practical point.  A young athlete may feel life is forever, or that he will do anything to win even if it shortens life; however that is simply denial.  Dying (relatively) young is not a winner.

Faces jail time: Greek hurdler Fani Halkia charged in Greece with using M3

The Greek M3 scandal continue to wage on. M3 is a rather nasty lover toxic anabolic steroid that showed up in tests for numerous Greek Olympians last summer.   Female Fani Halkia faces time behind bars (ala Marion Jones) for M3 (why do the women go to jail?)  (posts here, here, and here)  To the BBC:

Greek hurdler Fani Halkia could face a two-year jail sentence after a Greek prosecutor charged the former Olympic champion with using banned steroids.

Greek sprinters Tassos Gousis and Dimitris Regas were charged with using the same steroid, methyltrienolone.

Halkia's coach, George Panagiotopoulos, was charged with supplying banned substances and, if convicted, faces up to three years in prison and a fine.

The defendants deny any wrongdoing and will go on trial within a year.

Halkia, the 2004 Olympic women's 400m hurdles champion, was expelled from the Olympics after testing positive just days before she was due to compete in Beijing.

The defendants deny any wrongdoing and will go on trial within a year.

Halkia, the 2004 Olympic women's 400m hurdles champion, was expelled from the Olympics after testing positive just days before she was due to compete in Beijing.

Her 'B' sample came back positive for methyltrienolone, which the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said is a dangerous drug that "may lead to serious consequences to the health of athletes, even threatening their lives".

In August, the IOC rejected Halkia's defence that she had never used the steroid and that her sample had been subject to "acts of tampering by third parties".

Halkia was a relative unknown before winning gold in Athens, where she set a new Olympic record of 52.77 seconds in the semi-finals.

It is interesting that females involved in doping Marion Jones and Halkia went/may go to jail.  The males like Trevor Graham get off rather easily.

 

Still Marion Jones gently weeps

I look at the trouble and see that it's raging,
While my guitar gently weeps.
As I'm sitting here, doing nothing but aging,
Still, my guitar gently weeps.
(George Harrison)

Ex-Olympic gold medal winner, convicted perjurer, ex-con, and now not-so-contrite Marion Jones weeps for Argentina herself on Oprah.  (To Bill Livingston of the Cleveland Plain Dealer) (Victor Conte cannot believe Marion Jones 'continues to lie')

Marion Jones appeared on Oprah Winfrey's television show Wednesday. It was a tearful interview, her first after serving time in the slammer for lying about steroid use.

She went to a minimum-security prison in Fort Worth, Texas, for six months because she lied to federal investigators about using steroids. Some say the cover-up was worse than the crime. That's false. By further tainting a drug-plagued sport that needed her to be the symbol of excellence and honor, she almost ruined track and field...

Jones couldn't mask her shame and sorrow Wednesday the way perverted science could mask the reason for her performances.

After her guilty plea came the long slide of the sport into dishonor and irrelevance, as NBC tucked track and field into obscure corners of its programming in 2008.

But in 2000, Marion Jones, powerful, physically attractive, dazzlingly swift, was the smiling, radiant face of track and field. She won three gold medals and two bronze ones.

On the Winfrey show, she still denied knowingly taking Tetrahydrogestrinone, or TGH, an almost undetectable performance-enhancing drug known as "the clear." Unconvincingly, she even forgot her alibi, that she thought it was flaxseed oil, until Winfrey reminded her.

Forgot her alibi?  Sigh....remind Jones and Barry Bonds about Flaxseed oil...

It took a lot of denial in Sydney to think she knew nothing about the activities of her husband in 2000, shot-putter C.J. Hunter. Revelations of his four positive tests for steroid use broke before the heats in the 200 meters, which Jones won. But denial is the stock in trade for a dirty competitor and for fans who love sports.

We have stated Marion Jones was likely led astray by a dishonest coach (Trevor Graham), a drug-cheat husbands, a sport gone awry, and perhaps her own naivete.  Nonetheless, her record is extremely checkered.

Sordid associations can be damning. Jones told Winfrey she knew of no one in the sport's drug subculture. In fact, she worked with a rogues' gallery of them - disgraced coaches Trevor Graham, Charlie Francis and Steven Riddick; her former boyfriend and the father of one of her two children Tim Montgomery; and Victor Conte of the BALCO viper's nest. As long ago as her high-school days, O.J. Simpson's murder-trial lawyer, Johnnie Cochran, got overturned Jones' four-year competition ban for missing a drug test.

She lived a lie for years. She wrote some too in a book called "Life in the Fast Lane." Finally, she came cleaner in 2007 than she had been in years on the track. She told Winfrey, "I didn't love myself enough to tell the truth."

She added, "I could say others who did as much [drugs] did less [jail] time." But some, like Graham, cooperated with investigators. Jones did not.

"I could say it was a bad judge," Jones said. "But it was me."

Of course Jones deceives herself.  We are to believe she didn't know about the injections of insulin, anabolic steroids, and HGH?  Don't think 'self-love' has much to do about drug cheating to gain an inherent advantage.

She sold her soul for fool's gold and the world's acclaim. She wept Wednesday for her children and the shame they will face. Others grieve for the sport, to which she did such damage.

Jones states to Oprah that she didn't need drugs to win.  Then why, Marion, did you dope and lie?

Distance runner Sussane Plumper and triathlete Lisa Huetthaler (Hutthaler) down the drain: Austrian track stars banned for EPO

Just as Joe the Plumber enjoys some fame in the United State for politics, Susanne Plumper (left) suffers a 2 year ban for doping in Austria.  Plumper tested positive for EPO earlier this year.  Fellow Austrian EPO user Lisa Huetthaler (or Hutthaler, Hütthaler,triathlete, right) earned a similar 2 year ban.  Huetthaler faces more charges because she attempted to bribe the anti-doping lab.  (The Canadian Press)

Distance runner Susanne Pumper and triathlete Lisa Huetthaler were each banned two years Friday by Austria's national anti-doping agency for EPO.

The bans apply retroactively as of March 2008. Pumper and Huetthaler can appeal the decision at the arbitrary committee of NADA.

The 38-year-old Pumper initially tested positive following a half marathon in Vienna on March 9. A second test on April 14 confirmed that result.

Pumper will appeal the decision because she disagrees with the testing method of her probes by the lab in Seibersdorf, her lawyer Clemens Gruenzweig told the Austria Press Agency.

Apart from her suspension by NADA, the 24-year-old Huetthaler also faces charges for attempting to bribe a laboratory employee to pass her doping test.

Huetthaler allegedly offered a lab employee US$31,150 on May 21 to guarantee that her "B" sample didn't return with the same result as her initial probe.

In July, Austria's parliament passed a toughened anti-doping law in an increased effort to eradicate doping after the 2006 Turin Olympics scandal, when Italian police raided the Austrian cross-country and biathlon team lodgings, seizing a large amount of doping products and equipment.

However, the country was hit by another doping scandal earlier this month as third-place Tour de France finisher Bernhard Kohl admitted he used the blood-booster CERA.

One wonders about the side effects of EPO in women.  EPO 'thickens' blood which can lead to strokes; women using certain drugs (estrogens) may be susceptible to blood clots too.  A lethal combination for someone?