One day after a sports website reported that budding Russian cross-country ski star Petr Sedov was suffering from a potentially serious heart problem, the president of the Russian Ski Association, Elena Vyalbe, said that Sedov had been to see specialists in Davos, and that “cause for concern was not found.”
“The final conclusion is not ready yet, but according to preliminary data, Peter’s heart is all right,” his father Nikolai Sedov told the website AllSportInfo.ru.
Sedov will still miss next week’s U-23 World Championships in Estonia, because he does not yet have permission to race from Russia’s Federal Medical-Biological Agency (FMBA), according to AllSportInfo.
But there’s still a chance for him to make the Russian team for the World Ski Championships in Norway in February, if he gets the okay from the FMBA – though according to Vyalbe, he will have to qualify through races at the country’s national championships in Rybinsk, in late January.
The Swiss doctors in Davos have ruled out a number of serious conditions, Nikolai Sedov told AllSportInfo, and despite a ban placed on Petr Sedov by the FMBA, he has continued to train.
News has also emerged about one of the Russian athletes who missed a deadline to submit his whereabouts to anti-doping authorities, a minor rules violation that can result in a suspension if repeated.
Alexei Petukhov, a sprinter and Olympic medalist, told the website SkiRun.ru that he failed to file his whereabouts during the Tour de Ski, when he was traveling every day, making the forms “not possible to fill out.” Then, he said, he got sick, the room where he was quarantined did not have internet access, and a Russian Ski Association worker he asked for help was too busy.
Three filing failures within an 18-month period are treated as an anti-doping rules violation, with the potential for a suspension, but Russian Anti-Doping Agency Deputy Director Igor Zagorskiy told FasterSkier in an e-mail that Petukhov has never had one before. Neither has his teammate Nikolay Morilov, another star sprinter who also missed a deadline around the same time, while Vassily Rotchev and Dmitri Vassiliev “already had one filing failure each,” Zagorskiy said.
Olga Tiagay, the fifth skier reported to have missed a deadline, has a clean slate, but she has not been racing this winter,according to her profile on the International Ski Federation’s website.
Nathaniel Herz
Nat Herz is an Alaska-based journalist who moonlights for FasterSkier as an occasional reporter and podcast host. He was FasterSkier's full-time reporter in 2010 and 2011.
4 comments
tetlowjm
January 18, 2011 at 10:22 am
There’s a reason why doping is illegal, it’s bad for your heart. Hope he gets better.
Mike Trecker
January 18, 2011 at 2:45 pm
Harsh comment about Sedov, I know of several non-athletes and certainly non-dopers, that have died in their sleep at a young age due to heart issues. I would rather focus on the lack of filing of papers by the other Russians. I would caution athletes to not be cavalier in this process. Michael Rasmussen lost a Tour de France for similar rules violations.
tetlowjm
January 18, 2011 at 3:14 pm
That was harsh. ARVD is an example of such underlying heart diseases that can suddenly take a life. http://arvd.com for more info.
Run for Carl: http://www.facebook.com/CarlLaneMetzler
asotskov
January 18, 2011 at 10:53 pm
It is clearly scary message, as well as reminder to all skiers and coaches of how dangerous it can be – to be a professional skier. Unfortunately we are here in the US do not have an access to doctors and can only hope that every skier is healthy…