This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you would like to see more articles like this one, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. This final installment in the “Bad Sports” series chronicles the actions of those athletes who simply got caught. There are plenty of reasons, plenty of rationalizations, plenty of explanations, plenty of excuses that quickly follows any doping test that delivers positive results . . ....
This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you would like to see more articles like this one, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. These “Bad Sports”installments have allowed us to spend mid-summer days reflecting on ways that the world’s best skiers have been tempted tempted to misbehave in seasons past, and in the season to come. But the world’s best are not the only ones who may resort...
This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you would like to see more articles like this one, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. Norway’s great champion, Martin Johnsrud Sundby, would lose his overall World Cup title and his Tour de Ski championship in 2015 over doping infractions related to the use of asthma medication nebulizers. Sundby had been the dominant figure in distance racing for a number of...
This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you would like to see more articles like this one, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. A Winter Olympics on the horizon in 2026 reminds inherently-skeptical ski-journalists of Sochi in 2014. At those Olympics, a whole host of Russian athletes were disqualified due to their involvement in a government-sponsored doping scheme. Remember that one? The secret hole in the wall of...
This article was made possible through the generous support of our voluntary subscribers. If you would like to see more articles like this one, please support FasterSkier with a voluntary subscription. “A thing worth having is a thing worth cheating for.” So said the inimitable and irascible vaudeville and film comic, W. C. Fields. We can assume his statement was made in jest . . . sort of. What we do know is that plenty of...
A back-of-the-pack women’s skier competing for Ukraine at the Beijing Olympics has tested positive for banned drugs, according to the agency that’s overseeing testing at the Games. Valentyna Kaminska tested positive for a banned steroid and stimulants on the day she finished 79th in the 10-kilometer classic event, the International Testing Agency said in a statement Wednesday. Kaminska has been provisionally suspended until the case is resolved and is banned from participating in further Olympic...
ZHANGJIAKOU, CHINA — Russia, and its flag, are officially barred from the 2022 Olympics in Beijing, a ruling that stems from continuing doping violations following a massive, state-sponsored scandal at the 2014 Games in Sochi that included cross-country skiers. But other Russian cross-country skiers are still competing here, under the flag of their country’s Olympic committee. And on Sunday, in their first race of the Games, Russian men took the top two places. Star Alexander...
On April 14, the International Ski Federation (FIS) announced former Estonian cross-country skier Andrus Veerpalu was found guilty by the CAS Anti-Doping Division. Veerpalu was involved with “Operation Aderlass”, a blood doping scheme run by Dr. Marc Schmidt in Germany. Veerpalu’s penalty is a two-year ban from FIS sanctioned events ending on March 17, 2023. Now retired from skiing, the fifty-year-old Veerpalu in recent years has served as a coach for team “Haanja” in Estonia....
This week, the Court of Arbitration for Sport released its full ruling for the case: World Anti-Doping Agency v. Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA). Last month, CAS made a binding decision on the case that received widespread condemnation from clean sport advocates and applause from within much of the Russian sports community. The cliff notes version of the Dec. 17 ruling halved the penalty from four to two years for Russia. WADA had sought a four-year ban from...
Today, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) decided Russia will not be represented or recognized officially at the 2021 Tokyo or 2022 Beijing Olympics. The ruling, handed down on Dec. 17, mostly concludes a long-winded judicial process between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA). WADA had originally sanctioned RUSADA to a major competition ban of four years. Today’s CAS ruling, although seemingly in agreement with WADA’s arguments, reduced that penalty...
FasterSkier Explains: Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act Passes Senate A new anti-doping bill that criminalizes international doping conspiracies, while pointedly focusing on high-level organizers rather than on individual athletes, and that makes an expansive claim for U.S. jurisdiction over doping occurring at international competitions while excepting the most high-profile American professional sports leagues, is on the verge of becoming law. Here’s what you need to know: What it is: “An act to impose criminal sanctions on certain...
Molly is a rare dog, although let’s go with this premise, all dogs are good. But some, like Molly, might be slightly better. Hailing from a working line of Springer Spaniels in Northern Ireland, Molly now resides in Sweden with her caretakers, Joanna and Michael Sjöö. Both are part-time doping control agents with the Swedish Sports Federation. Molly is six years old and also works a part-time gig with the Swedish Sports Federation. With a...
Covering doping in sports like biathlon and cross-country skiing here in North America can make one feel self-rightous. The U.S. and Canada run clean systems if positive doping tests are the benchmark for suspicion. As far as we can tell, there’s been a single case involving a North American nordic sport athlete. In 1987, an American caused a stir after the 1987 Nordic World Championships in Oberstdorf, Germany. Kerry Lynch, a nordic combined skier, admitted...
Last week Matt Futterman of The New York Times wrote two stories of interest to readers of FasterSkier. One piece was titled “Winter Sports Athletes Are Crisscrossing Europe for Races. Is That a Good Idea?” Futterman advanced this story on Twitter with the following statement: “It’s a really strange moment for the Olympic winter sports schedule to begin. All you have to do is everything medical experts have been telling us to avoid.” It’s a really...
The Biathlon Integrity Unit (BIU) announced on Thursday that Russian biathletes Ekaterina Glazyrina and Timofey Lapshin were provisionally suspended. According to the BIU, Lapshin has been competing for Korea since 2017. Both Lapshin and Glazyrina are accused of violating anti-doping rules (ADRV). The evidence used to hand down the provisional suspensions came from information included in the McLaren Report and data from the Moscow Lab’s data (LIMS) handed over to WADA in 2019. The BIU states...
The Court for Arbitration in Sport (CAS) announced Thursday that three Russian biathletes implicated for doping at the 2014 Sochi Olympics had their lifetime bans overturned. The biathletes in question, Olga Vilukhina, Yana Romanova, and Olga Zaitseva were first handed lifetime bans in 2017 by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The McLaren Report included information tying the three athletes to doping. The IOC subsequently ruled the three Russians had committed an ADRV, or...
A career ended prematurely, for no reason. During the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, German biathlete Evi Sachenbacher failed a doping test. Although the ensuing ban was subsequently reduced from two years to six months, it effectively ended her career. New information seems to confirm that Sachenbacher’s positive drugs test at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi had nothing to do with deliberate doping. Rather, she was used as a sacrificial pawn by...
A year and more has elapsed since a doping scandal rocked the 2019 cross-country World Championships in Austria. Over that time, we have learned a bit more about what transpired at the micro-level. In the broader picture, those covering doping in sport often scour The World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) annual release of a voluminous document titled “Anti-Doping Testing Figures”. The data dump runs hundreds of pages. Looking for figures on the number of tests per...
On April 8, Estonian news outlet ERR published an article revealing more details about doping by Estonian cross-country skiers Andreas Veerpalu and Karel Tammjärv. The two skiers both previously admitted to autologous blood doping — the process of removing blood from one’s system and re-injecting it at a later time for a performance boost. The doping came to light in 2019 when the two Estonians, Kazakhstan’s Alexey Poltoranin, and Austria’s Max Hauke and Dominik...
Engadin Canceled: Amidst the whirlwind of February racing, news happens beyond the ski tracks. Here are some notable news threads. It was announced yesterday that the famed Engadin Ski Marathon, to be held on March 8, has been canceled due to concerns related to the coronavirus (also referred to as COVID-19). “The spread of the coronavirus in Europe – with two cases in our vicinity – has left the authorities with no choice but to...