Three-time Olympian, gold and silver medalist, long-time chair of the World Anti-Doping Agency’s Athlete committee, Officer of the Order of Canada, company founder and CEO, the list of Beckie Scott’s achievements is both lengthy and remarkable, and those included here only scratches the surface. In the nordic world specifically, Scott made history as the first North American woman to earn a medal at the Olympics in cross-country skiing. She has also been a long-time advocate...
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...
In this episode, we hear from a familiar voice – someone, in fact, we’ve heard from recently on the podcast, former elite cross-country skier Noah Hoffman. Post-race career, Hoffman has been deeply involved in the anti-doping movement as an educator, lobbyist, and content creator. This conversation is from Hoffman’s content creation side. A few months back the US Anti Doping Agency (USADA) posted a six-plus minute video interview between Hoffman and Dr. Edwin Moses –...
With a kowtow to Zach Caldwell and Noah Hoffman, we are repurposing their recent video conversation about anti-doping reform. On Nordic Nation, you’ll find just the audio. If you are more visual by nature, you can find the video here. Hoffman is a former longtime U.S. Ski Team member. Caldwell is Hoffman’s former coach and runs Vermont based Caldwell Sport. In this conversation, you’ll get solid details about anti-doping policy in the U.S. and abroad....
As we all know, the COVID-19 global pandemic has left the world scrambling to adapt to the many challenges of slowing the spread of the virus. In the world of Olympic sports, the ripple effect has disrupted the efforts of anti-doping agencies worldwide to conduct the athlete testing normally relied upon to hold athletes accountable to abiding by the rules surrounding banned and controlled substances. Most international antidoping agencies have halted testing since mid-March as...
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...
Here’s a news brief from around the Inter-webs. Unofficial thoughts on next season’s World Cup On April 9, Nowegian news outlet VG published an interview with International Ski Federation (FIS) Cross-Country Race Director Pierre Mignerey. The interview created some mild buzz, as Mignerey discussed some 2020-2021 World Cup scheduling scenarios. Still seven months away, but with the Covid-19 pandemic impacting global sport, it is no surprise FIS officials are discussing contingency plans. VG’s article was...
To the point: thoughts and opinions on WADA’s decision to ban Russia from major international competitions for four years.
Noah Hoffman, retired athlete, and current sophomore at Brown University is part of the movement to upgrade anti-doping enforcement. On October 28, he posted a blog highlighting why he supported the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act (RADA). RADA is federal legislation that will criminalize doping. More specifically, as Hoffman notes, it criminalizes doping conspiracies involving international sporting events like the Olympics and World Championships. Here are the details of RADA as highlighted by Hoffman in his October...
The culminating scenes in the RUSADA doping scandal have played out behind closed doors and before live audiences. On September 24, we reported on a three week timetable WADA had given Russian sport authorities to explain if and how it had manipulated information from the Moscow Lab’s data collection system. The data remains a key piece of evidence to determine the extent of Russian doping and its cover-up. It’s now been three weeks. In that...
Last week WADA sent out a press release with this catchy title: WADA leads exciting collaboration on dried-blood-spot testing. Here’s what this means: WADA signed a memorandum of understanding with seven anti-doping agencies, including the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) to further explore the viability of DBS (dried-blood-spot) testing as part of its global anti-doping tool kit. WADA claimed, “A further objective of the project is to develop guidelines for the collection, transport, analysis and...
On September 20, it was first reported by the Associated Press (AP) that the LIMS data handed over to WADA by the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) had been manipulated and was moving forward with possible sanctions. The data in question came from the Moscow testing lab and was delivered to WADA as a conditon for reinstating Russia’s anti-doping program as compliant. The LIMS data was used to cross reference leaked data — acquired from a...
New IBU Secretary General Named On August 6th, the International Biathlon Union (IBU) announced Sweden’s Niklas Carlsson as its new Secretary General. At 44-years-old, Carlsson comes to the position with considerable experience in the world of alpine ski racing. According to the IBU press release, Carlsson served as the Secretary-General of the Swedish Ski Federation from 2011-2014. He has also worked for the International Ski Federation (FIS), and served on the Boards of two Swedish...
FIS recently signed an agreement with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) that ceded its adjudication power in doping cases to the CAS Anti-Doping Division or ADD. The CAS ADD is touted as a body able to make independent decisions when reviewing suspected doping violations. Prior to the agreement in early May, the most basic process for adjudicating a FIS initiated doping violation progressed within the organization. Once evidence for...
Picture in your mind an Olympic athlete. As you are reading this site, you might be seeing the image of Jessie Diggins or Kikkan Randall, or perhaps, Marit Bjørgen or Johannes Høsflot Klæbo. Or, since your skis might be summer waxed, you might think of Michael Phelps, Ussain Bolt, or Katie Ledecky. Regardless of who comes to mind, the image includes an athlete who is in peak fitness, at the top of their game. One...
Here’s a link to that piece. Most recently, she drilled down into the
according to WADA, indicates that “while there may not be an adverse analytical finding, there may be some suspicion according to the results and that further analysis or investigation should be conducted.” After an ATF is investigated, it could lead to a negative result (the suspicion was not warranted), an AAF (something was found), or it may be canceled. WADA stresses that in reading and interpreting 2016 Anti-Doping testing Figures report, “one single result does...
Slovenian biathlete Klemen Bauer has competed in nine World Championships and three Olympics, landing just one spot away from a medal in the sprint in Vancouver in 2010. He has a handful of top-10 World Cup finishes to call his own. Bauer has also been a prominent voice for fair and ethical sport, speaking out in support of the anti-doping process and more recently participating in a campaign to eradicate sexual abuse from sport. But...