Although Andrus Veerpalu technically won his doping appeal against FIS, the issues at stake actually had nothing to do with the ski federation - they were rather under WADA's domain. In an interview with FasterSkier, FIS Secretary General Sarah Lewis talked about what this means for federations like hers which have to follow WADA's scientific lead.
As soon as the news broke that Estonian Olympic gold medalist and world champion Andrus Veerpalu had tested positive for human growth hormone (HGH), the ski world knew that a fight lay ahead. For Veerpalu and the Estonians, a doping ban would be disastrous; as FasterSkier reported a 1999 study by a group of European and Australian researchers showed that exercise did spike HGH levels in the bloodstream by more then tenfold, the decline was dramatic...