After several years of investigation yielding wiretaps and other evidence, International Biathlon Union Vice President for Sport has been indicted in an Italian court for aiding his son Daniel in connecting with doping doctor Michele Ferrari (of Armstrong fame) to obtain EPO.
The international federations for cross-country skiing and biathlon tout that they have done more against Russian doping than the IAAF - for instance, re-testing old samples with new methods, or sanctioning the Russian ski federation. But WADA's report still scared them, and they want more information.
Athletes will likely no longer face the testing at Olympic Games. The decision has few other implications for skiing, which has not had occasion to do gender testing for several years: “Should it be necessary to arrange a gender verification... then the Olympic Movement rules would be applicable,” FIS Secretary General Sarah Lewis told FasterSkier.
Ekaterina Iourieva will serve a four-year ban on top of the eight-year ban she is already serving; Irina Starykh will see one year added to her existing two-year ban. Both had already tested positive on other occasions. First-time offender Alexander Loginov has been banned for two years, ending in November 2016.
Although he got away with it the first time, Ukraine's Sergui Sednev did not try to fight the IBU when it re-tested a sample almost two years old and found that it contained EPO. The biathlete was banned for two years, and his results since January 2013 will be scrubbed.
Sergui Sednev of Ukraine is the latest athlete to be caught in the International Biathlon Union's re-testing of suspicious anti-doping samples from seasons past. At stake are two seasons' worth of results. All of the old samples have now been tested, but it's unclear whether more suspensions are still to come - a month passed between the analytical result in Sednev's case and the release of his name.
The IBU doing away with the double-pole zone and trying something new for relays and mass starts: only three lanes, and skating right off the bat. Will it work? Three of the women who started Sunday's relay - including two-time World Cup Champion Kaisa Makarainen - are unconvinced, saying that in a small, competitive field, it's potentially unfair for some teams to start 20 meters behind the front compared to just one row back in the old format.
A November, 2013, urine sample belonging to Russian biathlete Alexander Loginov has tested positive for EPO using a new technique. Since the test, Loginov - a double World Junior Champion - competed in the Olympics and had several World Cup podiums, including when he was second and American Lowell Bailey third in Kontiolahti.
Evi Sachenbacher-Stehle appealed the IBU's 2-year ban for testing positive for a prohibited stimulant, which she argued was ingested accidentally in a supplement. The Court of Arbitration for sport agreed, saying that a six-month suspension was sufficient. Six months is up and the star can return to competition.
Latvian biathlete Edgars Piksons, a 2006 and 2010 Olympian, has tested positive for a metabolite of the most commonly used anabolic steroids. The International Biathlon Union is referring his case to its Anti-Doping Hearing Panel.
U.S. Biathlon's Max Cobb also chaired the IBU Technical Committee for the past several years - and he just passed rule changes at the IBU Congress that include a system-wide qualification points system and added Wild Card entries to major events. "People voted in favor of a more fair, open, and sporting system – I was really gratified," Cobb said.
Up for voting at the IBU Congress in September will be proposals for how to deal with mid-race cancellations, whether to amend the penalty in youth individual races, and whether age limits are appropriate at Open European Championships - as well as the creation of an entirely new junior racing circuit.
Convicted in arranging the attempted murder of a regional governor in 2000, Alexander Tikhonov is never dull. One of the best biathletes of all time, he hopes to return to the international spotlight by becoming IBU President. Canada's Jim Carrabre is also taking on Anders Besseberg, who has held the position since 1993.
Evi Sachenbacher-Stehle had three of her nine supplements - recommended by an experienced nutritionist - tested for banned substances. She read the ingredient labels carefully and googled their names with the phrase "doping". But the IBU rejected the idea of accidental ingestion and slapped her with the same 2-year ban that a Russian using EPO received on the same day. Is that fair?
The International Biathlon Union has finally announced the verdict for Irina Starykh of Russia: a two-year ban beginning on December 23, 2013, the date samples were collected which eventually tested positive for recombinant erythropoetin. Starykh claims that the substance must have been in a drug she injected to improve her skin, but this seems unlikely.
FIS Anti-Doping Coordinator Sarah Fussek says that her federation is in the very early stages of harmonizing their Athlete Biological Passport testing protocol with other winter sports federations, with a possible end result of the IOC taking over all testing at the Olympics. This would allow FIS to do more testing at other events in Olympic years.
IBU President Anders Besseberg explained to FasterSkier that he is "harmonizing" the blood screening procedures at Olympic Games between biathlon, skiing, and speedskating, and then the IOC will take over all administration of the tests. But his claims that VP for Medical Issues Jim Carrabre never contacted him about the issue is false, as e-mails shared by Carrabre show that he did try to ask the president why the decision was taken.
Former Canadian biathlete Jim Carrabre, now a doctor practicing in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul area, is launching a bid for the presidency of the International Biathlon Union. He will run against Anders Besseberg, who has held the position since 1993. A longtime antidoping advocate, Carrabre is also running on a platform of good governance and global development of the sport.
Biathlon is about to get a lot more interesting with IBU's incorporation of a new "Stand Your Ground" format, in which relay anchors can take aim at competitors who outshoot them in the range. "If you have a reasonable belief that another team is going to beat your team, of course you are going to do everything you can to stand up to them," IBU's Ulrich Untersee says. "Usually this has just meant skiing fast or playing head games. We’re putting more tools on the table."
Three biathletes were recently caught doping - but does that count as cleaning out the sport, or is it just the tip of the banned-substance iceberg? According to IBU medical director Dr. Jim Carrabre, the biathlon union has doubled their testing in the leadup to the Olympics and is using the blood passport program to aggressively target potential dopers. Some substances can't be detected, but the federation is pushing as hard as current science and WADA rules allow.