Doping in Sport - Bi-Weekly Press round-up #80
A former Real Madrid player talks doping, concerns over carbon monoxide inhalation persist in cycling and the Swiatek case dominates the news as a Polish regulatory body commences an investigation.
© Honest Sport 2024: You must seek permission (honestsport@substack.com) if you would like to circulate this newsletter internally in your organisation or add it to any databases, programmes or software.
It takes considerable time and effort to run this newsletter, and paid subscriptions help greatly. If you would like a group subscription for your organisation please reach out directly at honestsport@substack.com.
Thank you to those of you who have decided to subscribe already.
Help grow this newsletter by sharing it with friends, athletes or colleagues, particularly anti-doping officials, journalists or sports lawyers, who you think would find it useful or interesting. Thank you, Edmund!
The former Real Madrid and PSG midfielder Jese Rodriguez, from Spain, says he is aware of footballers who have previously engaged in doping. “There were many people taking a lot of rubbish to perform better. It wasn't controlled as much back then as it is now. I'm not criticizing or judging anyone, but that was the reality. The issue is that it may not have come to light publicly,” (link).
The team manager of the French cycling team Groupama-FDJ says that he will not allow his riders to inhale carbon monoxide to better assess the benefits of altitude training, let alone use it as a performance-enhancing technique. “We must commit to not buying this equipment and not using it. I am ready to sign. I say it, no one will use this equipment in my team. I commit to it, even if the other teams do. I invite my colleagues to have the same attitude,” (link).
The Movement for a Credible Cycling (MPCC) has followed the International Cycling Union by calling for WADA to clarify its stance on carbon monoxide inhalation. “The MPCC Board believes that in the context of such reckless behaviour as the repeated use of a toxic gas or a powerful opioid, WADA should invoke an emergency procedure to enforce the precautionary principle when a potentially dangerous practice or drug emerges,” (link). WADA remains coy on the topic (link).
Meanwhile, the Team Visma rider and Tour de France winner Jonas Vingegaard downplayed the dangers of carbon monoxide inhalation after denying that he has ever inhaled carbon monoxide to enhance performance. “But with that said, also what I heard is that when you do this one time, it's like smoking one cigarette and I mean, there are a lot of people smoking cigarettes every day,” (link). In 2023, the year Team Visma won all three Grand Tours, the team’s rider Michel Hessman tested positive for the diuretic Chlorthalidone (link).
The former Tour de France winner Greg LeMond says that he prefers to believe that Tadej Pogacar is ‘clean’ because he likes to give people ‘the benefit of the doubt’. “In my calculations, I've got Pogacar doing 410/420 watts and that's absolutely in the realm that I could have done. It's hard to compare eras and it's hard to go: 'because they're beating the EPO period that they have to be on EPO', I'm just saying there's some real logic as to why riders are going faster today and it's not new training theories, it's that they're under the gun to race and it's all power to weight ratio,” (link). You can watch a video of the interview here (link).
The Athletics Integrity Unit has provisionally suspended the Ethiopian runner Aberash Mutala Amena after she tested positive for synthetic testosterone (link).
The British sprinter Dwain Chambers, who confessed to systematically doping during the prime of his career (link), has been voted Athletics Weekly Masters Athlete of the Year (link), after he broke the M45 60m World Record in February (link).
The Belgian 4x400m team at the 2013 U23 European Championships have been upgraded to first place after their Russian opponents were disqualified for doping. “The Tornados U23 concerned were able to receive their gold medal on Saturday during the Spike d'Or gala. They are Dylan Borlée, Seppe Thys, Julien Watrin, Stef Vanhaeren and Sebastien Lins,” (link).
Essentially Sports reports that the 8-time Olympic champion Usain Bolt went to great lengths to avoid inadvertently ingesting banned substances during his career. “Whenever I went to clubs, I’d always mixed my liquor with energy drinks, but after that story, I partied with cranberry juice instead. Once a cold came on, I had to ride it out. It was a cruel world for any athlete with flu. To risk my track and field life for a cough syrup was a dumbass move, because I was always getting tested,” (link).
The 400m American hurdler Edwin Moses, who was once chairman of the US Anti-Doping Agency, was asked where he was clean over his nine-year undefeated streak across two Olympics. “I can say: I have never doped because doping and the side effects scared me to death. I know enough about the structure of the human body that I didn't want to let that stuff flow into it. And finally, and this was the most important motive for me: cheating in sport is ethically reprehensible,” (link).
