Topic: News: The Greek Doping Scandal

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

Ryan,

One could write a book to explain and discuss your questions. But, in the end, its as simple as I said. If they could win without the drugs, then they wouldn't take the drugs. The rest doesn't matter to me much, if at all, so I will let others address your specific questions, at least for now.

[Dave Almeida]

Ryan there could be a number of reasons. One being that not every american was completely clean. However, if we assume all americans have never used an illegal substance it should be noted that leg strength isnt the sole determinant of success in weightlifting. Just because you can squat a lot doesn't mean you have the fast twitch muscle fibers to perform well in the snatch and clean and jerk. the more you train the snatch and the clean and jerk the more your cns will adapt to the stresses and you will stimulate the correct muscle fibers needed to perform these lifts. squatting is secondary to the lifts because of this. now if you take drugs and focus on the snatch and clean and jerk even more now that you can handle a greater workload you will gain the correct type of muscle fibers at an increased rate along with stimulating your cns to an even greater degree. hypothetically just because the lifters take drugs doesnt mean they will focus the majority of their new workload on squatting.

however, the squatting power of americans is not up to par with international lifters. galabin boevski regularly front squatted 240kg+ at 69kg bodyweight. the 77kg bulgarian lifters would regularly do 240-250kg in the front squat; not to mention ivan ivanov front squatting ~210kg at 62kg. i dont know of any americans that are doing this. hamman didnt front squat 1000 raw, reza has reportedly done 440kg raw in the backsquat and has trained for olympic weightlifting all his life so he has the necessary fast twitch fibers and cns developments... i could go on but i think you get the point

oh, steroids dont "give you 10%". whoever came up with that rule is out of their mind. promising lifters are given drugs at the age of 15 or even before in some countries. training on drugs for years will give you more than "10%" or whatever that means when using drugs for years and years. ilya ilin put 100kg on his total in 2 year between the ages of 15-17 i believe. it was just puberty im sure.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Weightlifters deny part in doping
Athletes appear before panel

The 11 weightlifters from the Greek national team, who tested positive for a banned substance in an out-of-competition check, gave evidence before a disciplinary committee yesterday and denied knowingly taking any steroids, sources said.

The Greek Weightlifting Federation set up the panel after the news broke on Friday that almost the entire men’s and women’s national teams (11 out of 13 athletes) had failed tests conducted by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) on March 7.

National team coach Christos Iakovou tendered his resignation immediately. Iakovou did not appear before the committee yesterday but is expected to do so this week.

The federation’s president, Yiannis Skiadas, insisted yesterday that anyone found to be responsible for the doping would be suitably punished, regardless of whether it is the weightlifters themselves or their coaches who are to blame.

Sources said that all the athletes told the panel that they took vitamin supplements and were not aware that they may have contained banned substances. The results of the second test on the sample taken from the weightlifters, known as the B sample, are due to be known this week. If they are also found to be positive, it will confirm that the Greek athletes took a banned substance.

Greece will not send a team to the European Weightlifting Championships, which begin in Italy on April 11, and its participation in the Beijing Olympics is also highly unlikely. The International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) could ban the Greek team for up to two years but said on its website yesterday that “as long as the cases are in-process (B sample and/or hearing) the IWF shall have no further comments.”

The substance allegedly used by the weightlifters has not officially been named but Skai Radio reported it was trenbolone acetate, a steroid normally used by veterinarians on livestock to increase muscle growth and appetite. It is a substance widely known on the body-building circuit as it is more effective than testosterone but has a number of damaging side effects, especially for women.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Greek federation blames Chinese lab for doping
By Karolos Grohmann, edited by Trevor Huggins

ATHENS (Reuters) - A mistake at a Chinese factory was to blame for 11 members of the Greek national weightlifting team testing positive for banned substances, a Greek Weightlifting Federation official said on Monday.

The federation had announced on Friday that 11 of the 14 team members had tested provided positive with their A samples and that the squad could face expulsion from the Beijing Olympics in August if their B samples also proved positive.

On Monday, a federation official told Reuters on condition of anonymity the Chinese factory which had been supplying Greek athletes with nutritional supplements for months had sent a letter apologizing for a mix-up in the ingredients.

"A letter was sent to us and it says that a mistake in the ingredients of the supplements had caused the problem," the official said. "They are apologizing for their mistake."

The Chinese company said in the letter a number of banned toxic and cancer-causing substances had been accidentally added in the latest batch of supplements, the official said.

The lawyer for suspended head coach Christos Iacovou said he too had received the letter of apology.

"I have the letter from one of China's biggest pharmaceutical companies with which they apologize for the tragic mistake of sending nutritional supplements which included some banned substances," lawyer Michalis Dimitrakopoulos told reporters.

"Iacovou never imagined giving his athletes banned substances and he never gave drugs to his athletes," he said.

Under the current World Anti-Doping Agency code, the athletes face a two-year ban if they are first-time offenders.

The case has triggered a judicial investigation, led by an Athens prosecutor, and has shocked Greeks who have held the country's weightlifting team in high esteem.

"We want to win medals in Beijing but we want to win them on our own merit," Sports Minister Yannis Ioannidis said. The government said it would consider raising doping violations from a misdemeanor to a felony to be able to impose non-suspended prison sentences on offenders.

MEDALS HAUL

The federation has temporarily suspended Iacovou, credited with a big weightlifting medals haul at recent Olympics.

Since the 1992 Barcelona Games, Greece has won 12 Olympic medals, including five golds, in weightlifting. Before Barcelona it had not won a weightlifting medal since the 1904 Games.

Iacovou, a former weightlifter himself, has been in charge of the national team since the Barcelona Games.

Suspicions in the past about Greece's sudden success in the sport were brushed aside by Iacovou and Greek sports bodies, especially ahead of the Athens 2004 Games where the sport was supposed to bring home a lot of medals.

Greece ended up with only one medal, a bronze, from weightlifting at the Athens Olympics after another athlete, Leonidas Sampanis, tested positive and lost the bronze medal he had won in the 62kg category.

The country can send a total of eight athletes to the Beijing Games, five male and three female competitors.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Greek prosecutors launches doping probe as weightlifters blame Chinese drugmaker
By Derek Gatopoulos
 
ATHENS, Greece (AP) -Prosecutors began a preliminary investigation into the alleged use of banned substances by 11 Greek weightlifters, judicial officials said Monday.

The athletes' suspended coach, meanwhile, blamed a mistake by a Chinese drugmaker for the positive tests.

The probe, headed by prosecutor Andreas Karaflos, was announced as Greek sporting authorities began an emergency meeting and weightlifting team's preparations for the Beijing Olympics were thrown into turmoil.

Sports minister Yiannis Ioannidis summoned the heads of the country's main sporting federations and representatives of the Hellenic Olympic Committee.

"We are interested in winning medals, but medals that have been earned with hard work and training,'' Ioannidis said.

Ioannidis told Associated Press Television News that "I think it is not likely'' that Greek weightlifters will compete in the Olympics, but that the International Weightlifting Federation will make the final decision.

Olympic weightlifting coach Christos Iakovou, who was suspended Friday, denied wrongdoing and blamed the test results on a faulty batch of dietary supplements

"Neither the athletes nor the team officials and pharmacologists or Mr. Iakovou, knew that the dietary supplements being taken contained any banned substances,'' Iakovou said in a statement - adding that he was "devastated'' by the allegations.

Iakovou, 60, is one of Greece's most successful coaches with his athletes winning five Olympic gold medals, along with five silver and two bronze, since the 1992 Barcelona Games.

Iakovou's lawyer, Michalis Dimitrakopoulos, said Monday he had received documents from a Chinese drugmaker admitting it had made a mistake and shipped the wrong drugs to Greece.

"The company admits it has made a tragic mistake ... I have the documents. I don't think there is stronger proof than this,'' Dimitrakopoulos said.

Dimitrakopoulos named the company as Auspure Biotechnology Co. Ltd, a Shanghai-based drugmaker.

The names of the male and female weightlifters who tested positive have not been announced pending confirmation - expected later this week - of the out-of-competition test from samples taken on March 7.

On Sunday, all 11 athletes testified before an investigative committee set up by the Greek Weightlifting Federation.

The tests were conducted in Athens by the World Anti-Doping Agency, on orders of the International Weightlifting Federation.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

Here we go again with the tainted supplement defense. The rules say all supplements taken are at YOUR OWN RISK. But, I won't be surprised if the IWF accepts it as they seem quite content with cheating.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Heavy burden of responsibility
By Nikos Konstandaras

And now, what are we to do without champion weightlifters, without those naive youngsters who destroyed their bodies so that the Greeks could exult in medals during Olympic Games?

Whatever the result of a second round of tests, last Friday’s bombshell that 11 of the 13 men and women on the national team had been found with traces of illegal substances dissolved even the last wisps of illusion as to how medals are won and what these little disks of gold, silver and bronze mean in terms of the lives destroyed.

With so many members of the team in trouble, Greece is most likely out of both the European Championships, which are being held in Italy from April 11-20, and the Beijing Olympics.

But Friday’s news was much more than the announcement that we can expect little from this sport from now on: It also cast a cloud over the “Golden Era” of weightlifting in Greece. That era burst upon us unexpectedly at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 when Pyrros Dimas, an unknown young Greek from southern Albania, won gold. Soon the sport had become a national issue, with Dimas and another young immigrant, Kakhi Kakhiashvili from Georgia, winning gold medals in Atlanta and Sydney. In total, from Barcelona to Athens, coach Christos Iakovou guided, cajoled and comforted the team into bringing home five gold, five silver and two bronze Olympic medals. When Dimas ended his career, leaving his competition shoes on the altar where he had worshipped – the weightlifting platform in the Athens Games – many wept.

Greece loved these likable young men who, in their majority, had been born outside the country and represented the strength of the Greek Diaspora and the will to do well, to bring back something for their new homeland, to win something for themselves.

Showing similar hunger for victory, Greece embraced the athletes and the coach who kept creating new stars. Like a country of the defunct Eastern bloc, from which most of the weightlifters came, the state employed any athlete who did well, giving them positions in the armed forces. No one wanted to see that this desire for victory would have a dark side: The athletes had to bring back medals to pay off the state’s investment but also to secure their own futures. They were civil servants and their job was to be champions. Everyone suspected that the team’s performance – at least in part – was affected by the use of illegal substances. But we all wanted to believe the vehement protests by the coach and other officials that our young men (and women), unlike those of other countries, were clean.

At the Athens Olympics, 24 athletes were found to have used illegal substances (or, like our sprinters Costas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou, had evaded inspection). Of these, 11 were weightlifters. Greek lifter Leonidas Sabanis was the first athlete to be stripped of a medal at those Games, losing his silver after being found with unacceptably high testosterone. With tearful oaths on the lives of his children, Sabanis claimed his innocence. His coach and the whole system in Greece rushed to his support, suggesting that Sabanis had been framed. The rest of us were too scared to look deeper, to discover whether Sabanis was the exception or the rule. We thankfully upheld the principle that whoever is not caught is not a cheat.

Today the members of the golden generation have stepped down and their successors are the ones who will have to handle the weight of the charges. But responsibility lies not on the shoulders of the athletes but on those who exploited their ignorance and ambition in order to flatter a whole country and to build careers on the lifters’ backs. This is exploitation of the worst kind, because the athletes are not only in danger of being shamed and jailed, like Marion Jones, but also face the very real possibility of their health being destroyed.

If our athletes did indeed make use of dangerous substances, we must thank those who caught them out. Because no one else would have protected these kids and those who might want to follow in their steps.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

Link

Greek doping probe launched
11 weightlifters blame Chinese after testing positive

ATHENS, Greece (AP) -- Prosecutors began a preliminary investigation into the alleged use of banned substances by 11 Greek weightlifters, judicial officials said Monday.

The athletes' suspended coach, meanwhile, blamed a mistake by a Chinese drugmaker for the positive tests.

The probe, headed by prosecutor Andreas Karaflos, was announced as Greek sporting authorities began an emergency meeting and weightlifting team's preparations for the Beijing Olympics were thrown into turmoil.

Sports minister Yiannis Ioannidis summoned the heads of the country's main sporting federations and representatives of the Hellenic Olympic Committee.

"We are interested in winning medals, but medals that have been earned with hard work and training," Ioannidis said.

Ioannidis told Associated Press Television News that "I think it is not likely" that Greek weightlifters will compete in the Olympics, but that the International Weightlifting Federation will make the final decision.

Olympic weightlifting coach Christos Iakovou, who was suspended Friday, denied wrongdoing and blamed the test results on a faulty batch of dietary supplements

"Neither the athletes nor the team officials and pharmacologists or Mr. Iakovou, knew that the dietary supplements being taken contained any banned substances," Iakovou said in a statement -- adding that he was "devastated" by the allegations.

Iakovou, 60, is one of Greece's most successful coaches with his athletes winning five Olympic gold medals, along with five silver and two bronze, since the 1992 Barcelona Games.

Iakovou's lawyer, Michalis Dimitrakopoulos, said Monday he had received documents from a Chinese drugmaker admitting it had made a mistake and shipped the wrong drugs to Greece.

"The company admits it has made a tragic mistake ... I have the documents. I don't think there is stronger proof than this," Dimitrakopoulos said.

Dimitrakopoulos named the company as Auspure Biotechnology Co. Ltd, a Shanghai-based drugmaker.

The names of the male and female weightlifters who tested positive have not been announced pending confirmation -- expected later this week -- of the out-of-competition test from samples taken on March 7.

On Sunday, all 11 athletes testified before an investigative committee set up by the Greek Weightlifting Federation.

The tests were conducted in Athens by the World Anti-Doping Agency, on orders of the International Weightlifting Federation.