Topic: News: The Greek Doping Scandal

[Jack]

This thread really reads like a thriller movie!

I don't want to believe the cheating, but I don't know what to make of it. I almost can't believe that if the Greeks cheated, they would do it so badly. Even more so, as they seem to have their own pharmacologists on the team.

I remember reading Galabin Boevski's statement when he was banned after alledgedly switching or tampering with his urine sample. He said something to the effect that it would be impossible to do standing naked in front of an official peeing in a container.

Maybe I'm naive, but could some be innocent notwithstanding positive results?

Thanks very much for putting this up, if nothing else, it make for sad and fascinating reading.

Sjaak

[Paul LaDuke]

Sjaak,

You're right, this has been a dramatic read.  But it is also disappointing reading.  Like Chris, I dream of a Utopia of weightlifting where no one uses drugs but realize that dream is probably just that.  I have become skeptical of all weightlifting at the international level because of this.

My thoughts on why Greece got busted so bady was that the WADA testing was a total surprise!  It caught them completely unprepared for testing and they got popped!  The team leaders and pharmacologists were in a phase of non-testing so all of their athletes could juice, at least they thought!  At least this is my opinion.

I hope your questioning of the testing process is false.  If you can't trust the testing process or if the testing process ever becomes corrupt, we have nothing!  WADA must be held to the highest standard and their testing procedures must always be followed.  They must be above reproach.

If my theory on why Greek got busted is the true theory, then WADA is doing its job (for once).  It should do surprise testing very often for the top 500 athletes in the sport.  The reported 4 year ban should be followed to the letter. 

I hope we can clean up this sport, but I am with Chris and doubtful that it will happen.  I am sure the Greek team with pay huge money and be able to compete.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

Link

Greek police ask Interpol to help in weightlifting case
By Karolos Grohmann

ATHENS, April 10 (Reuters) - Greek police on Thursday asked Interpol to help shed light on a doping case involving positive tests from 11 of the country's top weightlifters that could see the team banned from this year's Beijing Olympics.

Greek weightlifting federation officials and its suspended head coach have blamed the positive tests on a Chinese company, who they claim accidentally spiked a batch of supplements with banned ingredients.

They said the company had also sent an e-mail apologising for the ingredients mix-up.

The head of the police electronic crime unit, Manolis Sfakianakis, told an Athens prosecutor the Chinese company's alleged apology was sent from a computer located in China.

"But Sfakianakis has also asked Interpol to help in the investigation and locate specifically from which computer in China the e-mail originated," a police official told Reuters.

"Interpol has said it will need 5-10 days to determine the exact location within China of the computer used by the sender of the e-mail," the official said on condition of anonymity.

GREEKS STUNNED

The Chinese company was quoted earlier on Thursday as saying it had sent an apology letter to Greek team officials.

"It is true we sent an e-mail, but we need to wait a few days before we can respond with a public statement," the Beijing News newspaper quoted an unnamed company employee as saying.

The case has stunned Greeks ahead of the Aug. 8-24 Olympics, with many drawing parallels to a drugs scandal involving the country's top two sprinters and medal hopes, Costas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou, on the eve of the 2004 Athens Games.

The weightlifting squad could face expulsion from the Beijing Olympics if their follow-up B-samples test positive.
Under the World Anti-Doping Agency code, the athletes face a two-year ban if they are first-time offenders.
The Greek weightlifting federation has also temporarily suspended head coach Christos Iacovou, credited with big weightlifting medals hauls at recent Olympics.

Iacovou said on Wednesday he had done nothing wrong and all purchases of nutritional supplements had been ordered with the consent of the federation. (Writing by Karolos Grohmann, editing by Ken Ferris)

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

Link

Greek federation blames weightlifting coach for tainted supplements in drug scandal

ATHENS, Greece: The Greek Weightlifting Federation blamed its coach Christos Iakovou for the doping scandal that has jeopardized the weightlifting team's participation at the Beijing Olympics.

Iakovou was suspended last week after 11 Greek weightlifters tested positive for banned substances. Confirmation of those results is expected this week.

Iakovou blamed the test results on a tainted batch of diet supplements from China. He said he had used the Chinese supplier from late 2007, and insisted he had informed the Greek federation.

However, federation secretary Vassilis Gerakaris said Thursday that Iakovou had acted alone in ordering the diet supplements and didn't inform his organization.

"Mr. Iakovou acted on his own initiative, without informing the federation, and acknowledges himself that he did not follow the proper procurement procedure ... Responsibility for this falls on the national coach," Gerakaris said.

Iakovou maintains the Chinese supplier mistakenly sent the wrong drugs to Greece, citing documents provided by the Shanghai-based drug maker Auspure Biotechnology Co. Ltd. admitting the mistake.

Chinese authorities have promised to assist the Greek investigation.

Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis is due to meet his sport minister Friday to review the findings reached so far in a government investigation into the scandal.

The Beijing Games are from Aug. 8-24.

[Jack]

Thanks Paul, I agree with your points of view. Weightlifting would then be the first really clean sport on top-level.

A thought-provoking article appeared in Economist news paper last week:


An athlete's genes may help determine the results of his dope test


CHEATING in sport is as old as sport itself. The athletes of ancient Greece used potions to fortify themselves before a contest, and their modern counterparts have everything from anabolic steroids and growth hormones to doses of extra red blood cells with which to invigorate their bodies. These days, however, such stimulants are frowned on, and those athletes must therefore run the gauntlet of organisations such as the World Anti-Doping Agency, which would rather they competed without resorting to them.
The agencies have had remarkable success. Testing for anabolic steroids (in other words, artificial testosterone) was introduced in the 1970s, and the incidence of cheating seems to have fallen dramatically as a result (see chart). The tests, however, are not foolproof. And a study just published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism by Jenny Jakobsson Schulze and her colleagues at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden suggests that an individual's genetic make-up could confound them in two different ways. One genotype, to use the jargon, may allow athletes who use anabolic steroids to escape detection altogether. Another may actually be convicting the innocent.
The test usually employed for testosterone abuse relies on measuring the ratio of two chemicals found in the urine: testosterone glucuronide (TG) and epitestosterone glucuronide (EG). The former is produced when testosterone is broken down, while the latter is unrelated to testosterone metabolism, and can thus serve as a reference point for the test. Any ratio above four of the former to one of the latter is, according to official Olympic policy, considered suspicious and leads to more tests.
However, the production of TG is controlled by an enzyme that is, in turn, encoded by a gene called UGT2B17. This gene comes in two varieties, one of which has a part missing and therefore does not work properly. A person may thus have none, one or two working copies of UGT2B17, since he inherits one copy from each parent. Dr Schulze guessed that different numbers of working copies would produce different test results. She therefore gave healthy male volunteers whose genes had been examined a single 360mg shot of testosterone (the standard dose for legitimate medical use) and checked their urine to see whether the shot could be detected.
Testing the test
The result was remarkable. Nearly half of the men who carried no functional copies of UGT2B17 would have gone undetected in the standard doping test. By contrast, 14% of those with two functional copies of the gene were over the detection threshold before they had even received an injection. The researchers estimate this would give a false-positive testing rate of 9% in a random population of young men.
Dr Schulze also says there is substantial ethnic variation in UGT2B17 genotypes. Two-thirds of Asians have no functional copies of the gene (which means they have a naturally low ratio of TG to EG), compared with under a tenth of Caucasians—something the anti-doping bodies may wish to take into account.
In the meantime, Dr Schulze's study does seem to offer innocents a way of defending themselves. Athletes travelling to Beijing for the Olympic games later this year may be wise to travel armed not only with courage and the “spirit of Olympianism”, but also with a copy of their genetic profile, just in case.





Sjaak

[Walter Bailey]

Anybody know when the B sample results should come out? 

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

Link

Greek government pledges tougher doping laws amid weightlifting drug scandal

ATHENS, Greece: The Greek government pledged to introduce tougher anti-doping laws Friday, reacting to a drug scandal that has jeopardized the national weightlifting team's participation at the Beijing Olympics.

Culture Minister Michalis Liapis, who is in charge of sport, said an amendment will be submitted to parliament within 10 days "to create ... a legal arsenal to ensure that sport is healthy and athletes are clean."

He gave no details on the proposed measures.

"We have been tasked to bring an amendment to parliament within 10 days ... so that we never relive these terrible events that have discredited our country internationally," Liapis said after meeting Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis.

Greek authorities are awaiting confirmation of test results announced April 4 that found 11 Greek weightlifters had used banned substances.

Olympic weightlifting coach Christos Iakovou, who was suspended over the scandal, insisted a faulty batch of diet supplements from China was to blame for the test results.

On Thursday, Iakovou's lawyer said he was planning to sue the Shanghai-based drug maker Auspure Biotechnology Co. Ltd.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

Link

Sport to clean up its act
PM wants a stronger law against doping after weightlifting scandal

Greece is going to change its laws in a bid to stop its athletes from using banned substances to win gold medals in the wake of the doping scandal that rocked weightlifting, it was revealed yesterday.

Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis instructed Culture Minister Michalis Liapis and his deputy, Yiannis Ioannidis, who is in charge of sports, to ensure that Greek athletes win cleanly and not at any cost.

“It is the prime minister’s order that the necessary measures be taken,” said Liapis after the three men met yesterday. “Of course, we want medals but, above all, we want clean athletes and a healthy sports scene. We are not interested in medals at any cost.”

A new law will be drawn up and submitted to Parliament within the next few days in a bid to clamp down on doping in sports. “The time has come for us to build a legal arsenal so that sports and sportspeople will be healthy and, above all, to protect our youth,” said Liapis.

Greek athletes who win medals, particularly at the Olympics, are given large cash rewards and often get honorary ranks in the military, guaranteeing them a regular salary and pension benefits. It is likely that the new law will seek to trim these rights. Sources said that the import and distribution of banned substances is likely to be made a criminal offense.

Ioannidis, a former basketball coach, insisted that not all of Greece’s sporting successes should be consigned to the rubbish bin as a result of the 11 weightlifters from the national team who tested positive for banned substances. “We should not confuse medals with doping; there have been clean medals,” he said.

Meanwhile, it was revealed that a female weightlifter, one of the 11 athletes in question, has demanded more information from the Greek Weightlifting Federation, pending a lawsuit. She claims that there was an increase in the number of substances, that she presumed to be legal, that the weightlifters were given as the team neared the Beijing Olympics.