Topic: News: The 2008 Bulgarian Doping Scandal

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

Yes, I am sure they would get better drugs if they could afford them. There is an article somewhere around here that quoted them as saying exactly that and complaining that other nations could now afford better drugs than them. I kind of thought that was sort of asking for WADA to come make a visit but it turns out they got busted by their own NGB. I would say this is progress except for the fact that the Olympic qualifying system is completely corrupted.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Olympic weightlifters banned in Bulgaria

SOFIA, Bulgaria, June 27 (UPI) -- The Bulgarian Olympic Committee announced Friday the entire national weightlifting team would be withdrawn from the upcoming Beijing Games.

Bulgarian officials said 11 athletes had tested positive for steroid use this month.

It is the latest in a long line of drug scandals for the Bulgarians, who rank second behind only the former Soviet Union in the number of Olympic weightlifting medals won.

Two Bulgarian weightlifters were kicked out of the 1988 Olympics in Seoul for drug use. In Sydney eight years ago, a Bulgarian tested positive in each of the first three weightlifting events, prompting the entire team to leave the Olympics in disgrace.

Among those who tested positive this month was Velichko Cholakov, who won a bronze medal in the heavyweight class in Athens.

The International Weightlifting Federation said 40 world-class competitors in the sport have been suspended this year for drug use. That does not include the Bulgarians, but does include 11 Greeks who tested positive in March.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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11 Bulgarian Weight Lifters Are Dropped From Games
By Juliet Macur

Doping scandals emerged in two Olympic sports Friday, with grave consequences for athletes caught cheating six weeks before the Beijing Games.

All 11 athletes on the Bulgarian weight lifting team — eight men and three women — were dropped from the Olympics after testing positive for a banned anabolic steroid in early June, according to a statement from the Bulgarian weight lifting federation.

And, in a serious blow to the Olympic host, one of China’s top swimmers, the backstroker Ouyang Kunpeng, failed a test for an unnamed substance on May 1, the Chinese swimming association said in a statement Friday. Ouyang and his coach, Feng Shangbao, received a lifetime ban from the sport.

Under China’s antidoping code, Ouyang and his coach should have been barred for two years, unless it was their second doping violation. But in an effort to host a clean Olympics, Chinese sports officials said they had increased the punishment for doping among their Olympic athletes, saying such cheating is an embarrassment to the country.

“Even though we made a lot of progress and put in a lot of effort, this type of incident still happens,” the Chinese swimming association said in reference to its efforts against doping. “This is a big lesson for us.”

Chinese swimming has had a history of doping scandals. In the 1990s, more than 30 Chinese swimmers were caught doping. Since then, China has tried to salvage its international reputation in the sport, particularly for the Beijing Olympics. A team of scientists representing the International Olympic Committee will conduct 4,500 drug tests at these Games, 25 percent more than were conducted in 2004 in Athens.

But antidoping experts say it is more effective to use out-of-competition tests to catch athletes like Ouyang, the Bulgarian weight lifters and the 11 weight lifters from Greece who tested positive for a steroid in March. Those Greek weight lifters have been barred for two years. Greece will send another team of four weight lifters to Beijing.

“Yes, it’s embarrassing when the positive tests come up, but you are showing that you are doing something to keep the sport fair,” said Dennis Snethen, the interim executive director of USA Weightlifting and the coach of the women’s team. “They are getting rid of the dirty athletes before they get to the victory platform.”

Although Ouyang, who won three individual silver medals at the 2006 Asian Games, was not expected to win gold in Beijing, the Bulgarian weight lifting team was expected to contend. Positive drug tests, once again, have stymied it. Three Bulgarian weight lifters were barred for doping before the Athens Games. At the 1988 and 2000 Olympics, several Bulgarian weight lifters returned their medals when they failed doping tests after their events.

This time, the entire team tested positive for the steroid methandienone, the federation said. Only the athletes’ “A” samples have come back positive, but the federation decided to bar the athletes even without the results of the “B,” or backup, samples. The “B” samples are tested to ensure the validity of the first tests.

The federation did not rule out that the team had ingested the banned steroid unintentionally, possibly from a tainted supplement. Ivan Stoitsov, the 2007 world champion in the 77-kilogram weight class, was Bulgaria’s best hope for an Olympic gold in weight lifting. He told Focus news agency Friday that the positive tests were “some kind of plot against the federation.”

Stoitsov said he would quit the sport immediately if the doping were proved.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Bulgaria pulls Olympic weightlifters for doping

SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) -Bulgarian weightlifters will have to wait a lot longer to compete in the Olympics.

In the latest scandal to affect the sport before the Beijing Games, the Bulgarian weightlifting team withdrew from the upcoming Olympics after 11 of its athletes tested positive for a steroid.

Eight members of the men's team and three women tested positive during out-of-competition checks on June 8-9, a federation statement said Friday.

"As a result, the Bulgarian Weightlifting Federation took a decision to withdraw its national weightlifting teams - men and women - from participation in the Olympics,'' the statement said.

The federation identified the banned substance as methandienone.

In neighboring Greece, 11 weightlifters were suspended for two years earlier this month, also after testing positive for a steroid. Greece still plans to send a team of four weightlifters - three men and a woman - to the Beijing Games.

Bulgaria's federation said the male athletes who tested positive were Ivailo Filev, Demir Demirev, Mehmed Fikretov, Ivan Stoitsov, Georgi Markov, Ivan Markov, Alan Tsagaev and Velichko Cholakov. The women were Milka Maneva, Donka Mincheva and Gergana Kirilova.

"I was shocked, all this is a provocation,'' said Stoitsov, who won two gold medals at last year's world championships.

The federation took the action without waiting for the results of backup tests. It also said it was "theoretically possible'' that the substance could have been ingested accidentally as part of a food supplement, or that the athletes' food could have been spiked.

Three Bulgarian lifters were banned for doping before the Athens Olympics in 2004.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Bulgaria's withdrawal could be windfall for Canada
By James Christie

There will be some Olympic medals left on the table at Beijing and they may be snatched or jerked away by Canadians, after Bulgaria withdrew its entire weightlifting team from the Games in the wake of 11 failed doping tests.

Canadians could be beneficiaries of the sport's latest crisis, says Moira Lassen, secretary general of the Canadian Weightlifting Federation. Canada is sending two men and three women, including Jeane Lassen of Whitehorse, who won a 2006 Commonwealth Games gold, plus silver and bronze in the 75-kilogram class at the 2006 world championship.

Moira Lassen is mother to Jeane. In addition to being Canada's top weightlifting officer and listed as a judge for Beijing, she's mom to Canada's strongest woman.

"We always had medal prospects, without this to set them up," said Moira Lassen, in a telephone interview from Whitehorse, where some of the five Beijing-bound Canadians are training.

"The number of positive tests are a bit surprising. When the number is that high, it's systemic doping, not a few individuals cheating.

"The Bulgarians are always expected to be strong and they're always medal contenders, so this will open some opportunities. It's depressing, from our sport's point of view, that doping is still out there. But on the positive side, it shows that the fight against drugs is working and WADA [the World Anti-Doping Agency] is taking it seriously."

The women hoisting iron for Canada at Beijing will be Jeane Lassen at 75 kg; Christine Girard of Rouyn-Noranda, Que., at 63 kg; and resilient Montrealer Marilou Dozois-Prevost at 48 kg, who won a 2006 Commonwealth silver eight months after a plane crash (the 2005 Air France crash into a Toronto ravine), then quit the sport last year because of a pregnancy. She did not carry to term and plunged herself back into training.

The men on the Canadian team will be Francis Luna-Grenier at 69 kg and Jasvir Singh of Burnaby, B.C., at 62 kg.

Moira Lassen said Canada took to heart the lessons of the 1988-89 Dubin Inquiry into doping and cheating. "We learned, but not everyone did."

During tests in early June, eight Bulgarian men and three women tested positive for the banned anabolic steroid metandienon. They were discovered through out-of-competition tests, according to a statement by Bulgaria's weightlifting federation.

The Bulgarian weightlifting community has long had a reputation for drug use and the masking of cheats. Jamie Astaphan, the late physician to steroid-powered sprinter Ben Johnson, once called the Bulgarians "my idols" for their ability to confound anti-doping detectors.

Bulgaria's lifting history includes both glorious strength records and infamous failed tests. The country's program has collected 12 Olympic gold medals dating back to the 1972 Munich Games. But two other golds were stripped in 1988 after a pair of athletes tested positive for the diuretic furosemide. That banned substance was capable of both helping lifters drop pounds to get into a weight class and of masking steroid use.

In 1988, the entire Bulgarian weightlifting squad was sent home but drug use didn't stop. Bulgarian lifters were stripped of three gold medals and sent home following positive tests at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Then, three Bulgarian lifters were banned for doping ahead of the Athens Olympics in 2004.

Among the male lifters who tested positive this time are Ivan Stoitsov, who won two gold medals at last year's world championships, world record holder Georgi Markov and Velichko Cholakov, an Olympic bronze medalist in 2004. The women were Milka Maneva, Donka Mincheva and Gergana Kirilova.

In neighbouring Greece, 11 of the national team's 14 lifters were suspended for two years after testing positive for the steroid methyltrienolone. However, the International Weightlifting Federation decided to allow Greece to send a team of four lifters - three men and a woman - to Beijing.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Commission could strip weightlifting federation of license for two years

Kamen Plochev, Chairman of the National Doping Control Commission with the State Agency for Youth and Sports, in an interview with Focus News Agency.

FOCUS: Mr Plochev, will “B” samples of Bulgarian weightlifters be opened? What is lifters’ future from now on?
Kamen Plochev: The Doping Control Commission decided that the best option is to open the “B” samples. This will happen in a month at the earliest in Cologne. Until then weightlifters have the right neither to train, nor to participate in competitions. Once the result of the “B” samples comes back positive, the Bulgarian Weightlifting Federation will have to penalize its competitors and the State Agency for Youth and Sports will impose financial and administrative sanctions on the Federation. It is likely that the Federation will have its financial subsidies suspended and its licenses taken away for two years. The Doping Control Commission has unanimously decided that the Federation will have to be penalized in compliance with the law and despite the hard situation we are in.

FOCUS: Will Bulgaria have a “B” weightlifting team at the Olympics?
Kamen Plochev: The Weightlifting Federation will be included in the Olympic team. If the Federation decides that it has competitors ready for the Olympics, the Commission will allow them to participate. However, everything depends on the International Weightlifting Federation – whether it will punish the Bulgarian Federation and if it does, what the punishment will be.

FOCUS: Will Bulgaria have a representative at the opening of the “B” samples?
Kamen Plochev: The samples will be opened in about a month. Bulgaria will have representatives in Cologne and they will hear the decision on the spot. I hope it will be in our favor.

FOCUS: When there are so many lifters who have tested positive for doping, the practice is to pay a fine. Can Bulgaria pay a possible fine? It is rumored the fine will be around EUR 1 million.
Kamen Plochev: If the “B” samples are positive indeed, the International Weightlifting Federation could impose a fine. The Commission cannot make such a decision.

FOCUS: Is doping control tightened in Bulgaria?
Kamen Plochev: The budget of the Doping Control Commission was increased last year. Its ambition is to send only “clean” competitors to the Olympic Games. All competitors will be tested several times. We have taken the “cluster” method. First we test three or four competitors in one team; then we test another team; then a third one and finally we get back to the first one. The procedure was the same in weightlifting. We tested the team in April and they were clean. In May the World Anti-Doping Agency checked them and they were clean again. In June, unfortunately, they tested positive.

FOCUS: Are you worried about other cases with Bulgarian athletes?
Kamen Plochev: I have always been worried. Everyone is prone to abuses. I will cite an athlete: “If I have to be equal to the others, I have to take doping.” It seems temptations and ambitions are too many and go beyond the logic of common sense.

FOCUS: What amount of funding has been allotted to the Bulgarian Weightlifting Federation for these Olympics?
Kamen Plochev: About BGN 5 million for a period of four years. This is not a secret.

FOCUS: Will the leadership of the Federation be penalized?
Kamen Plochev: If the “B” samples are positive, the technical personnel will be punished. The first punishment will be suspension of subsidies. The second one is suspension of the license. The third one is administrative, with the President and coaches being penalized. The team’s doctor will not get away with it as well.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Bulgaria to send weightlifters to Olympics despite doping scandal

SOFIA, June 30 (Xinhua) -- The Bulgarian Olympic Committee (BOC) has decided not to stop the national weightlifting team from participating in the Beijing Olympics despite a doping scandal, local press reported Monday.

The scandal flared up last Friday when Bulgarian Weightlifting Federation (BWF) president Anton Kodjabashev confirmed that eleven members of the national weightlifting team have been found to have used prohibited substances.

All of Bulgaria's best weightlifters who have been preparing for the Beijing Olympics were found to have used doping: samples taken from them on June 8 and 9 tested positive for the anabolic steroid methanedienone.

BOC president Stefka Kostadinova said that the Bulgarian delegation to the Olympics will have a weightlifting team. She said they would ask BWF to prepare and send a team to Beijing, even if it is a back-up team.

Kostadinova said that she hoped for negative B-samples.

"Unfortunately, there is hardly a case of positive A-samples and negative B-samples," she added. The results of the B-samples are due a month from now.

She hopes that the International Olympic Committee would not punish the Bulgarian weightlifters and that BWF would produce a well-prepared team B.

If, however, IOC take a decision for a punishment, BOC will have to punish BWF, including by revoking its license - probably for two years.

Also, the coach of the weightlifting team and the federation president will be sanctioned, and the subsidies for weightlifting will be cut down.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Bulgaria officially cancels weightlifting participation at Olympics

Sofia. The Bulgarian Olympics Committee officially canceled the participation of the National Weightlifting Team at the Olympics in Beijing in August, a reporter of FOCUS News Agency informed.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the Executive Bureau of the Committee, even though the results of the ‘B’ tests of the players were not ready. According to the information the Committee have received a letter form the International Weightlifting Federation, which states that the probability for the secondary tests to be negative was 1%.