Topic: News: The 2008 Bulgarian Doping Scandal

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

Link

Bulgaria has no team ‘B’ to meet requirements for Olympics

Sofia. Bulgaria stands no chance of participating in the weightlifting discipline of the Olympics after today’s decision of the Bulgarian Olympic Committee to cancel the participation of the country’s weightlifting team in China, even in case the ‘B’ tests of the Bulgarian weightlifters turn out to be negative. The reason is that Bulgaria must declare its team to the International Olympics Committee by July 23rd and the tests are expected to be ready shortly after that. On the other hand Bulgaria has no team ‘B’ to send to the Olympics.

According to the World Anti-Doping Agency’s requirements the participants in the Bulgarian B team must be under the control of WADA at ;east six months before departing for the Olympics. Bulgaria has no such players.

[ANDREIAGLU]

with Abadjiev( 13 june ) http://www.blitz.bg/article/5342

http://sport-turkofil.blogspot.com/#2630102188590207925
 more with Abadjev, june 2008

[Dave Almeida]

hmmm none of my translators can translate those articles

can anyone else translate them? i am very interested in what they have to say as they seem like recent interviews with abadjiev

[ANDREIAGLU]

Abadjie speaks that on Olympiad in Sydney has substituted it Kadjabashev, it has heard it from Enver Tulumov (Turkleri, train in Kazahstan) for euro 00 in Sofia, Kadjabashev has told: "Я "отрежу" Абаджиеву голову( то есть отлучит от weightlifting ) ", еще он говорит что в этом допинговом скандале виноваты сами болгары, так как идут разногласия внутри команды

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Weightlifting: B samples of Bulgarian national team positive
By Marin Milashki

Sofia. International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) has confirmed the presence of metandienon steroid in the blood of the Bulgarian national weightlifting team, Chief Secretary of the Bulgarian Weightlifting Federation (BWF) Tencho Tenev told Focus News Agency.

The B samples tested positive in the Cologne lab. The IWF sent an e-mail on Tuesday at 16.00 to the BWF, informing the samples are positive. Tenev has noted the exact amount of sanctions that will be imposed on the BWF is not known, but it is around USD 500,000. It is also not clear how long the national team will be banned from competing.

Focus News Agency reminds:
On June 27th 2008 11 Bulgarian weightlifters – eight men and three women – tested positive for doping and were banned from participating in the Beijing Olympics.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

Link

Bulgarian weightlifting doping confirmed

Positive dope tests from the Bulgarian men's and women's weightlifting teams, which have already withdrawn from the Beijing Olympics, have been confirmed, the national federation said Wednesday.

'We received a letter from the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) confirming that our athletes' B-samples also contained the banned anabolic steroid metandienon,' federation chief Anton Kodzhabashev told AFP.

The IWF was expected to meet during or after the Olympics to decide which sanctions to impose on the Bulgarian athletes and the federation as a whole, he added.

The Bulgarian teams already withdrew from the Games in late June after the A-samples of all 11 athletes on the preliminary squad tested positive for the banned substance.

Bulgaria was due to take six men and two women to Beijing.

The athletes now risk bans of between two and four years, while the federation may be kept out of all major events over the next four years, Kodzhabashev said Wednesday.

'The federation might avoid a ban altogether if we pay the fine to be imposed by the IWF, and I will plead for us to do that,' Kodzhabashev said.

But the athletes will be given sanctions, he added.

Three athletes, Georgy Markov, Alan Tsagaev and Gergana Kirilova, risk life bans as this is their second doping offence, press reports said.

Bulgaria has had a reputation for turning out good weightlifters since communist times.

But the country has experienced major doping scandals in recent years, its weightlifting teams having to withdraw from both the 1988 Olympics in Seoul and the 2000 Olympics in Sydney after the athletes tested positive for banned substances.

This latest doping case however is the first time the whole Bulgarian team has pulled out ahead of the Games.

[Sam McLean]

So I know I'm a newb, and I probably shouldn't stir stuff up too badly, but this thread has been bothering me all day.  I love this sport, I love watching people lift, and I have especially been cheering on Bulgaria for a while now.  While I'm not surprised, (I would be naive to say that I was), this is really upsetting.  I know I can't have all the answers, but I have some hypothetical questions to pose:

1.  Could these athletes have been elite international competitors without the use of banned anabolic substances?

2.  Are there ANY elite ("A" group) international competitors who are there without the use of banned anabolic substances in at least some part of their training cycle?

3.  Why is international weightlifting plagued by such rampant drug use, is it:
a.  The athletes expectations of themselves,
b.  The national programs, or
c.  The international expectation or standard of performance imposed upon the sport by spectators of the games themselves?

I am glad that Bulgaria's own olympic commitee nipped this situation in the bud before these lifters got on the platform and caused an even more blatant international spectacle, but for these lifters, who have trained incredibly hard for so many years, with or without banned substances, to miss out on what may be their final Olympic Games (especially Tsagaev), I do pity them.  It is a shameful situation for many parties, true, but I don't feel the onus of responsibilty for doping should fall entirely upon the shoulders of the individual athletes.

This may be an old and unnecessary rant, and I apologize for any offense given, but I figured if there was a place to talk about my woes, this is it.

Sam McLean

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

Link

Weekend blog: Olympic calmness
By Petar Kostadinov

Bulgarians often use the expression “Olympic calmness” as a way to ironically refer to someone who simply does not care about what others think of his actions. It is a good expression, I think, and it fits very well with all major public scandals that have been happening in this country for the past 19 years. 

The last time I thought of using this expression was when I saw how the Bulgarian Weightlifting Federation reacted to the news that the entire Bulgarian weightlifting team was tested positive for doping by the doping police. Notwithstanding the fact that the team was banned from participating in the games, which is just another blow to the country's image abroad, I was stunned to see that Bulgarian weightlifting officials showed an “Olympic calmness” and talked about everything else rather than assuming responsibility for the scandal. I cannot imagine a bigger crisis for a sports federation than letting its entire team be tested positive for doping a month-and-a-half before the start of the Olympics.

And bear in mind that weightlifters are traditionally Bulgaria's strongest weapon at every Olympic Games, carrying most of the country's hopes for medals. That was one of the reasons why the media reacted with less interest to the news that a young Bulgarian shooter was banned from the Olympics because she was tested positive for cocaine use.

So back to the federation. When the news broke we all heard them talking about the damages Bulgaria has suffered, that the country was once again the target of a world conspiracy and a victim of double-standards.

Nothing was said about filing resignations, nothing. So what was the signal athletes in Bulgaria got from all this? “Sorry, guys, your life-long efforts in training for the Olympics are not worth a single resignation from our side, thank you very much and hope you can find something else to do for the rest of your life”. The weightlifters in most cases have been selected from early age from schools all around Bulgaria and have been practising, ever since following the advice of their trainers and doctors. And now when these experts have failed them it is the athletes that will suffer all the consequences. They will have to try and find themselves a new place in Bulgarian society and be given as an example every time a world media decided to write about doping in sport.

I had a friend who used to train real hard hoping to go to the Olympics. She failed eventually because she could not afford the high-quality drugs and the high-quality doctors to take care of her. This friend of mine told me that timing was the most important thing in one's training. You should know how your body works, how long it takes to clean itself from the drugs so that you can plan when to go and enter a sport event. The better the drugs, the more reliable timing you get, she said. After all, this was why doping cops started doing sudden checks.

So if we assume, with a tinge of sadness, that everybody takes drugs, then in the case of the 11 Bulgarian weightlifters it should be the physicians and the trainers that should be blamed for the positive tests. And yet nothing has been said about them being held responsible although there were comments that they were devastated by the news. The same applies to the big bosses from the federation who have entrusted athletes to the hands of their trainers. They have been asked to resign several times but nothing like this has happened. A clear case of Olympic calmness, one might say.