[boXGWf04]

Alex Schwazer, Carolina Kostner's boyfriend, was disqualified after failing a drug test:

http://www.cbc.ca/olympics/story/201...-expelled.html

[Galsteinbok]

He doped himself up to do WALKING?

[Azzi_Kahlila]

her boyfriend tests positive for doping in london olympics !!!!
http://www.figureskating-online.com/...-schwazer.html

http://www.fotomac.com.tr/English/Ot...ive-for-doping


so bad

fabien from france
see you in courchevel = who is going ?
tell me to meet

[Accor$314]

WOW! And he is a police, oh the irony.

[ditpiler]

Yes, a great WOW!!!!

[erepsysoulptnw]

This will cast a shadow to his whole career. Do you think Carolina knew?

[TheBest-Host]

This will cast a shadow to his whole career. Do you think Carolina knew?

Great question, if they have a real relationship, she had to know, I think.

[juptVatoSoito]

He tested positive for erythropoietin (EPO), which you need to inject like insulin. I have no idea if it was possible to hide from a girl friend. It could be.

Like insulin, our bodies produce EPO too because we need it to produce red blood cells. EPO injection can be used to boost RBC production and improve durability. But too many blood cells can make blood too viscous, and that's why EPO is banned.

[dyestymum]

Yeah, I guess if they both spent time together in Obersdorf she had to knew about it?? Because doing EPO is probably very messy, with injections, dosers and you even have to take some of your blood out so that it wouldn't make it too heavy.

[Nashhlkq]

An italian article states that this was the reason why Kostner won't participate on the GP's. http://www.wintersport-news.it/8385,News.html

[OmqMZtkv]

Wow, you guys are fast. I just heard about this and went to check this site to see if we were up to speed. Well you are not guilty by association - but you can be party to a crime so to speak. Of course, many will wonder what about her? Why isn't she doing the GP? Did she know about her boyfriend? Maybe they should both retire and combine skating and walking - like ballroom dancing where drugs are not tested?

[ResistNewWorldOrder]

Wow, you guys are fast. I just heard about this and went to check this site to see if we were up to speed. Well you are not guilty by association - but you can be party to a crime so to speak. Of course, many will wonder what about her? Why isn't she doing the GP? Did she know about her boyfriend? Maybe they should both retire and combine skating and walking - like ballroom dancing where drugs are not tested?

Uhh guess again-- Ballroom dancing does test. They're going to be a demo sport in 2020.

[myspacecoo]

no, the decision not to partecipate to the GP is because she took the decision to continue skating very late and is late with the preparation of her programs, as her manager told
http://olimpiadi.corriere.it/2012/no...box_primopiano

[Patabeamn]

The whole doping thing has really thrown a wet blanket over all sports, especially track and field. The perception is, everyone does it and everyone knows everyone does it. If you run faster than someone else, it's because you have better steroids, and if you finish second it's because your pharmacologist isn't as good as the other guy's.

There was a funny but sad piece on the TV coverage last night about the indignities athletes must suffer for drug testing. For instance the old trick of inserting a catheter into your bladder and filling it with someone else's urine, which you can then deliver naturally -- naw, the drug police are onto that one.

[Lictimind]

I'm pretty sure MM can defend himself, but it is a widely held perception that doping is widespread in a number of sports including track and field - this perception is discussed at length often around big events, such as the olympics. just google doping and sports and you will find endless discussion about it - and many people on the inside, former and current coaches for example, are often among the first to say it is so. A current debate seems to suggest it is so wide spread and testing is so unable to 'catch' people in a timely fashion if at all that perhaps doping should be leaglized and regulated.

I'm not advocating the latter point; nor am I saying all or even most athletes dope; but that there is a widespread perception that it is occurring and a ongoing and robust discussion about it, yes there is. I, although aware of all of the financial pressures and ever increasing use of 'acceptable' technologies to enhance performance, remain something of a purist and wish that athletes wouldn't dope, and am able to retain a certain kind of naive optimism that my favorites - or the ones i'm watching at any given moment are clean. I let the experts and pundits make the accusations, do the testing, impose the sanctions....

[hitaEtela]

This is the one topic that could make me turn away from the Olympics forever. It's so sad to think of all those wonderful, inspiring athletes faking it. Being the hopeful person I am (like you, Emma), I like to think that there isn't any benefit to doping in skating, though of course someone who wants to cheat can always find some way to get an advantage over someone else with the same goal. In a sport like skating or gymnastics, the real effort comes from skill, finesse, and (in the case of women's gymnastics especially) sheer bravery. All the banned substances in the world can't give you the sense of balance to do double flips backward to a blind landing on a four-inch beam, for instance. The same is true of something like synchronized diving. While I love track and field, especially running, I can see that this category is the one that is most vulnerable to the temptation of some kind of doping, because speed and/or muscle mass are the most important factors in shaving seconds off a record or adding millimeters to a distance. In sports where artistry and beauty of line have some importance, I tell myself that there hasn't been a substance invented to endow a person with those traits. So, as frustrating as judging can be, at least the scandals in those sports have been mostly the fault of people other than the athletes themselves.

I do remember the documentary done about East German swimmers, which was heartbreaking. The athletes in that case had little or nothing to do with the doping. The scheme came from the top down. The athletes just did as they were told. They were the ones who suffered afterward, with strange ailments, children born with health problems, and so on. One young woman was so damaged by the drugging that eventually she had sex reassignment surgery and became a man. She felt there was nothing left of her womanhood. All that for a few discs of gold or silver and a name in the record books.

[QzVyZbTg]

I'm pretty sure MM can defend himself, but it is a widely held perception that doping is widespread in a number of sports including track and field - this perception is discussed at length often around big events, such as the olympics. just google doping and sports and you will find endless discussion about it - and many people on the inside, former and current coaches for example, are often among the first to say it is so. A current debate seems to suggest it is so wide spread and testing is so unable to 'catch' people in a timely fashion if at all that perhaps doping should be leaglized and regulated.

I'm not advocating the latter point; nor am I saying all or even most athletes dope; but that there is a widespread perception that it is occurring and a ongoing and robust discussion about it, yes there is. I, although aware of all of the financial pressures and ever increasing use of 'acceptable' technologies to enhance performance, remain something of a purist and wish that athletes wouldn't dope, and am able to retain a certain kind of naive optimism that my favorites - or the ones i'm watching at any given moment are clean. I let the experts and pundits make the accusations, do the testing, impose the sanctions....

Good post and I agree with most of it.

For the record, I apologize to mathman if it feels like I took his comments out of context.
But I still felt it was important to offer a different POV regarding universal use of drugs at the Olympics.


If I am Jesse Owens fan (old school ) it doesn't necessarily follow that i want Usain Bolt to lose the 200. In fact I hope he can make monumental history and win it. My worst thought is that he might fail a drug test.

Since I am not an Olympic athlete or Olympic team doctor I could never feel right about suggesting that ALL of them are cheaters as was suggested.

Perhaps he is rght.......or maybe the truth lies somewhere in between.

But if that were the case (which I seriously doubt!!) then what interest would there be to follow the Olympics?

To Olympia....you comments about the E German swimmers are mild.....most of them were permanently hospitalized or died before age 40.
Just tragic since as you mentioned they simply followed ( and ingested) what their team trainers gave them.

[irrascaft]

And remember how people called American Shirley Babashoff a sore loser because she said that the East Germans were using something? If ever a person was entitled to say "I told you so"....Here's a sobering article from Swimming World Magazine about what Babashoff did at the time, and what she said decades later.

http://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com...news/13191.asp

And here's a Christine Brennan article on the situation.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/colum...-brennan_x.htm

[Tusanoc]

I must make a correction. It wasn't a swimmer who changed genders surgically, it was a shot-putter, Andrea Krieger, now Andreas Krieger. Silly me...of course it wasn't just swimmers the East Germans interfered with. Anyone who would benefit from additional muscle mass or other effects of pharmaceuticals was part of their heinous program.

[KJnbceja]

As Frank Carroll famously taught us that when it comes to fair play the morals and ethics of Euros and USA are literally miles apart.
Whether with judge rigging or doping they always thought the ends justified the means.

And as Frank has made clear they never understood why we objected or complained, and in fact thought it was silly and naive that USA cared about fair play.
After all, the Euros thought we had every chance and right to cheat back as badly as they did.

LOL, what? Why do you think there is no doping control in NHL but in every European league there is. And what about american football? That is a classic example of a sport where doping is more of a rule than an exception. What about Marion Jones and all the other famous american athletes who were customers of Balco?