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Austria protests doping test eve of Olympic race

KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia (AP) — The Austrian Olympic Committee has filed a complaint with the IOC after Alpine skier Elisabeth Goergl was drug-tested the night before the women's downhill at the Sochi Games.

The Austrian committee said doping officials visited the 2010 bronze medalist at 10:55 p.m. local time for an unannounced test, and it interrupted her preparations.

Trailing winners Tina Maze and Dominique Gisin by 1.25 seconds, Goergl finished 16th in the race that started at 11 a.m. Wednesday.

"At 11 last night the doping officials were with me," Goergl told Austrian TV. "I think that's not very fair. I told them it's not OK what they were doing."

In an e-mail statement sent to The Associated Press, the IOC said the test has been carried out "within the IOC rules and in accordance with the WADA International Standard for Testing."

The IOC announced before the Olympics it was planning to carry out 2,453 tests during the Sochi Games, including 1,269 pre-competition controls.

"As part of its testing programme here in Sochi, all Olympic athletes can be tested at any time - this usually happens between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m.," the IOC said.

The Austrian committee said it supports "the fight against doping 100 percent."

"But this late test, on the night before the race, definitely goes too far," said Wolfgang Schobersberger, the head of the AOC medical team in Sochi. "This incident surely has disturbed Elisabeth in her race preparation."

Goergl was among the favorites for a medal in Wednesday's race. A month ago in Altenmarkt-Zauchensee, Goergl became the first Austrian woman in two years to win a World Cup downhill.

Goergl also won Olympic bronze in giant slalom in Vancouver in 2010, and added world titles in both downhill and super-G the next year.

AP

http://wintergames.ap.org/article/austria-protests-doping-test-eve-olympic-race

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Austria protests doping test eve of Olympic race

KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia (AP) — The Austrian Olympic Committee has filed a complaint with the IOC after Alpine skier Elisabeth Goergl was drug-tested the night before the women's downhill at the Sochi Games.

The Austrian committee said doping officials visited the 2010 bronze medalist at 10:55 p.m. local time for an unannounced test, and it interrupted her preparations.

Trailing winners Tina Maze and Dominique Gisin by 1.25 seconds, Goergl finished 16th in the race that started at 11 a.m. Wednesday.

"At 11 last night the doping officials were with me," Goergl told Austrian TV. "I think that's not very fair. I told them it's not OK what they were doing."

In an e-mail statement sent to The Associated Press, the IOC said the test has been carried out "within the IOC rules and in accordance with the WADA International Standard for Testing."

The IOC announced before the Olympics it was planning to carry out 2,453 tests during the Sochi Games, including 1,269 pre-competition controls.

"As part of its testing programme here in Sochi, all Olympic athletes can be tested at any time - this usually happens between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m.," the IOC said.

The Austrian committee said it supports "the fight against doping 100 percent."

"But this late test, on the night before the race, definitely goes too far," said Wolfgang Schobersberger, the head of the AOC medical team in Sochi. "This incident surely has disturbed Elisabeth in her race preparation."

Goergl was among the favorites for a medal in Wednesday's race. A month ago in Altenmarkt-Zauchensee, Goergl became the first Austrian woman in two years to win a World Cup downhill.

Goergl also won Olympic bronze in giant slalom in Vancouver in 2010, and added world titles in both downhill and super-G the next year.

AP

http://wintergames.ap.org/article/austria-protests-doping-test-eve-olympic-race

Its a bit tough being so late on the eve of the race... But I guess it is in the rules. I am not cure what the Austrians hope to achieve by making this complaint? They are not going to re-race the event.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Who will be the first one caught???

Big round of applause to Germany for taking this honour...NOT.

Urgh, just what was missing after a generally disappointing performance by many of our big hopes...

No idea yet who it is, but surely it's going to leak soon.

What an embarrassment.

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The horror if it was one of the lugers. Two medals potentially lost. Though I doubt it will be.

As I said before, probably a biathlete or cross country skier. There is one obvious candidate amongst the German medalist.

German TV claims it's a biathlete. We only had one medalist there, doesn't automatically mean it was him.

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Ding ding ding, looks like we have a winner: Evi Sachenbacher-Stehle. The good news for Germany is that the best result they will lose is 4th in the women's mass start. Obviously she will not be in the German relay today.

http://www.faz.net/aktuell/sport/olympische-winterspiele/eilmeldung-biathletin-sachenbacher-stehle-bei-olympia-positiv-getestet-12813620.html

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So that explains her absence from today's relay. What a disaster...she was already in trouble in Turin when her blood results got her a "protective ban" for a couple of days, but she was always seen as the sunshine of the team with her eternal smiles.

Curious to wait for her explanation - is she on the phone to Claudia Pechstein's lawyers already?

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Hearing that it's a stimulant.

Could still be that she messed up with some "vitamins" or maybe partied too hard.

It's useless to test for EPO/blood-doping during the olympics anyways, so I'm always surprised that people get caught by the IOC testing, which I consider almost to be ceremonial. Except when they have had a breakthrough testing method that hasn't been revealed to the field.

Olympic testing probably more relevant in 4 or 8 years time, as the revelations from Turin suggests.

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Rumours are that they have positive tests from 2006 and/or 2010 to announce after the games.

I'm curious about something: assuming the rumour is true, the positive testing results from past two OWG must have been known weeks ago, if not months ago. Why wouldn't they have announced these results before Sochi started?

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I'm curious about something: assuming the rumour is true, the positive testing results from past two OWG must have been known weeks ago, if not months ago. Why wouldn't they have announced these results before Sochi started?

Because the IOC don't want dark spots on the nice white image. I can imagine though that they made sure it does not concern Sochi competitors.

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According to Becky Scott, Kristina Smigun of Estonia has now tested positive. Marit Bjorgen will now likely take the gold in the 10km classical and Katerina Neumannova in the 15km pursuit. Kristin Stormer Steira will take 2 bronze medals do to the disqualification.

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According to Becky Scott, Kristina Smigun of Estonia has now tested positive. Marit Bjorgen will now likely take the gold in the 10km classical and Katerina Neumannova in the 15km pursuit. Kristin Stormer Steira will take 2 bronze medals do to the disqualification.

So much for Stormer Steira's reputation for finish fourth...

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Norwegian media reports that Johannes Dürr's sudden rise to "stardom" (3rd at TdS this year) might have been fuelled by EPO.

He went back to Austria to prepare for tomorrow's 50 kms. When you do EPO, you have a time window of.., I believe 24-48h depending on the dose, where you don't want to get tested, but the performance enhancing effect lasts much longer. He obviously didn't expect to be tested in Austria when everyone was in Sochi, but he was and it turned positive for EPO.

This might be a break through for what has been reported as the doping hunters being more focused on suspicious athletes. If the austrian ADA, which I have no knowledge of, takes blood samples and not just urine samples, as many ADAs unfortunately still do, they can make a blood profile and find indirect evidence of blood doping. And if the evidence are strong enough, they can catch him on that alone, but they can also target test and increase likeliness of finding EPO traces.

This is a bit more dramatic than Sachenbacher-Stehle in my opinion, if the reports are correct.

Sad, but very very good that they are able to catch someone for EPO. It's been a while now.., Very hard to say exactly how wide spread the use of EPO/blood-doping is.

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Norwegian media reports that Johannes Dürr's sudden rise to "stardom" (3rd at TdS this year) might have been fuelled by EPO.

He went back to Austria to prepare for tomorrow's 50 kms. When you do EPO, you have a time window of.., I believe 24-48h depending on the dose, where you don't want to get tested, but the performance enhancing effect lasts much longer. He obviously didn't expect to be tested in Austria when everyone was in Sochi, but he was and it turned positive for EPO.

This might be a break through for what has been reported as the doping hunters being more focused on suspicious athletes. If the austrian ADA, which I have no knowledge of, takes blood samples and not just urine samples, as many ADAs unfortunately still do, they can make a blood profile and find indirect evidence of blood doping. And if the evidence are strong enough, they can catch him on that alone, but they can also target test and increase likeliness of finding EPO traces.

This is a bit more dramatic than Sachenbacher-Stehle in my opinion, if the reports are correct.

Sad, but very very good that they are able to catch someone for EPO. It's been a while now.., Very hard to say exactly how wide spread the use of EPO/blood-doping is.

Hm, he's still on the start list, couldn't find any reports in German/Austrian media so far.

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Hm, he's still on the start list, couldn't find any reports in German/Austrian media so far.

Yea, I noticed that... very weird. Apparently, the IOC had a press release out earlier tonight, but they removed it.

I'm thinking they're doing some information control, making sure his family knows and that all the right persons and federations are aware, or someone has screwed up.

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