My question is, how are her statements going to influence proceedings? Because to me, though I have no expertise in these matters, they don't seem that fortunate?
She's giving the case against her two workable angles:
- First she admitted taking the drug before it was banned. Even though she hasn't got any of the illnesses it's supposed to treat.
- Secondly she admitted that the doctor injected her with an unlabeled substance and she accepted this injection.
So now she's given the governing bodies an argument in hand where they can claim that she knew how the drug worked, she had a history of using it, so it's plausible that she knew it goes quickly through her system and just miscalculated how long it would be detectable or she just assumed that a test for this newly banned substance wasn't yet available so took it anyway. And if they get at her from another angle, from the "doctor injected her with unknown substance" theory: They will claim that she is responsible for what goes into her body and will point to her statement that she accepted an injection without clarifying what was in it. That lots of other Russian athletes are being tested positive doesn't help her case either.
ETA: That various Russian athletes are failing doping tests for this substance could also be used as an argument that Russian doctors/Russian sports establishment thought they had an effective masking agent in place, but that this masking agent didn't do its job.
I think you are looking at it from your own perspective. You decided that she is guilty (approach 'guilty until proven innocent', rather than 'innocent until proven guilty').
She took the drug before it was banned -so what? That doesn't prove any wrongdoing! If you read the interview with the person who invented the drug, you may understand why would person take it even without having a heart condition. At the level elite athletes are training, there is obviously huge strain on their heart and the drug can be used as preventative measure. As it was allowed, not illegal, I can't see how her admitting taking it in the autumn could possibly go against her.
Secondly, doctor did inject her with unknown substance, but there is a reason why she believed that it was not unknown substance. She received a legal medication from her doctor. She passed it on to the team doctor. She requested to have it injected. As far as she was concerned, she was getting what she requested. If you go to a doctor and doctor says he/she is giving you an antibiotics, you would trust the doctor that the medication is antibiotics and not a rat poison. Even though it is your life that is in question if it 'accidentally' was a rat poison, you just trust your doctor. If you buy a non alco beer and drive, you expect the beer to be non alco if the label said so, and would be unhappy if police checked you and told you that you were under influence of alcohol. Bobrova did not ask any John or Bob from the street to inject her any unknown substance that he was at that time having in his syringe. She asked their team doctor, a person one can safely believe she should be able to trust, to inject her a legal substance which she provided (received from her usual doctor). How far is she expected to check that it is really what she was receiving? She didn't see him actually filling it from the capsule, but it seems to me that it is like if you got to a shop, asked for a kilo of flour, got the bag with white powder and a few minutes later got busted for having a kilo of some illegal white powder drug. Do you think it is reasonable expectation, if you go to a normal shop, request a flour, receive a packet that looks like a flour, to believe that you have flour? As far as Bobrova was concerned, she requested receiving what she provided. Is every athlete expected to do a chemical analysis of everything that goes into their body? It wouldn't be practicable. The same way as every person can't do chemical analysis of everything you buy in a shop, and therefore you never know for certain what you will get if you ask for a bag of flour. And yet if you were busted for having a kilo of white powder drug after you just purchased it in a normal food shop, you would insist that you are innocent.
I've had B12 injections, and they are evil, you couldn't pay me to have one unless it was a medical emergency. Surely there are less painful ways to enhance one's performance (in a WADA-approved manner)?
How's the weather up there?
. I emailed the guy, and he said they are selling like hot-cakes last 24 hrs, people who are not official athletes want them.... 
