Valieva Banned for Four Years, Effective December 25, 2021

[airgelaal]

All skaters take something. Vitamins, supplements; healthy diet is also helpful in recovering. The point is different. The point is that the advantage of doping in figure skating is so minimal, it is just not worth the risk. It's not going to make you win a medal, it's going to make you slightly less tired after you finished your performance. No drug in the world will help you land a triple axel.

Or maybe the skaters tried with and without and realized that it is worth the risks?
Let me remind you that in Valieva’s sample there were also Hypoxen and L-carnitine. Hypoxen i not banned, but is placed on the WADA 2024 Monitoring Program.
For some reason, russian skaters really like to use what WADA banned or wants to ban

 

[bladesofgorey]

Back to my point.
Doping can allow training longer.
Training longer is not equal training better and is not equal getting better results.

Above certain threshold, of course. An elite skaters trains something like 4 hours a day, on and off ice. They absolutely physically capable training 5 hours. It's just not how better results are achieved in figure skating.

I think this is an important point and is maybe causing some of the confusion in this thread:

In athletic/sports training specificity is the important thing. More important than time in many cases (but time is also important because it allows for adaption to work load as well as more opportunities for practice and locking in muscle memory).

Athletes who are systematically doping are almost always taking cocktails of drugs (or in the case of even the most recreational body-builders who use: stacks). It's not just one drug that does just one thing, it's a number of substances that work together.

Maybe an athlete is taking something to help with endurance so that they don't get as winded when doing program run-throughs. This lets them do back to back run-throughs far more easily, and possibly multiple run-throughs a day. These run-throughs cumulatively help build muscle memory and strength through repetition in the training phase.

Skating is a lot about proper technique as noted- it doesn't really matter if Johnny can skate 5 hours compared to Steve's 4 if Johnny isn't using that extra hour to train in a more focussed and beneficial way. When athletes get tired the first thing that goes is form. If Steve suddenly gets an extra 5th hour but is exhausted and his form deteriorates then he's actually worse off than skating only 4. He's training his body to use poor form. But if Steve has some chemical help to assist with not getting tired and maintaining form that 5th hour, he's going to be making far more progress than he did if he had to stop at 4 hours before jumping became counter-productive.

Likewise, maybe a deciding factor for how much training an athlete can do before they start to lose form is strength. If they're able to take something that helps build strength more quickly then they won't even need that 5th hour of pounding. Or maybe whatever they are taking to increase strength also helps with their off-ice strength training sessions and recovery for the muscles that help stabilize their joints and protect ligaments... the list goes on and on.

This is not conjecture around how doping regimens are designed and implemented- this is how it's done in other sports. It's very targeted for the sport and even a particular athlete and their own reactions /adaptations to both training and doping.

 

[PRlady]

Or maybe the skaters tried with and without and realized that it is worth the risks?
Let me remind you that in Valieva’s sample there were also Hypoxen and L-carnitine. Hypoxen i not banned, but is placed on the WADA 2024 Monitoring Program.
For some reason, russian skaters really like to use what WADA banned or wants to ban

Again, there’s an entire sports culture there whose motto is Better Living Through Chemistry. The runners and skiers and biathletes and so many other elite athletes have been caught doping. Sochi was a farce. It’s easy to see why the FS coaches, especially a petty tyrant like Eteri, would get with the program to assure dear leader that they were doing everything possible to win.

 

[skatingguy]

Yes. That would have made sense if we were taking about 10 cases vs. 11. We're talking about hundreds vs. I believe, 6? Doesn't anything in these statistics make you think maybe the theory of "skaters just hide better" is not very convincing?

I'm not making that argument. Most doping goes unpunished because the testers are always behind the systems, and methods used to enhance athletic performance even in sports where there have been dozens of positive tests.

 

[airgelaal]

I'm not making that argument. Most doping goes unpunished because the testers are always behind the systems, and methods used to enhance athletic performance even in sports where there have been dozens of positive tests.

Oh, by the way, how many years are samples stored? I wouldn’t be surprised if in a couple of years the number of cases increases

 

[skatingguy]

Oh, by the way, how many years are samples stored? I wouldn’t be surprised if in a couple of years the number of cases increases

Statute of limitations is 8 years on doping cases.

 

[Andrey aka Pushkin]

First of all, show me where I said that if someone dopes enough they are guaranteed a medal.

Secondly, in the running world years went by with whisper campaigns around who was doping, with the defenders always saying "so and so has been competing for 10 years and never tested positive" until one day they do, and then it comes out they've just evaded detection for years. If there's enough incentive to dope, unscrupulous doctors and training environments test and discover new drug cocktails and dosing plans that evade current testing protocols.

Going back to my second point- it's possible that doping hasn't been widespread in figure skating until now because the shadowy support system for cheaters isn't in place in general in this sport. There aren't athlete agents and promoters getting a cut, in most countries skaters can barely afford ice time and coaching fees, and they certainly aren't getting huge Nike contracts and their support teams aren't getting big $$$ when their athletes do well. There also probably hasn't been much experimenting around which drugs are best for optimal performance for young skaters until recently in countries that have a history of organized doping (like the one we are discussing).

With the rise of Eteri and the huge interest and $ to be made in addition to the sport's importance in propaganda I wouldn't be surprised if there was recently a lot more focus on developing the perfect performance enhancers whereas before that focus went into other sports instead.

I'm not sure I quite understood the answer to my question. Let's see if I get it.

So, the reason why we had 6 cases of doping in figure skating Vs hundreds in other sports, is not because the effect of doping in figure skating is minimal, but because ...there was less $$$ incentive to win than in other sports?
...I mean...
You said you trained with elite athletes. Did you get the impression they try to win the Olympics for money from the endorsements?

And are you sure there's less money in figure skating than in rowing, fencing or weightlifting, that had 1,000s cases of doping?

Tonya Harding - did you hear this name maybe? Do you think that's an example of an athlete who wouldn't do anything to get to the Olympics, including, let's say, taking doping if it had a real chance of improving her chances of a medal? At least being caught on doping wouldn't get you to jail, unlike being caught on an actual criminal offence.

Now, to answer @airgelaal, and I absolutely agree with @PRlady : if doping doesn't really give the edge for the gold, it doesn't mean some skaters who are pushed to extremes (not to mention their coaches, who have an endless supply of skaters) wouldn't take it, or for that matter do anything, including virgin sacrifice at a graveyard at midnight. That's not the point. The point is, in figure skating the benefits of doping are just too small to take this risk, and therefore a)probably it didn't really affect Valieva's results and b)probably that's why we have a single digit number of doping cases in history of the sport.

So yeah, we can claim that for some magical reasons figure skaters are just much better in camouflaging, or just didn't care much for the results.

Or we can say that doping doesn't have the magical effect in figure skating some people seem to give it, and its possible effect on the competition results (I'm not talking about breaking the rules! I'm talking strictly about the actual performance) is just not that great so it's not worth the risk.

And maybe the reason why it feels like the effects of doping on the actual performance are blown out of any proportion, because that's how people cope with the fact that Tutberidze girls have been just unbeatable for a decade. And since her methods require unachievable (for any federation other than Russian) resources, unachievable pool of skaters and impossible training methods that would have been borderline illegal in the West, we'll just put it all on the doping and close the case.

 

[PRlady]

By the way, before someone surfaces to accuse me of being anti-Russian, I stopped watching Tour de France when it was clear that the winner was often the guy with the most sophisticated doping regime. I lost my baseball fandom during the steroid era and my football fandom because of CTE. Skating judging is corrupt as hell but at least I could console myself that the athletes were clean. And I want it to stay that way.

 

[Prancer]

Two things can be true. Doping doesn’t help figure skaters much, or not enough for the vast majority to take the risk. It’s a low-drug sport.

OTOH, given the devout cultural belief in doping, Russian skaters DO think it helps them and do what they can. Why the hell were they taking meldonium until it was banned? Because it’s win at any cost and even a tiny advantage is worth it.

So how much good the tMZ actually does is certainly up for grabs, but it seems that Valieva’s team thought it did. It’s even more stupid to ruin her life and career for something of marginal value but they’re really not very smart, are they.

This is why athletes abuse albuterol inhalers. Science says they don't help (and might hurt), but athletes believe that they help.

 

[PRlady]

This is why athletes abuse albuterol inhalers. Science says they don't help (and might hurt), but athletes believe that they help.

Some also believe that abstaining from sex helps performance. That one really hurts.

 

[Judy]

Patrick, Duhamel, Eric, Tessa and Scott wouldn't have skated both components in the team event if they didn't take the event seriously.

It’s like people think us stoopid Canadians think that Roman et al would have beaten Team Russia if the Russians were clean. Duh, thanks for that. Then, it begs the question…why not be clean? Roman scare them that much?

Canada is ruthless testing their athletes though too. the problem though is not all countries are that way too (Jamaica not so much). Russia def not. etc

 

[VGThuy]

Nobody is saying Russian skaters are not talented. But it is naive to think that Valieva's doping is just a one off incident. The drugs she was given may not have helped her skating technique, but they did enable her to train harder and recover faster. She had an unfair advantage over her competitors. Well, her non-Russian competitors at least.

Past doping scandals in other sports have shown that when a positive test comes from one athlete in a training group it is never just that one athlete.

This is ABSOLUTELY not true. Many (and probably most that go undetected currently) of these drugs are performance enhancers that allow for higher levels of training, increased strengthening loads, etc. etc.- all of the things that take months, not days to develop. The whole point of many of the illegal drugs is to use them during base training and high-intensity build-ups, then allow them to clear ahead of competition since they've already had maximum effect.

Have they not taken anything, or have they not been caught? Given the high profile athletes who were doping, and never tested positive it's not something we can rule out. Doping may not be pervasive in figure skating, but that doesn't mean that it's uncommon.

What?! First, it's not opinion, it's actual science, there's a difference. It's also how these drugs are used in practice. I used to train with world-class distance runners. Performance enhancers and who they suspected (or knew) were using them was a main topic of conversation on long runs and at post-run meals. I both personally knew a national-class athlete who was banned (for taking a supplement where the banned ingredient wasn't listed on the label) as well as a runner whose national record was broken by his good friend - who then later was discovered to have been doping when he did it. Talk about a betrayal.

I also used to figure skate - not at a high level, but I'd passed my Novice. Getting through a program for me was as taxing as intervals on a track were later. I'm trying to figure out in what world someone could say massive amounts of strength and endurance training/ aerobic and anaerobic conditioning aren't a part of figure skating.

Figure skaters would probably avoid most traditional steroids because of the increased weight gain associated with them (maybe there are designer drugs without those side effects now?) but of course figure skaters are helped by increased muscle strength! Jumping's not just all timing and technique.

Just because there are more positive tests in other sports does not mean that they have some how cracked other sports. If doping is more pervasive in a sport, like cycling, then it makes sense that a large number of athletes will be caught, but that doesn't mean that an athlete like Lance Armstrong can't evade all the testing.

This is highly unlikely to be true unless figure skating defies all other exercise science and physiology science that applies to all other sports where strength and conditioning are an integral part of high performance.

I felt all these posts are worth repeating.

Further, chastising a national sports program that is benefitting from state-sponsored doping, has conditioned people to think it’s part of their “culture” to dope, has bent over backwards to show no remorse, has had individual athletes adopt an attitude that they’re the real victims and everybody else is the enemy, and then aggressively attacked those who are in charge of keeping the sport clean by actually and finally taking punitive action against one case of doping against a skater from this program after getting nothing but a slap in the wrist that has emboldened that program to flaunt the doping rules for over a decade is in no way Russophobia or whatever. Any anger is based on the above actions, not based on irrational animus based on nationality or ethnicity.

 

[Trillian]

This is not conjecture around how doping regimens are designed and implemented- this is how it's done in other sports. It's very targeted for the sport and even a particular athlete and their own reactions /adaptations to both training and doping.

My knowledge is not anywhere near as extensive as yours, but from what I have read about doping in sports, it also seems like doping has become a lot more sophisticated over the last couple of decades. I find it entirely possible that doping was not considered helpful and was therefore not widespread in figure skating in the past, and that some people in figure skating have begun to experiment more with doping in recent years as approaches and/or methods of avoiding detection have changed. Both those things can be true, and it would explain the relatively few positive tests historically.

 

[BittyBug]

And maybe the reason why it feels like the effects of doping on the actual performance are blown out of any proportion, because that's how people cope with the fact that Tutberidze girls have been just unbeatable for a decade. And since her methods require unachievable (for any federation other than Russian) resources, unachievable pool of skaters and impossible training methods that would have been borderline illegal in the West, we'll just put it all on the doping and close the case.

I don't think anyone is saying that doping is the reason Valieva was so good. In fact, most people have lamented the fact that she was forced to dope (and I say forced because I don't think a 15 year old can make a rational decision about such a thing) because she was so talented that she could have succeeded on her own.

But as @airgelaal pointed out, Russians - including Russian skaters - do in fact have a track record of doping with their use of meldonium, which interestingly, is another heart medication whose value has never been demonstrated.

 

[airgelaal]

I think that there are not many cases of doping in figure skating precisely because for a long time it was believed that there was no such thing as doping that would help. And it was only a matter of time before someone thought: what if there was something there and began to look for it.
I think that 20 years ago it was considered impossible to jump as many quads as guys jump now. The pharmaceutical industry is also not in the same state as it was 20 years ago.

 

[Judy]

There are definitely ways of cheating the system .. look at Lance Armstrong. Admittedly it is more prominent in other sports .. and a lot of times dr’s are helping them too. part of the reason I posted the inquiry above was it describes all the drugs, how they test clean etc etc .. all her girls were definitely given the same stuff. The girls doing all the quads. I have no idea why they screwed up with Valieva but they did.

 

[bladesofgorey]

I'm not sure I quite understood the answer to my question. Let's see if I get it.

So, the reason why we had 6 cases of doping in figure skating Vs hundreds in other sports, is not because the effect of doping in figure skating is minimal, but because ...there was less $$$ incentive to win than in other sports?
...I mean...
You said you trained with elite athletes. Did you get the impression they try to win the Olympics for money from the endorsements?

And are you sure there's less money in figure skating than in rowing, fencing or weightlifting, that had 1,000s cases of doping?

Tonya Harding - did you hear this name maybe? Do you think that's an example of an athlete who wouldn't do anything to get to the Olympics, including, let's say, taking doping if it had a real chance of improving her chances of a medal? At least being caught on doping wouldn't get you to jail, unlike being caught on an actual criminal offence.

And maybe the reason why it feels like the effects of doping on the actual performance are blown out of any proportion, because that's how people cope with the fact that Tutberidze girls have been just unbeatable for a decade. And since her methods require unachievable (for any federation other than Russian) resources, unachievable pool of skaters and impossible training methods that would have been borderline illegal in the West, we'll just put it all on the doping and close the case.

At the competitive level in most countries there is has been far less $$$$ incentive throughout a career for both the athlete as well as the athlete's coach/team/agent than there has been for middle and long distance runners. I didn't "get the impression" from the athletes I trained with, it was once again, facts. Most of these athletes had or were trying to secure corporate sponsorships largely through athletics gear companies cough Nike etc.). As part of these signed contracts athletes had a bonus structure for hitting certain times at races or achieving certain placements and records. Sometimes these bonuses were quite large. At marquee events there were often substantial prize purses which coaches and athlete agents get a cut in, and sometimes there was some backroom dealing about which elite athletes race directors could entice to which events.

The $$$ on the line wasn't just (or mainly) Olympic endorsements for your face on a cereal box. In fact, the Olympics was rarely discussed when I was a fly on the wall with people who could go or went. Records were, big races were, sponsorships to a lesser extent. I was a non-professional national class scrub, but I still might have won more money than I put into the sport (my biggest single winning was about $3000 at a half-marathon iirc but I could pick up $300-500 every other weekend "training through" area races and I had various gear contracts and my entries comped over most of the years I ran)

There was also a large amount of corruption at the governing body level both nationally and internationally, and some of that was from that corporate marketing cash. Nobody making bank was very eager to pursue doping violations for headliners/brand ambassadors. I don't see most skating federations with those kinds of corporate partnerships that, say, pour $ into USFSA, giant lotion bottles or not.

I know this is getting long, but this leads into the second clarification you are asking for- there's been a structure in place for doping in running since the 60s. It was easy to find out what people thought worked and there were easy ways to get in on it. Christ, early on in my training when I wasn't even good enough to be offered a gear-only shoe contract I had a doctor at a University track I was practicing on ask me what I was taking and suggest I might look into blood doping (?!). I also had a mainstream allergist prescribe me an inhaler even though I said I didn't want/need one since he said I didn't appear to have asthma because "it would be good to have one and try it since many athletes feel it gives them an edge".

I can't see inside Tonya Harding's mind so I have no idea whether she'd be for or against taking something, but how would she have been in the positions to have had access to a doping professional or experienced network when she was skating? That's part of why doping is more prevalent in even some of the more niche and non-revenue sports where athletes spend a lot of time in the weight rooms and have more opportunities to associate with strength trainers and subcultures that freely share info about, and access to, banned substances. Look at any weight training or bodybuilding forum these days and you'll see people posting links to this kind of info and forums dedicated strictly to designing and planning steroid and other supplement regimens .

 

[kwanfan1818]

Patrick, Duhamel, Eric, Tessa and Scott wouldn't have skated both components in the team event if they didn't take the event seriously.

It was so important to them that they wouldn't let Weaver/Poje into their exclusive little club.

(ETA: but I'm not bitter or anything )

 

[VGThuy]

Not to mention for a competition that doesn’t matter, there sure is a lot of energy expended to argue why the rest of the Russian team shouldn’t be disqualified.

 

[kwanfan1818]

That's part of why doping is more prevalent in even some of the more niche and non-revenue sports where athletes spend a lot of time in the weight rooms and have more opportunities to associate with strength trainers and subcultures that freely share info about, and access to, banned substances. Look at any weight training or bodybuilding forum these days and you'll see people posting links to this kind of info and forums dedicated strictly to designing and planning steroid and other supplement regimens .

Whereas skaters and other athletes in sports where they need to make weight, or are pressured into a technically ideal weight (ex: ski jumpers, jockeys, cyclists) and ballet dancers instead have mega knowledge of extreme weight-loss strategies: it's in their face in a way that steroids or other drugs are for runners or body builders are in the face of those athletes.

 

[overedge]

I'm not making that argument. Most doping goes unpunished because the testers are always behind the systems, and methods used to enhance athletic performance even in sports where there have been dozens of positive tests.

In the 1988 Olympics men's 100m race, only one of the eight runners (Ben Johnson) got caught doping, and he had his medal taken away. But in subsequent years every single runner in that race - except one - tested positive at some other event. and most of them admitted that they were doping at the Olympics too. The runner who never tested positive was Carl Lewis, and he claims he always ran clean even when everybody else cheated

[ETA: And Lewis tested positive for a banned substance at the 1988 US Olympic trials, but the powers that be didn't disqualify him because he claimed he didn't know the substance was in some medicine he took for a cold His being the marquee US athlete for those Olympics had nothing to do with that decision, nope, nothing at all....]

So, yeah. Not testing positive doesn't mean that there isn't doping going on.

 

[bladesofgorey]

I do want to add that I feel very strongly that Eteri and company should be punished more strongly than Valieva, who was a child. I don't think she knew what she was taking, my guess is all of Eteri's skaters were on a "vitamin and supplement" plan designed by the team trainer/doctor that they were required to follow and it was sold to them as necessary to maintain optimal health. I think her team betrayed her, but then she remained loyal and lied about where she suspected the contamination occurred.

She's a victim in this but I still think this punishment is fitting in an effort to dissuade the problem from growing larger across federations. From experience I know that athletes in sports where doping is rampant rationalize going over to the dark side by believing everyone else does it so they are just leveling the playing field (or that what they are taking doesn't help that much, just that they have some special challenge or deficiency or old injury and this medicine isn't cheating, it's just helping them be able to train like everyone else etc.).

That's why it's important to nip this in the bud, especially in a sport with such young athletes, because if you don't there's no going back.

 

[topaz]

Breaking: https://x.com/cbrennansports/status/1752170999250915479?s=20

: USOPC CEO Sarah Hirshland has just confirmed to
@usatodaysports
that the United States will receive the gold medal in the 2022 Olympic figure skating team competition.

 

[4rkidz]

There’s no evidence this wasn’t an accident

Yes there is, that’s why it was investigated and that is also why they have extra samples in case of an accident. Is there a reason why you post in these threads? Is it for attention?

 

[AngieNikodinovLove (ANL)]

So I’m trying to see if this has been touched on upon yet here or somewhere else, but I’m watching the skating lesson and they have Phil Hersch on and by the way, the one they just published earlier with Amber Glenn and the progressive flag I was like oh cool I can’t wait till they have Alissa talking about Amber but it’s Rene Rocca and they’re going on and on about ice dancing and this is the one time I would not mind hearing Alissa’s opinion because she was saying Amber would be her pick as the champion

anyway, back to this, Phil is saying to David that one certain possible outcome could be that first place is left vacant like in 1994 with US nationals. He is saying it’s not probably the most possible outcome but it’s still something that they could do … leave it vacant, which definitely would be interesting. That means USA stays in second, Japan stays in third and there is no Canada.

 

[AngieNikodinovLove (ANL)]

Breaking: https://x.com/cbrennansports/status/1752170999250915479?s=20

interesting well never mind I just posted a second ago.

 

[bladesofgorey]

So I’m trying to see if this has been touched on upon yet here or somewhere else, but I’m watching the skating lesson and they have Phil Hersch on and by the way, the one they just published earlier with Amber Glenn and the progressive flag I was like oh cool I can’t wait till they have Alissa talking about Amber but it’s Rene Rocca and they’re going on and on about ice dancing and this is the one time I would not mind hearing Alissa’s opinion because she was saying Amber would be her pick as the champion

anyway, back to this, Phil is saying to David that one certain possible outcome could be that first place is left vacant like in 1994 with US nationals. He is saying it’s not probably the most possible outcome but it’s still something that they could do … leave it vacant, which definitely would be interesting. That means USA stays in second, Japan stays in third and there is no Canada.

Your timing is impeccable. ^

 

[AngieNikodinovLove (ANL)]

Phil is saying they could’ve given her a slap on the wrist, a small suspension, a one year suspension but they threw the book at her. And the fact that they threw the book at her is a good sign of this going forward as far as doping.

David says that the court could’ve found it insulting that she somehow got her grandpa‘s drink who lives far far away. That that is an insulting excuse.

 

[Rukia]

Breaking: https://x.com/cbrennansports/status/1752170999250915479?s=20

let's goooooooooooooooo

 

[LeafOnTheWind]

Alexa Knierim / Brendan Frazier - Olympic Gold Medalist

First US Pairs team to claim the titles

This is going to be the gift that keeps giving for a long time.

Girl Boss 4 evah