Sorry for
the lack of updates on the site. Last weekend I took some days off to go and
see the Biathlon World Championship and that got me thinking…
The winner
of the women’s sprint, Olena Pidhrushna, was as a huge surprise for everybody -
including the Ukrainian herself - and the way her victory was described in the
media amazed me. Not in the biathlon arena or in the media did I ever hear
anybody talk about doping and if you look at the facts, such a suspicion would
have been instantly in the world of professional cycling.
This is
what I’m referring to. Olena Pidhrushna got sick after the last World Cup event
(in Antholz, Italy where she got her best results this season) just a few weeks
before the World Champions and she didn’t even join the Ukrainian team until a
few days before the World Champions started. She wasn’t feeling well enough to
participate in the mixed relay just two days before the sprint, but still she
managed to take the gold medal in front of the big favorites. At the press
conference after the sprint victory Olena Pidhrushna said she wanted to thank
her trainers for “getting me back in such a good shape in so few days after my
sickness”. Normally Pidhrushna isn’t among the fastest in the track but in this
sprint she had the 6th best time of all, she has only done better
once this year. Some journalists tried to get Olena Pidhrushna to elaborate on
her sudden great shape after being sick, but she refused to answers any
questions in that direction.
I’m not
saying that Olena Pidhrushna didn’t race clean last weekend, not at all, but
imagine what people would have said if some lower class cyclist suddenly won
the Tour de France or the World Champions without an individual victory all
season and after being in bed sick just a week before. Somehow I think
“surprise” wouldn’t quite cover it…
In cycling
all the riders in UCI’s testing pool are required to fill out their
whereabouts. Every rider with a biological passport are in this testing pool
and that means that all riders from the World Tour and Pro-Continental teams
have to update their whereabouts. In biathlon only 38 out of the 150 registered
male athletes are in the testing pool while the numbers for the female athletes
are 38 out of 125. You may ask yourself why only 25% of the athletes have to
fill out their whereabouts, but according to IBU it’s very simple:
“Only a limited number of athletes are in the
IBU Testing Pool, because it is a very difficult task to get the 24 hour a day
whereabouts of a large group. It takes an immense amount of work by the
athletes and the IBU.” - it says on their website.
Having only
one person to take care of the testing pool, IBU are leaving out a number of
prominent runners high on the world ranking. Number 11, 12 and 20 on the currently
male ranking list are not in the testing pool and that’s despite the fact that
they are all Austrian. Do I need to remind you what happened at the Winter
Olympics in 2006? It’s like if UCI had decided not to test the best Kazakh
riders after Vinokourov and Kashechkin both got tested positive riding for
their home team. Again, I’m not saying that the three Austrian athletes are
doped, I’m simply pointing out that it would have been ‘a big thing’ had it
happened in cycling.
