Not many would do what coach Dimitar Vassilev did when he took responsibility for the positive doping test of his middle distance runner Daniela Yordanova.  In the doping world, where fingerpointing seems to be the trend, this is a rare act.

Yordanova tested positive for testosterone on June 13, 2008. She was considered to be one of her country’s best bets to earn medals in the athletics in the ongoing Beijing Olympics. She placed third and fifth in the 2006 European Championships and in 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens respectively. The Sofia Echo provides details on this news.

Dimitar Vassilev, the coach of Bulgarian runner Daniela Yordanova, took the blame for the positive doping test that will prevent her from participating in the Beijing Olympics, the Associated Press reported on August 18.

“I take the full responsibility for Daniela Yordanova’s positive doping test,” Vasilev was quoted as saying. He said that diet supplements were most likely the cause: “Last spring, I incidentally bought some medicines from Greece and Turkey and most probably they contained some contaminated supplements.”

Yordanova, fifth in the 1500m race at the Athens Olympics, was seen as one of Bulgaria’s best bets for an athletics medal in Beijing. Test samples taken on June 13, however, came back positive for testosterone and she did not even fly out for China.

“We have to take a decision on Yordanova within two months. The expected sanction is a two-year competition ban,” Bulgarian athletics federation president Dobromir Karamarinov said, as quoted by the AP.

“Daniela was part of the world’s elite in the last eight years. She’s been tested constantly and all her samples so far were negative,” Reuters quoted him as saying. “I feel sorry that it’s happening with an athlete who is a model for giving everything possible during training and competitions.”

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We all know how great Greeks are in diverse fields – philosophy, literature, science and arts, to name just a few.  And because of the Greek diaspora, it has been said that many civilizations across the globe had developed because of the influence of the Greeks.

But these days, however, the Greeks have been losing their distinction especially in the world of sports. This is being witnessed in the ongoing Olympics – which is another Greek’s contribution to the world – as members of the Greek team continue to decrease because of use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs. The latest ‘casualty’ is runner Fani Halkia, who tested positive for the anabolic steroid methyltrienolone. AP reports.

A Greek TV station says Fani Halkia, who won gold in the women’s 400 meters hurdles at the 2004 Athens Olympics, has tested positive for a banned substance.

Skai TV also said Saturday that Halkia has already left the Olympic village.

Another Greek station, Mega Channel, also said an athlete had tested positive for the banned steroid methyltrienolone. But it did not name the athlete.

Halkia was tested a few days before the Beijing Olympics in Japan, where Greece’s track and field team had been training.

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It took so long for the International Olympic Committee to realize that organized doping is the reason why the Greek athletes are now being considered as endangered species. The Greek Olympic team’s ranks continue to diminish as the Summer Games in Beijing push on because their athletes have been found out to be using the anabolic steroid methyltrienolone.

Really, it doesn’t take a genius to arrive at the conclusion that there exists a systematic doping within the Greek team. You’ve got 15 athletes, all from one team, and all testing positive for one banned substance – that’s in-your-face-doping.

Excerpts from the AP report.

Organized doping is likely behind a recent spate of positive drug tests in Greek sports, the president of the country’s Olympic Committee said Monday.

“There are 15 people, all with the same substance. This is the strangest thing, because it leads to the conclusion that there is an organized effort,” Minos Kyriakou told The Associated Press.

The athletes — 11 weightlifters, three runners and a swimmer — all tested positive for methyltrienolone, a banned steroid.

“There is an organized crime — because that is what this is called,” Kyriakou said. “Because it seems there is a lot of money hidden there, a lot of profit.”

The Hellenic Olympic Committee president stopped short of making a direct accusation as to who could be behind a system of doping, but said the state must crack down on the practice.
In the latest embarrassment for Greece, reigning women’s 400-meter hurdles champion Fani Halkia was sent home from Beijing on Sunday, hours before her scheduled heats, after testing positive for methyltrienolone. Her test was conducted by the World Anti-Doping Agency at a Greek team training camp in Japan on Aug. 10.

The scandal broke in Beijing on Sunday, the day that Greece won its first three medals — silver in men’s rowing and a bronze each in women’s sailing and women’s triple-jump.
Halkia denied any wrongdoing, telling Greek reporters in Beijing she was “shocked” that she had tested positive.

But Kyriakou had harsh words about the athlete.

“I don’t talk about dead people,” he said. “Whoever does such things, gets mixed up in such things, commits suicide. And when someone wants to commit suicide, nobody can stop them.”
The 11 weightlifters, who not been named publicly, tested positive for methyltrienolone months before the Olympics, and the steroid was also found in tests on swimmer Yannis Drymonakos, 400-meter runner Dimitrios Regas and sprinter Tassos Gousis.
“Of course it has to be organized, when there are so many cases with the same substance,” Kyriakou said.

The HOC president said the problem of doping was likely to be widespread.

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Looks like Valeriy Borchin walked the walk and won the gold for it. By ‘walked the walk’ we mean Borchin took what is apparently to be the main staple of modern Olympics – steroids and other performance boosters.

The Russian walker had been a bad boy when he had reportedly tested positive for EPO and maybe steroids just before the start of the Summer Games in Beijing. Yes, he snatched the gold despite his blood being tainted literally with what is many considered as the miracle drug.

It seems no sport is immune from the lure of this performance-enhancing drug. The Independent.ie reports the drama from Beijing:

The pace was hot and the sun was getting hotter but Robert Heffernan from Togher in Cork was going very well yesterday morning until “the Russian” materialised alongside him in the leading pack.

They were some 12 kilometres into the Olympic 20km walk final when Valeriy Borchin joined the front group. Heffernan had been up at the front from the start but now, said George Hamilton in commentary for RTE, “you’d be concerned about the ominous presence of the Russian.”

How right he was — Borchin went on to win it. He was “ominous” in more ways than one: it turns out that Borchin is a drugs cheat who had reportedly tested positive for EPO just before the Beijing Games but ended up taking gold anyway.

Still, another eight kilometres remained at that point and Heffernan was looking comfortable among the contenders as they hammered out the hard yards. The only interruption to his steady rhythm came at the water stations where he would swipe a bottle from the table and douse his head before picking up his concentration again.

Heffernan spent most of the first hour tucked in nicely behind them, concealed from the judges who were watching for infringements and issuing warnings to anyone caught ‘lifting’. Race walkers are supposed to have one foot in contact with the ground at all times but the slow-motion replays seemed to indicate that just about everyone was breaking this basic rule. The race became something of a free-for-all as technical discipline crumbled under the pace of the leaders and the pressure of the occasion. Only two from the field of 51 were disqualified.

Borchin also received a warning late in the race and by now he seemed to be running more than walking. In fact, he was flying and with 18kms gone had burned off the remaining challengers for gold. He came home in 79 minutes; Heffernan finished in eighth place some 95 seconds behind the winner. With 43 athletes behind him in an Olympic final, it was a world-class performance.

But the athlete who had lost the most, according to the article, was Jefferson Perez. The 34-year-old Ecuadorian took the silver in the said event and many say he deserved that gold more than his Russian opponent.

Perez won gold at the Atlanta Games in 1996; he came fourth in Sydney and fourth again in Athens. A national hero in his native Ecuador, he was given the title there of sportsman of the 20th century. We can only assume that his country, on the other side of the world, came to a standstill as they gathered around their television sets to watch him go for glory one more time. They would have seen their ageing champion hanging onto Borchin in a sport that is easy to ridicule but brutally tough to endure. He lasted longer than anyone else in the scattered field and had the silver medal wrapped up long before he entered the Bird’s Nest stadium for the final stretch of the race.

What baffled many sport observers was how Borchin was able to join in the game despite the fact that days prior to the event Russian athletics officials openly admitted that Borchin was among those who tested positive for the banned compound. The testing was administered in an out-of-competition screening last April. It was reported that he was dropped from his country’s Olympic team and how Borchin got back in and participate in the Olympics remains unclear.  Considering that this is not the first time he was found out to be cutting corners with PEDs, contributes more to this puzzle. Borchin was penalized with a one-year ban in 2005 for taking the stimulant ephedrine when he was just 18.

And what’s adding to this Russian conundrum is when you take into account Vladimir Kanaikin.

And it could have been much worse for Perez and the rest of the race walkers if Vladimir Kanaikin hadn’t been one of the athletes caught with EPO in his bloodstream just before the Games.

Kanaikin smashed the world record for the 20km walk in 2007. His record in turn was broken by another Russian, Sergey Morozov, earlier this year. Morozov was favourite for the gold medal won by Borchin. But he withdrew in mysterious circumstances from the Games last week. No-one offered an explanation. “He has not come here,” said an official from the Russian athletics team. “We waited for him but he did not come to Beijing.”

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