This year is Olympic year so it’s more interesting than the previous years as far as doping is concerned.

Remember the canny seven Russian track and field athletes who resorted to urine swapping to pass drug tests?

The International Association of the Athletics Federation officials became suspicious when said women athletes were always present for unannounced random tests. The Russians were also very punctual, arriving at testing places even before the IAAF officials got there.

“There were no ‘no shows’,” one official told Reuters. “The Russians were always there.”

So the officials started storing the athletes’ samples. Further investigation revealed that the latest urine samples provided by the athletes did not match the DNA of the stored samples. The Russians were later suspended. The athletes include Tatyana Tomashova, the two-time world 1,500 meters champion; and Yelena Soboleva, the world indoor 1,500 meters champion.

And who wouldn’t remember the Greek athletes who figured prominently in this year’s doping list because of quite a handful of failed dope tests.

In March, eleven of the 14 members of the Greek weightlifting team tested positive for the steroid methyltrienolone in out-of-competition testing in Athens. Then there was champion hurdler Fani Halkia, sprinter Dimitris Regas, and Anastasios Gousis who got banned for testing positive also for methyltrienolone. All Greek athletes were suspended for doping.

In Tour de France four riders, including the third finisher Bernhard Kohl, were suspended for testing positive for CERA, the new generation variant of the blood-boosting drug EPO

There was Marion Jones’ sprint in and out of jail for her use of performance-enhancing drugs and her involvement in a check fraud case. Jones began her six-month jail term March and was released September 5.

The NFL’s diuretic case also was in the news which involved several athletes who blamed the StarCaps weight-loss pill for their failed dope tests. Pat Williams and Kevin Williams of the Vikings were among the players who tested positive for the masking agent bumetanide.

The Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds anabolic steroids cases also dominated the sports scene in 2008 and are expected to remain in the headlines in 2009. The much-awaited Barry Bonds trial will commence March next year

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Sometimes, it’s tough to be Lance Armstrong.

The seven-time Tour de France champion has been on the radar of international drug testers since he announced his comeback in September.

The 37-year-old rider says he’s been drug tested 11 times in the past 18 weeks and two days in the past four days. His most recent test was conducted by officials from the International Cycling Union on Thursday at his Texas home according to AFP.

“UCI control. They flew a guy from Germany for it. That makes a ton of sense,” Armstrong wrote on Twitter, a social networking website.
Twitter allows users to send short messages which are then posted on subscribers’ cell phones and the Internet.

Armstrong even let his Twitter readers know that he was on his way to meet with the drug testers.

“I am back from the shop after riding four hours. I hear the drug testers are waiting at the house. #11,” he wrote.

Armstrong, who plans to resume his cycling career next year, was placed under a six-month probation period by the United States Anti-doping Agency at the beginning of August.

Armstrong needs to pass USADA’s out-of-competition testing pool before his cycling comeback can become official.

News of his return has drawn mixed reviews in cycling circles.

Armstrong’s career has been dogged by doping accusations, prompting him to file several lawsuits in the past years against his detractors to refute the allegations. Most explosive of the accusations was the report published in a French sports newspaper L’Equipe in 2005 which claimed that the six urine samples obtained from Armstrong from his 1999 Tour victory tested positive for the blood booster EPO.

Last month, Armstrong said that should he decide to join the Tour next year he said he fears for his personal safety due to a lot of resentment towards him France caused by negative publicity.

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To the 2008 Beijing Olympics athletes, to be stripped of medals is a bad, bad way to start 2009. Our advice to them? Take in all in stride. Look at the four riders in this year’s Tour de France who tested for CERA long after the cameras flashed and the medals awarded. Their collective sigh was: C’est la vie!

The International Olympic Committee announced on Tuesday about 500 samples will undergo retroactive testing in January. Of that number are about 400 blood tests to be retested for third-generation drug CERA, while 100 are urine samples which will be tested for insulin. A WADA lab in Cologne, Germany will handle the retesting of the urine samples. According to AP report, the lab has come up with a reliable test for insulin which, like anabolic steroids, is considered a performance-enhancing drug.

IOC’s statement said the tests “will primarily target endurance events in cycling, rowing, swimming and athletics.” The test results are expected to be in by the end of March.

It was in October when IOC has announced its plan to carry out retroactive testing subsequent to AFLD’s (French anti-doping agency) statement that it will retest samples from the 2008 Tour de France riders. AFLD has developed a more effective method to test blood samples for new generation performance boosters like CERA. The new testing method caught four riders.

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This year’s Tour de France best climber Bernhard Kohl receives a two-year suspension from the Austrian anti-doping agency (NADA).

Kohl, who also finished third overall in this year’s race, had tested positive for the blood booster CERA, the latest version of exogenous erythropoietin aka EPO.

The 26-year-old rider met with NADA on Nov. 24 and his suspension was announced after the closed door meeting. Contrary to earlier speculation that he will fully cooperate with authorities and reveal his drug source, Kohl did not reveal his drug source.

“Bernhard is willing to cooperate and he will tell about how he got the substance and how and where he used it,” Kohl’s manager Stefan Matschiner stated prior to the meeting with NADA.

The chairman of NADA’s disciplinary committee, Gernot Schaar, said Kohl did not divulge any details on how he got the CERA, a new variant of erythropoietin aka EPO.

“He did not name any names of the men behind his doping use,” Schaar said. “That means there could be no doubt about the penalty.”

Kohl’s could have gotten a lesser penalty had he fully cooperated with authorities.

“I’ve made my statement and I’ve been honest,” Kohl said. “If it’s appreciated (by NADA), it will be a good sign for the sport.”

Kohl was disappointed that he still got the maximum penalty despite coming out clean with his admission.

“It’s a shame that I got the same penalty as someone who denies everything. This is the wrong way. I definitely made clear how I got it and what my reasons behind it were.”

Matschiner, who did not attend the meeting, also expressed his disappointment with the verdict.

“I really hoped his cooperative attitude would have lowered the penalty,” Matschiner was quoted as saying in an interview with Austrian media after the announcement of the ban.

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Emanuel Sella is the latest cyclist to be found guilty of using CERA, the third generation EPO drug, it was reported.

The Societa CSF Gruppo Navigare rider has been banned for one year by the Italian Olympic Committee’s (CONI) anti-doping office after being caught in an out-of-competition test taken on July 23.

A one-year ban was handed down, instead of two, after the rider admitted his guilt and -operated with the court during his trial in August, ANSA news agency reported.

Sella was the surprise package of the 2008 Giro d’Italia, winning three climbing stages and the time trial at Plan de Corones.

However, he is the latest rider to fail a test for CERA, which has also snared Tour de France third Bernard Kohl and Riccardo Ricco, Leonardo Piepoli and Stefan Schumacher.

In September, Tour de France officials announced they would be retesting samples for CERA, with the International Olympic Committee following suit in October.

CERA is new variation of exogenous erythropoietin, or EPO. EPO is anemia-fighting agent and works by promoting production of red blood cells. CERA has been approved for therapeutic use in 2007 and its illegal use as a performance-enhancing drug was first documented during the 2008 Tour de France in the incidents involving Kohl, Ricco, and Piepoli.

Testing for CERA via urine samples reportedly lack validity because the compound does not pass through the kidneys.

In September, however, French doping officials came up with a blood-based doping control, which is found to be more accurate in testing for this EPO variant. French sports officials later announced that they will implement retroactive testing for 2008 Tour de France participants. Subsequently, the International Olympic Committee declared they will also be retesting samples taken from the participants of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

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Climbing expert Bernhard Kohl is the latest rider to test positive for CERA, a variant of the blood booster erythropoietin (EPO). The announcement was made by France’s anti-doping agency (AFLD). The Austrian rider took the best climber’s jersey and finished third overall.

All the blood samples taken during the 2008 Tour de France held this July will be tested for CERA. It has only been a few weeks ago that a new testing method was developed to detect  this third-generation blood booster thus the retroactive testing.

An AFLD statement issued Monday said that Kohl had been notified of the result.

“The AFLD confirms that it’s laboratory at Châtenay-Malabry has found two abnormal samples showing the presence of EPO CERA in blood samples taken on July 3 and 15, before and during the Tour de France, on Austrian cyclist Bernard Kohl,” the statement said. “The official notification to the athlete was done through the Austrian Anti-doping Agency (NADA Austria).

This means disciplinary proceedings can be taken against the athlete by the French and Austrian national disciplinary authorities, as the 2008 Tour de France was not included in the UCI (world cycling’s governing body) calendar.”

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This 2008 Tour de France’s riders might have crossed the finished lines several weeks ago, but it looks like the rigors of the race is not yet over. The rigors of Tour de France drug screening, that is.

Retroactive testing for the new generation blood booster CERA, or Continuous Erythopoiesis Receptor Activator, is now being carried out by French laboratories. So far, two riders were caught using the banned compound since the retroactive testing was implemented. It was announced on Monday that Italy’s Leonardo Piepoli and Germany’s Stefan Schumacher both tested positive for CERA.  And race officials are expecting more positive tests in the coming weeks.

“The tests are still underway, they are not all done yet,” French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD) head Pierre Bordry told Reuters on Wednesday.

“I imagine there could be one or two more cases,” race director Christian Prudhomme added, in a week when two Tour riders were exposed as drugs cheats.

Italian rider Riccardo Ricco was suspected of taking CERA when the race was still underway in July and was subsequently sent home. Spanish riders Manuel Beltran and Moises Dueňas, tested positive for EPO, and were also sent packing.

Why the late screening?

“People in the street ask me: ‘How did that come out so late?”‘ Prudhomme said. “In July, the process wasn’t legitimate at the time … These tests are of a new type.”

There are two labs which are currently testing the samples from all of the riders who competed in this year’s race.

The Chatenay-Malabry laboratory, which has developed a more effective blood test to find this EPO variant, and a WADA-approved Lausanne facility are testing blood samples. CERA is difficult to detect through urine samples.

“We are testing samples from July 3, 4 and 15,” Bordry said, adding there was no room for error.

“They are all tested by the Chatenay-Malabry lab, which is the official AFLD lab, but also in Lausanne, as a guarantee.”

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The International Olympic Committee plans to take the same track Tour de France has taken. IOC says blood samples taken at the Beijing Olympics are to be reanalyzed for the EPO (erythropoietin) variant CERA, or Continuous Erythropoiesis Receptor Activator.

Oh, we can almost hear Beijing Olympic dopers singing, “Que sera, sera (whatever will be, will be),” as their fates now rest on the hands of the anti-doping officials. From ABS-CBN:

The IOC’s announcement comes 48 hours after reanalyzed samples from the Tour de France using the latest technology unearthed two drug cheats - Germany’s Stefan Schumacher, a double stage winner on this year’s race, and Italian Leonardo Piepoli.

IOC spokesman Emmanuelle Moreau told AFP: “This is part of our normal procedure. We keep the samples for eight years and whenever a new test arrives we carry out new tests.”

The CERA form of EPO was detected for the first time at this year’s Tour in the sample of Italian cyclist Riccardo Ricco with a full test developed to combat it by the French laboratory at Chatenay-Malabry.

The laboratory is currently retroactively checking 15 samples from this year’s Tour with two of those producing Schumacher and Piepoli’s positive tests.

It was that double success that “prompted the IOC to retest samples from Beijing,” explained Moreau.

The IOC is now in the process of moving all the Beijing samples to its headquarters in Lausanne before finalizing the conditions and timing of the new tests.

“A joint IOC/WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) commission is going to decide the procedure,” Moreau said.

At the recently concluded Summer Olympics in Beijing, over 1,000 blood samples were taken from participants as part of over 5,000 anti-doping screenings. Testing for CERA is found more effective using blood samples than urine samples.

Over 1,000 blood samples were taken at the Games as part of over 5,000 anti-doping controls. IOC officials bannered the 2008 Beijing Games as one of the ‘cleanest’ in the history of modern Olympics.

Although more than a dozen athletes were tested positive for illegal substances in the months leading up to the Beijing Olympics, only six athletes tested positive for banned compounds when the Beijing Olympics went underway. Spanish cyclist Maria Isobel Moreno was the first athlete to be ejected from the Games when she tested positive for EPO. The other athletes tested positive either for anabolic steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs.

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Seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong says ‘Non merci’ to an offer that would clear his name of doping suspicions once and for all. The offer to retest Armstrong’s urine samples from 1999 Tour de France came from Pierre Bordry, head of French anti-doping agency.

From Cycling Weekly:

Bordry yesterday offered to retest the samples according to L’Equipe newspaper as of a way to prove Armstrong’s good faith and dispel accusations made by the L’Equipe newspaper that the samples may contain traces of the banned blood booster EPO.

It was L’Equipe which broke the news back in 2005 that six of Armstrong’s urine samples from the 1999 Tour allegedly showed traces of the banned compound erythropoietin (EPO) in an article entitled “The Armstrong Lie.”

Armstrong vehemently denied the allegation with this statement:

“Unfortunately, the witch hunt continues and tomorrow’s article is nothing short of tabloid journalism,” Armstrong wrote on his Web site. “I will simply restate what I have said many times: I have never taken performance-enhancing drugs.”

In a written statement, Armstrong sidestepped the offer by claiming that an independent investigation instigated by the UCI had said the 1999 samples “have not been maintained properly, have been compromised in many ways, and even three years ago could not be tested to provide any meaningful results.”

“There is simply nothing that I can agree to that would provide any relevant evidence about 1999,” Armstrong added in his statement.

Armstrong also pointed out that the “the Independent Investigation concluded that the French laboratory, the French Ministry of Sport, and Dick Pound, the former head of the World Anti-Doping Agency, all behaved improperly with respect to the 1999 Tour de France samples.”

He says that WADA and the French Ministry refused to address the finding of the investigation by refusing to have the issues heard by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

“If Mr. Bordry would now like to re-examine the past, he must start with presenting the issues of the misconduct of the French laboratory, the French Ministry, and WADA before a proper tribunal.” Armstrong said in the statement.

The seven-time Tour de France winner also reminded everyone that he has agreed to work with anti-doping expert Dr Don Catlin for his comeback to racing, to develop a blood and urine testing protocol. Armstrong said that his results will be posted on the internet and that the testing protocol will be available to other riders.

At the time the said samples were taken, there were no means to determine the presence of exogenous EPO. The samples were preserved and have undergone testing again by a French lab located near Paris. However, doubts surround the validity of the tests conducted by the French lab since they were taken on B samples only since the A samples have already been used up.

EPO enhances performance by increasing red blood cell production. Clinically, EPO is used to treat certain types of anemia, particularly those that are due to chronic kidney disease and from treatment of cancer. EPO is sometimes referred to as Erythropoiesis Stimulating Agent or ESA when used as performance-enhancing drug.

EPO and related substances, along with anabolic-androgenic steroids and their related substances, are included in the World Anti-Doping Agency’s list of prohibited substances. According to WADA, “unless the athlete can demonstrate that the concentration (of prohibited substance) was due to physiological or pathological condition” and “if a laboratory report, using a reliable analytical method, that the Prohibited Substance is of exogenous origin, the Sample will be deemed to contain a Prohibited Substance and shall be reported as an Adverse Analytical Finding.”

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The Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) issued a two-year ban to Riccardo Ricco on Thursday after the rider admitted that he engaged in doping during this year’s Tour de France.

After winning two stages of the Tour, Ricco has tested positive for CERA, or Continuous Erythropoietin Receptor Activator, which is an advanced variety of blood booster erythropoietin (EPO). Ricco has been riding on the UCI ProTeam Saunier Duval-Scott since 2006, but was ejected from the team due to his doping violations.

The 25-year-old climbing specialist was hoping his admission would entail a reduced ban, but got the maximum penalty due to another offense.

CONI reduced the doping part of the ban by six months from the ma¬¬ximum two years. But they also added six months because Ricco had gone to Carlo Santuccione, a physician who had already been penalized for doping infringements.

“I’m very disappointed and bitter. I expected better understanding,’’ Ricco said. “But I made a mistake and it’s fair that I pay.’’

Ricco’s lawyers indicated they would likely appeal to the Court of Ar¬¬bit¬ra¬tion for Sport (CAS).

“Something is not working in sports justice, because if Ricco had not collaborated he would have received the same ban of two years,’’ Ricco’s lawyer Alessandro Sivelli said. “If he had stayed quiet, Santuccione’s name would never have come out.’’

The ban expires on July 30, 2010, disallowing Ricco from participating in the next two editions of the Tour de France and Giro d’Italia.

Roche, the pharmaceutical company which developed CERA, has been involved in a controversy several months ago. It started when WADA president John Fahey had issued a warning to dopers that during its manufacture, Roche implanted a molecule to help anti-doping officials to detect its illicit use. The company has denied Fahey’s claim, saying CERA does not contain said stealth molecule.

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