Dopaje (Continuación)

Europa, , ,  

Para quienes aman el juego limpio, descubrir el alcance del programa ruso de dopaje, respaldado por el Estado, ha sido una pesadilla hecha realidad. Informantes rusos han presentado pruebas de laboratorios no oficiales, alteraciones por parte de funcionarios de inteligencia del Estado y cambio de muestras en las olimpiadas. Eso supone una violación a la esencia del deporte y, a pocos días de los juegos de verano de Río, un ataque a los valores fundamentales del movimiento olímpico.

El escándalo comenzó con una investigación de la televisión alemana sobre el dopaje organizado de los atletas rusos, parcialmente, basada en los testimonios de dos valientes rusos, Vitaly Stepanov, un exfuncionario antidopaje, y su esposa, Yulia, corredora de media distancia.…  Seguir leyendo »

Europa, , ,  

For those who love clean sport, discovering the extent of Russia’s state-supported doping program has been a nightmare realized. Russian whistle-blowers have come forward with evidence of shadow laboratories, tampering by state intelligence officers and swapped samples at the Olympics. This is a violation of the very essence of sport and — only months from the Summer Games in Rio — an assault on the fundamental values of the Olympic movement.

The scandal first unfolded with a 2014 German TV investigation into organized doping in Russian athletics, based in part on testimony from two brave Russians, Vitaly Stepanov, a former Russian antidoping official, and his wife, Yulia, a middle-distance runner.…  Seguir leyendo »

EspañaJusticia,

Hace justamente diez años, la Unidad Central Operativa de la Guardia Civil procedía a la detención de Eufemiano Fuentes por un delito contra la salud pública por prácticas de dopaje en el deporte. Era el 23 de mayo de 2006 cuando saltaba a los medios de comunicación nacionales e internacionales la que sería la mayor trama de dopaje sanguíneo que a día de hoy se ha descubierto en todo el mundo.

He tenido la suerte de participar en aquella investigación y actualmente de ser el director de la Agencia Española de Protección de la Salud en el Deporte, la antigua Agencia Estatal Antidopaje y poder ser testigo privilegiado de la misma realidad desde distintos puntos de vista.…  Seguir leyendo »

El dopaje popular metástasis y negocio

EspañaSocial,

El dopaje popular es el reverso oscuro de la universalización del deporte; un regreso a la caverna, a esa imbecilidad antropoide -con perdón de los antropoides- de parecer que hacemos cosas que no hacemos. Un fraude cutre para que terceros ganen pasta gansa porque al final el dóping no es otra cosa: pasta gansa y punto. Lo acabamos de ver una vez más en la información que publicaba este jueves EL ESPAÑOL, que daba cuenta del desmantelamiento de una trama de exciclistas que dopaba a corredores amateurs.

Hace años que el cáncer aristocrático de la química ha ido desarrollando pequeñas metástasis en el pelotón del pueblo llano.…  Seguir leyendo »

Europa, , ,

Sport can be exploited by politicians, eager for some of its popularity and excitement to rub off. But when sport itself 'goes bad', through scandal, it normally follows that politicians, like corporate sponsors, keep their distance.

In Russia, however, the usual rules do not apply. For starters, sport in that country, as with much else—business, history, culture—is indelibly intertwined with politics. And while, as in all countries, a team’s or an individual’s performance is a matter of national pride, the exposure of malfeasance in Russian sport is perceived in that country as an attack on the nation as a whole—another example of foreigners’ Russophobia alongside that shown by the NATO expansionists, the regime topplers and the Ukraine lovers.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalSalud Pública,

La rueda de prensa de María Sharapova del 7 de marzo de 2016 será recordada como la presentación en sociedad del Mildronate, un añejo fármaco anti-isquémico que ha sacudido los cimientos del deporte mundial. No sólo por el historial y poder mediático del gigante caído en esta ocasión, sino por el debate que se ha abierto a raíz de que el gran público vea que el suyo no es un caso único: con ella son ya más de una docena los deportistas cazados en los apenas 3 meses que lleva incluida esta sustancia en la lista prohibida de la Agencia Mundial Antidopaje.…  Seguir leyendo »

‘I would be a fool to defend my sport and say that we do not have a problem when it comes to doping.’ Photograph: Stu Forster/Getty Images

ReflexionesSocial, , ,

If Lord Coe thought that pulling off the London 2012 Olympics was hard, his latest task, preserving his own reputation and rescuing the reputation of his sport as the now beleaguered boss of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) is nothing short of Herculean.

Many elite athletes, including myself, will tell you they have never used performance-enhancing drugs. I couldn’t even tell you how or where to find the stuff. The problem we now have is that no one believes us. And that is understandable in the light of today’s seismic report into the “state-sponsored doping programme” that was allegedly run by the Russians.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesSocial,

Despite the glitz and glory of Usain Bolt’s comeback victories and Jessica Ennis-Hill’s heptathlon triumph at the World Championships, 2015 is shaping up as quite the annus horribilis for athletics.

Recent revelations about doping in past athletics competitions have cast a long shadow over the competition. Doping experts Michael Ashenden and Robin Parisotto have evaluated leaked IAAF blood value data, and declared that around of third of medals were won by athletes with suspicious values world championships and Olympics between 2001 and 2012. A confidential survey of athletes, which the IAAF, athletics’ governing body, reportedly tried to silence (an allegation which the IAAF has publicly denied) found that athletes self-reported at around the same level.…  Seguir leyendo »

How to Fight Doping in Sports

ReflexionesSocial,

Few sports performances are regarded without suspicion these days. Nowhere was this more evident than in the recent Tour de France, where the winner, Chris Froome of the British Team Sky, spent three weeks responding to skeptics about his exceptional performances, which rivaled those of doped champions, including Lance Armstrong.

Then there are the recent doping allegations made by several athletes and staff against the former marathoner Alberto Salazar, head coach of the Nike Oregon Project, a training program for elite distance runners. (Mr. Salazar has denied the allegations.) Among the project’s athletes is the double Olympic gold medalist Mo Farah, who was questioned by the United States Anti-Doping Agency last week as part of its investigation into Mr.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesSocial,

A demoralizing investigation on performance-enhancing substances in cycling has found that the sport's international governing bodies have largely ignored anti-doping efforts and shielded athletes from testing positive. This may not be a huge surprise, but the breadth of the problem as disclosed is still pretty shocking.

The 227-page report by the Cycling Independent Reform Commission concludes that for years, the International Cycling Union ignored widespread doping, particularly in regard to Lance Armstrong, to protect the sport's reputation and maintain its growth. It states:

The allegations and review of UCI’s anti-doping programme reveal that decisions taken by UCI leadership in the past have undermined anti-doping efforts: examples range from adopting an attitude that prioritised a clean image and sought to contain the doping problem, to disregarding the rules and giving preferential status to high profile athletes, to publicly criticising whistleblowers and engaging in personal disputes with other stakeholders.…  Seguir leyendo »

When Doping Isn’t Cheating

ReflexionesSocial,

The undisputed facts of the case are that the South African cyclist Daryl Impey — the first African rider to wear the leader’s jersey at the Tour de France — visited a pharmacy in Durban on the eve of his country’s national road cycling championships in February. He purchased some pills to boost his race performance. A few months later, authorities announced that he had tested positive for probenecid, a substance sometimes used to mask the presence of other drugs.

It would be a familiar story, except that Mr. Impey has now been exonerated. The pharmacist, it turns out, had sold him empty gelatin capsules but used a pill-counter contaminated from selling probenecid to a previous customer.…  Seguir leyendo »

EspañaAspectos Generales, , ,

La sociedad española contempla, sorprendida y alarmada, cómo la Fiscalía Anticorrupción está investigando tres posibles amaños de partidos en Primera División y seis en Segunda. La sorpresa es relativa; la alarma, justificada. Solamente una ingenuidad suprema puede llevar a pensar que una actividad con tantos intereses de todo tipo en juego puede ser inmaculada.

Año tras año, en las postrimerías de la temporada, cuando unos cuantos equipos tienen todavía mucho que ganar o que perder, y otros tantos ya no tienen nada que perder o que ganar, se reconoce la existencia misteriosa de «maletines viajeros». Valijas trashumantes de dudosa procedencia y destino más dudoso aún, pero de propósitos meridianamente claros: alterar por medios fraudulentos la limpieza de la competición.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesSocial,

As you may know, the latest sports doping “scandal” involves a banned performance-enhancing drug (PED) derived from — I am not making this up — deer antlers.

Among the high-profile professional athletes who have used deer-antler spray, according to a recent story in Sports Illustrated, are Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis and the golfer Vijay Singh.

Needless to say, this “revelation” prompted the usual PED hysteria, followed by the usual sanctimonious, ill-informed condemnations.

“I know that it’s obviously illegal, whatever it is,” said golfer Bubba Watson, presumably without comic intent. “I love this sport. I would never do that.”

Singh, for his part, issued one of the most memorable confessions in the history of sports: “I’ve used deer-antler spray,” he admitted.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesSocial,

In Soviet Russia, a maxim coined by the not-so-educated but very talented botanist and natural selectionist Ivan Michurin was popular and often repeated: “We may not expect any charities from nature; to take them from it is our task.”

This is quite an anthem to science indeed — even if it was sung in a dramatic historical context and put to questionable ideological use.

In my youth, I invented (or picked up somewhere) another maxim with somehow similar logic but an almost diametrically opposite meaning: “A fight against nature always ends with nature’s victory!”

What is true about nature in general should also be true with regard to human nature.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesSocial,

Oprah Winfrey didn't pussyfoot around.

She got Lance Armstrong to confess in the first minute.

It was a curiously unemotional moment, the prosecutor leading the witness through what seemed like well-rehearsed paces in a businesslike fashion.

Armstrong said he was sorry for all the years of lying, but he sounded like he was reading a shopping list. He may have been wearing a lavender shirt that complemented Oprah's violet dress, but the disgraced cycling champion was anything but colorful.

On her cable channel Thursday night, Winfrey wisely began with a series of yes-or-no questions that brought a decade of deception to an end.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesSocial,

Since Lance Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles, outrage, shock and anger have proliferated. Amid that commentary, some have urged the public to look beyond Lance’s denials about his systematic doping and focus instead on the hope and support he has provided for cancer patients.

I saw up close the positive effect that Lance Armstrong had on the cancer community, when my health-care public relations firm Spectrum worked with him on behalf of our client Bristol-Myers Squibb between 1999 and 2005 — the time he is now accused of doping and deceiving the public, including millions of cancer survivors who consider him a hero.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesSocial,

Tom Murray is president emeritus of the Hastings Center, a nonpartisan research institute focused on bioethics, and a visiting scholar at Yale. He chairs the ethical issues committee of the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Day after day, it seems, more top cyclists who competed in the sport’s peak doping era are admitting they broke the rules. The cult of omerta has at last been broken. Lance Armstrong’s supporters are running out of plausible defenses. His recent photo of himself reclining in front of his seven framed Tour de France jerseys is more sad than defiant: He’s been stripped of the championship titles they once represented.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesPensamiento, Cultura y Ciencia,

Estos días hemos presenciado el descenso a los infiernos de uno de los ídolos de masas del siglo XXI. Lance Armstrong, con una biografía que «si la hubieran escrito en Hollywood la gente no se la creería», según dice su web, ha resultado ser un tramposo de dimensiones olímpicas. Si algo no perdonamos a los que se erigen en estándares planetarios de virtud y superación es que lo hayan conseguido haciendo juego sucio.

El dopaje es el pecado definitivo del deportista simplemente porque está prohibido. ¿Pero tiene sentido impedir ciertas estrategias para incrementar el rendimiento y no otras? La EPO, una hormona que aumenta la capacidad de la sangre de transportar oxígeno, es ilegal.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesSocial,

We have many heroes: historic figures who battled for freedom, a man who jumps on the railway tracks to save someone from certain death, a whistle-blower who identifies corruption in government or industry. While these forms of heroism focus on a willingness to take risks in the service of other people or noble ideals, the most ancient notion of heroism focuses on humanity's ability to transcend its own physical limitations.

Occasionally, there is a man or woman who appears to be almost superhuman in strength and physical ability. The Greeks had Achilles and Athena. Up until yesterday, we had Lance Armstrong.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesSocial,

Son siempre los últimos en entenderlo.

Es raro, ¿no?, la forma en la que nuestros personajes tramposos y mentirosos más grandes llegan tan lejos en su lucha por ganar y dominar. Aunque pierden de vista que, en el camino, la caída es inevitable.

A principios del 2000, cuando yo escribía sobre beisbol en Sports Illustrated, Barry Bonds trataba a todos: compañeros de equipo, entrenadores, oponentes, fanáticos, escritores, como si fueran mugre bajo sus uñas —habitualmente muy bien cuidadas—. Tenía su propio equipo de camarógrafos, terapeuta físico particular y a sus propios publicistas. Era el jonronero más grande de la historia: tan buen bateador que, tras haber cumplido 30 años, hacía volar la pelota de béisbol hasta la parte más profunda del estadio.…  Seguir leyendo »