Hamburg - Speed skater Claudia Pechstein is believed to be
the first athlete sanctioned via evidence from a biological passport,
which underlines that doping issues in Germany can be quite unusual.
The case made public on Friday is just as unique as the recent
decision of the nation's equestrian federation FN to disband all its
national teams over doping and dubious medication practices.
It comes a year after national networks ARD and ZDF terminated
their Tour de France broadcasts in protest over the latest doping
cases at the famous cycling race. Rider Stefan Schumacher was then
among the first to be caught via the new method of retests for CERA,
the latest generation of the blood booster EPO.
Germany is still coming to terms with the state-sponsored doping
programme in the former Communist East, while the Western cousins saw
heptathlete Birgit Dressel die from multiple organ failure from a
cocktail of 101 medications - including steroids.
The nation has heard the claim of Olympic 5,000m champion Dieter
Baumann that someone spiked his toothpaste with the steroid
nandrolone. It has seen the tearful confession of cyclist Eric Zabel
that he, too, used EPO in the 1990s.
Naturally, doping is not restricted to Germany.
There have been various Tour de France doping debacles
ranging from Tom Simpson's death in 1967 to Floyd Landis being
stripped of the 2006 title after failing a drug test.
There was disgraced Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson, the Balco lab
case involving Marion Jones and others, or the shame brought on
Olympic hosts Greece at the 2004 Athens Games from Kostas Kenteris
and Ekatherini Thanou.
Still, the famed German efficiency doesn't seem to end with doping
issues.
The FN had just disbanded its national teams when the news broke
last week that a horse of five-time Olympic dressage champion Isabell
Werth had tested positive for an illegal sedative.
Now it's Pechstein, with five gold, two silver and two bronze the
most successful German Winter Olympian ever. Werth tops the Olympic
dressage merits list.
'Fallen icons,' said the Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily in an
editorial on Saturday.
'It's becoming empty on Mount Olympus ... It was not anyone who
fell from the Olympus in these days, it was athletes who were rated
icons ... The doping cases around Isabell Werth and Claudia Pechstein
are like beheading German high-performance sport.'
'Who are you supposed to believe? Which performance is clean,
which comes from cheating?' the paper asked.
The FN's decision to disband the teams in the Olympic sports of
dressage, show jumping and three-day event was partly made over
pressure from the state TV networks.
This could be interesting for speed skating as well, as the sport
is an important part of the winter sport television marathons.
Germany's medal haul at Olympics has always been boosted by riders
and skaters on the 400m oval, which makes the outcome of the unique
Pechstein saga even more important.
The ruling body ISU said on Friday that Pechstein was responsible
for blood doping via a new rule since January 1 that evidence
gathered from the biological passport can lead to sanctions.
The ISU said its decision was 'based on the evidence of
Pechstein's profile which included abnormal values and abnormal
changes of values in a series of tests (in particular in the tests
conducted during the World Allround Championships held in Hamar on
February 7-8, 2009).'
While the DOSB welcomed the actions taken by the FN in equestrian,
it joined Pechstein and her lawyers and the German speed skating
federation DESB in their scepticism.
'The DOSB detects that there is no positive doping test and that
the sanction is based entirely on circumstantial evidence,' the DOSB
said in a statement Saturday.
'The evidential value of this circumstantial evidence is doubted
by renowned experts. It will depend on the proceedings before the CAS
(Court of Arbitration for Sport) whether the international federation
can prove a violation of anti-doping rules.'
Germans can ready themselves for some lessons in biology as
Pechstein's lawyers have said that the charges were based on elevated
values of reticulocytes (immature red blood cells).
The toothpaste saga around Baumann, or the urine sample
manipulation affair engulfing Kathrin Krabbe and Grit Breuer in the
1990s, are straightforward cases, by comparison.
It remains open what the CAS judges will decide, but Pechstein's
affair has added yet another chapter to Germany's (in)famous doping
history.
USA
Your Talkback on this Story