TOP 10
Notable drug scandals
Doping & drug infractions that rocked the sports world
July 27, 2006
 Russians Larissa Lazutina, left, and Olga Danilova had their 2002 Olympic five-kilometre pursuit medals stripped. Canadian Beckie Scott was later awarded the gold. (Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images) |
Cross-country skiing & doping: a Nordic tradition
Attention cross-country skiers: If you want to cheat, you may not want to leave that blood-transfusion equipment lying around your house.
That's what some members of the Austrian cross-country ski team did at the Salt Lake City Olympic Games. The IOC began an investigation after a cleaner found blood-transfusion materials in a residence used by the Austrians during the Games.
The team's results were reassessed, and after a three-month investigation, two athletes (non-medallists) were disqualified and two team officials were banned from the next two Winter Olympics.
The Austrians claimed the equipment was used for ultraviolet radiation treatment of athletes' blood to treat and prevent colds and flu, not for performance-enhancing purposes.
Umm … sure.
Doping has been rampant in cross-country skiing for years. Use of EPO, or erythropoietin, is as common as ski wax, and blood doping has become an art.
Six Finnish skiers tested positive for HES – a banned plasma volume expander – at the 2001 world championships in Finland, one of the biggest doping scandals in the sport. It exposed some of Finland's top stars including Jari Isometsa, Mika Myllyla, Janne Immonen and Harri Kirvesniemi.
Also at the Salt Lake Games, three skiers certainly didn't help the tainted image of their sport by testing positive for the drug darbepoetin.
Darbepoetin boosts the production of red blood cells that help carry oxygen to muscles. The drug is used to treat severe anemia, which can be caused by chronic kidney illness or by chemotherapy treatment.
Hey, whatever helps you get ahead of the competition, right?
Two of those athletes caught – Russian medallists Olga Danilova and Larissa Lazutina (right) – didn't get far ahead for long.
Eighteen months after Salt Lake City, the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that Canadian Beckie Scott, who finished third in the five-kilometre pursuit, should be awarded the gold medal since Danilova and Lazutina were ineligible due to previous failed drug tests.