WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2014 SPORTS Tough drug-testing net in place for Sochi Olympics LONDON: Go ahead - just try to get away will be analyzing samples around the ment agencies, whistle-blowers and pre- team, seizing blood doping equipment. record on doping. Scores of Russian ath- with it. If you’re willing to take the risk, clock. vious suspicious blood level results. While no Austrians tested positive at the letes in various sports have tested posi- you’ll pay the price. That’s the challenge The Winter Olympics have produced The testing program begins on Jan. time, four later received life bans from tive in recent months. A scandal in Sochi laid down to drug cheats thinking they only a small number of positive tests 30, the day the athletes village opens. the IOC. The IOC freezes and stores would be a huge embarrassment for the can dope their way to success at the over the years as they involve far fewer From then until the close of the games Olympic samples for eight years at the host country. Russia’s doping lab has Winter Olympics in Sochi. athletes than the Summer Games and on Feb. 23, Olympic athletes can be test- lab in Lausanne, Switzerland. The sam- also come under scrutiny, with WADA International Olympic and anti-dop- fewer sports with a record of doping. ed at any time and at any place, includ- ples can be retested when new methods threatening to suspend the Moscow- ing officials are implementing the tough- ing training sites anywhere in the world. become available. The storage period based facility late last year unless it est drug-testing program in Winter SCREENED OUT The games open on Feb. 7. will be extended to 10 years starting in improved its procedures. The lab has Games history, using intelligence to tar- Olympic officials hope any cheats will About 2,000 of the 3,000 athletes 2016. The IOC recently retested 350 sam- since passed inspection and has set up a get athletes and events considered most have been screened out already through competing in Sochi are expected to be ples from the Turin Olympics, but said it satellite facility in Sochi for the at risk. Authorities are focusing their extensive out-of-competition testing car- tested - some of them two, three or even will wait until after the Sochi Games to Olympics. efforts on weeding out dopers through ried out around the globe in the months, four times. The top five in all medal announce the results. The lab will be staffed by 90 person- rigorous pre-games and pre-competition weeks and days leading up to the games. events are tested, as well as others cho- “The rules from Torino say the IOC nel, including 18 international experts tests. Armed with an improved scientific Don’t think, though, that nobody’s cheat- sen at random. Since testing began at cannot discuss any details about that appointed by the IOC to help oversee method that can detect drug use going ing or that Sochi will be doping-free. the Winter Olympics in 1968, only 20 until the full doping control process is the operations. The main novelty is the back months rather than days, the “You’d be foolish to write off the doping cases have been reported by the completed, and it’s not completed yet,” “long-term metabolite” test for steroids, International Olympic Committee will Winter Games as having any lesser risk,” IOC. Only one was reported at the 2010 Budgett said. “What we can say is that it expanding the detection window by conduct a record number of tests. said Andy Parkinson, chief executive of Vancouver Games, with Polish cross- doesn’t affect any athletes who are com- weeks or months. The WADA lab in Urine and blood samples will be Britain’s national anti-doping agency. country skier Kornelia Marek disqualified peting in Sochi.” Cologne, Germany, has found hundreds stored for eight years for retroactive test- The IOC plans to carry out 2,453 tests after testing positive for EPO. Two hockey While testing has improved, there of positive cases with the new test in ing, providing further deterrence to any- in Sochi, including 1,269 pre-competi- players were reprimanded for minor vio- remains a loophole in the system: no reli- the past year. Also in use will be tests for one thinking they can avoid being tion controls. That’s a 57 percent increase lations after testing positive for stimu- able test exists for detecting the transfu- human growth hormone, which had caught. “I think it would be stupid to try in pre-games tests from the 2010 Winter lants. sion of an athlete’s own blood. Several been on hold following challenges to to cheat,” IOC medical director Dr. Games in Vancouver. sports federations, however, have adopt- the system for measuring blood limits. Richard Budgett told The Associated The majority of the 1,184 in-competi- STRIPPED OF MEDAL ed the “biological passport” program, “You can’t say there are no cheats,” Press. “If there are any doping cases in tion tests will be done in sports like There was one positive test during the which monitors an athlete’s blood WADA director general David Howman Sochi, some of them may be because cross-country skiing and biathlon, 2006 Turin Games, with Russian biathlete parameters over time to detect changes said. “People are having a go where they athletes are being stupid.” The Russian endurance events with a history of blood Olga Pyleva stripped of a silver medal. that could indicate doping. can, but the risk is heightening and the doping lab, which had faced possible doping and EPO use. About 20 percent of However, there was a wider doping scan- approach is better. “We keep saying: suspension by the World Anti-Doping the doping controls will be blood tests. dal in Turin. Acting on a tipoff from the SENSITIVE TIME ‘You’d be stupid if you tried to cheat at Agency for inadequate procedures, has Much of the testing will be based on IOC, Italian police raided the lodgings of The Olympics come at a sensitive the Olympics because you’re going to been fully accredited for the games and intelligence gathered from law-enforce- the Austrian cross-country and biathlon time for Russia, which has a dubious be found out.’”—AP Room for other ski racers to earn victories, grab attention SOCHI: Before the races actually start, the biggest story line in Alpine skiing at the Sochi Olympics centers around someone who will not be there: Lindsey Vonn, the reigning downhill gold medalist and a four-time overall World Cup champion. If not for her surgically repaired right knee, Vonn would have been the one to watch, not only on the slopes - where she might have been expected to at least match her two-medal show- ing from Vancouver in 2010 - but also off them, in part because of her boyfriend, Tiger Woods. “We want to grow as a sport, and like every other sport, we are dependent on the interna- tional stars,” said Atle Skaardal, the International Ski Federation women’s race director. “And Lindsey Vonn is definitely an international star.” Her injury-forced absence means there will be room for other ski racers to earn victories, grab attention and have their stories told. In some respects, the 10 events in the mountains - starting with the men’s downhill on Feb. 9, Shiva Kesavan weather permitting - turn into a referendum on the next possible face of the sport. On the women’s side, Maria Hoefl-Riesch of No flag is no problem for Germany, Lara Gut of Switzerland, Tina Maze of Slovenia, Tina Weirather of Liechtenstein, and GROZNY: Chechen regional leader Ramzan Kadyrov holds an Olympic torch during a welcome India’s Winter Olympian 18-year-old Mikaela Shiffrin of the United States ceremony of the Olympic torch relay in Chechnya’s provincial capital Grozny.—AP all have the potential to win more than one medal. Among the men, Aksel Lund Svindal of As another American teen, swimmer Missy championships. NEW DELHI: India’s top competitor at the sport,” said the 32-year-old Kesavan, who is Norway, Marcel Hirscher of Austria, and Ted Franklin, made clear at the London Olympics, WOMEN TO WATCH: Hoefl-Riesch, not Vonn, upcoming Winter Olympics in Sochi says competing in his fifth Winter Olympics. Ligety of the United States probably are the like- there’s something about success at a very young was the only woman to leave Vancouver’s slopes not being able to compete under the Kesavan, who set an Asian record of liest to exit these Winter Games as household age that captivates an audience. with two golds, and the German is still as good national flag because of a political dispute 49.590 seconds in the Japanese city of names around the globe. Here are five Alpine AKSEL’S RISE: Svindal already enjoys rock- as anyone out there. If Hoefl-Riesch doesn’t will not harm his performance. Nagano in December 2012, conceded that skiing story lines to follow during the Sochi star status in Europe, thanks to his pair of overall dominate, Maze (who broke the record for most “In my heart and mind I’m competing winning India’s first medal at the Games Olympics: World Cup titles and his three medals at the World Cup points last season), Gut (who missed for India,” luge competitor Shiva Kesavan may not be realistic. THE NEXT VONN: Already given that label by Vancouver Games. Even he’ll tell you he’s got a the 2010 Olympics with a dislocated hip) or told The Associated Press in an email inter- “A medal is my aim but seems just a little some, Shiffrin might be a bigger favorite in the shot at medals in four of the five events this Weirather (whose mother, Hanni Wenzel, won view.