Olympic Retesting of Drug Samples Resulting in Numerous Positive Results

[Breeze]

I originally posted a note about this in my Swim Like a Champion Dynasty as it is big news in the sport and figured it was at least worth a mention. The first report focused on 31 positive results on a retest of samples from Beijing, and now retests have been conducted on tests from London and 23 more are now positive. It is going to be very interesting to see how this plays out and the long term impacts. It will also be interesting to see what WADA and the IOC do. For the health of these sports they need to set down hard punishments on these athletes and countries (as several countries have been cupable in covering up positive tests) to set an example and try and deter this moving forward, but politics will probably prevent that type of hard ine response.

[Breeze]

The results breakdown:

In 2008:

31 athletes
12 countries
6 sports

In 2012

23 athletes
6 countries
5 sports

no other details have been released yet.

Oh, and some reports from the Winter Olympics in 2006 indicate there may have been over 100 positive results in retests...

[Breeze]

Originally Posted by lighthousekeeper

opinion of humanity: another -1

Well this actually gets much worse if you do a little digging and look at the evidence. For instance...you may have seen the 60 minutes piece on the drug testing during the Sochi Olympics, where the whistleblower talked about the organized swapping of samples to protect Russian atlhletes that they knew were going to test positive. What you may not have heard is the follow up on that, where WADA wanted to question some of the Whistleblowers co-workers only to find the two they were interested in had both recently been murdered. Convenient....

[Kodos]

A lot of bad things happen in the name of sports.

[lighthousekeeper]

Originally Posted by Kodos

A lot of bad things happen in the name of sports.

not the least of which is fashion

[Breeze]

Some articles about these topics:

Report: Russian Olympic Doping Program Was Comically Impressive


Did Russia get rid of doping whistleblower? | The New Daily


Russian doping scandal: Urine sample switches behind Sochi Winter Olympics success, claims former lab director | Athletics | Sport | The Independent


Anti-Doping: Retesting Of London Samples Results In 23 Positives


31 Athletes Caught in Beijing 2008 Olympic Games Re-Testing

[nilodor]

One of the reasons I got out of track and field. Didn't want to dope, was frustrated by those who did. Wish I didn't care as much in retrospect.

[Logan]

I got out of track because I was fat and slow.

[flere-imsaho]

I got out of track because I hated running. Cross-country I could tolerate as a way to get ready for skiing (but really, I should have done soccer), but running around and around an oval? Ugh.

[Butter]

I wonder how many of these are US athletes. I know for some that is blasphemy, but we have a pretty dang long track record in certain sports of doping. Maybe not of a widespread, machinery-driven sort, but certainly for individual stars in some sports.

[Breeze]

Originally Posted by Butter_of_69

I wonder how many of these are US athletes. I know for some that is blasphemy, but we have a pretty dang long track record in certain sports of doping. Maybe not of a widespread, machinery-driven sort, but certainly for individual stars in some sports.

That crossed my mind too...but typically when US athletes test positive it is USADA that catches them due to the repeated and random nature of the way they test. It'll be interesting to hear which countries the actually are...

Given the reports I'm reading it seems pretty obvious Russia and China are going to be two. It wouldn't be surprising if some of the countries created after the breakup of the USSR were also included.

[Fidatelo]

At this point I basically assume that everyone at the Olympics, almost regardless of sport, is doping in some way or another.