Money at heart of doping cover-up, says Victor Conte

[related-post]

Sponsors and television rights holders have become increasingly concerned over linking their brands and products with scandal hit events and organizations such as soccer’s world governing body FIFA, which is currently embroiled in a widespread corruption and money laundering investigation. Many track and field athletes receive performance bonuses for winning gold medals with agents, coaches, and federations all cashing in on the winners.

Usain Bolt, the world’s fastest man, ranks number 45 on Forbes.com 2014 ranking of the top 100 earning athletes, pulling in $23.2 million a year with $23 million of that total coming from sponsors.

“I believe this (covering up positive tests) goes on in the United States, I believe it goes on in Russia, I believe it is like East Germany — this is what it is. And what is driving all this? It’s the money,” said Conte. “It’s about money, it’s about corruption.”

A former bass guitarist who switched careers and opened the laboratory, Conte used a gregarious personality and self-taught knowledge of nutrition to gain access to some of the top names in sport including disgraced sprinter Marion Jones and baseball sluggers Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi, supplying them with the latest in performance-enhancing drugs.

Conte told Reuters back in 2012 that he believed cheating was rife in sports despite improved testing, and that more than half the sprint semi-finalists at the London Olympics are likely to use illegal drugs at some stage of their preparations.

Robin Parisotto and another scientist, Michael Ashendon, concluded in the Sunday Times report that more than 800 athletes had recorded one or more “abnormal results”. The data was obtained after a leak of thousands of blood test results from 2001-2012.

Russia accounted for 415 abnormal tests, followed distantly by Ukraine, Morocco, Spain, Kenya, Turkey and others. Kenya, a power in distance running, accounted for 18 of the medals won by athletes with suspicious results, The Sunday Times said. “I believe there is a lack of genuine interest in catching these athletes, they don’t want to know it’s bad for business,” said Conte. “In my opinion it (Russia) is like East Germany in the ‘70s. It is state sponsored doping. I believe probably 80 percent of elite athletes, probably higher, are using.”

IAAF rejects reports

Frankfurt: The ruling body of world athletics has strongly rejected suggestions that it failed to follow up on suspicious blood test results involving thousands of athletes over more than a decade. The International Association of Athletics Federations said on Tuesday that allegations that it was negligent in following up the suspicious results were “simply false.”

“The published allegations were sensationalist and confusing: the results referred to were not positive tests,” the IAAF said in a lengthy statement.

The IAAF said it published a detailed analysis of that data more than four years ago. A large proportion of the blood samples were collected in a period before the implementation of the Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) and “cannot therefore be used as proof of doping.”

Noting that “suspicion alone does not equal proof of doping,” the IAAF said “we refute outright any allegation that the IAAF did not appropriately follow up suspicious profiles which had been proactively identified through its world leading blood profiling program.”

“Any reporting by the ARD and Sunday Times that the IAAF was negligent in addressing or following up the suspicious profiles is simply false, disappointing and misinformed journalism. In an attempt to catch and sanction the cheats in our sport, the IAAF has used every means available to it within the anti-doping framework it operates in.”

The federation said that before the ABP became available, it “systematically compiled a database of blood profiles from international athletes, and then used this database to guide its targeted, no-advance-notice, out-of-competition testing program.”

“Athletes were targeted individually, with testing timed to correlate with the most likely periods of doping as indicated by their individual profile and competition schedule,” the IAAF said, adding that six were caught cheating and banned.

The IAAF said its doping control program “deliberately targeted” athletes from countries where there was insufficient out-of-competition. The IAAF acknowledged that “some nations” were lagging behind in implementing a robust drug-testing program but said that progress is being made.

The two reports alleged that more than 80 of Russia’s medals were won by athletes with suspicious tests, while Kenya had 18 medals won by athletes under suspicion. ARD said it has evidence of human growth hormone being used by Russian runners. “There are clearly some nations who account for the largest percentage of suspicious blood values. The IAAF does not shy away from this fact. The IAAF also notes that those countries … reported by the ARD and The Sunday Times … are the very same countries’’ that currently lack a “strong, robust’’ national anti-doping program backed with government support,” the IAAF said.

The outgoing IAAF president Lamine Diack on Monday defended his organization’s anti-doping record and dismissed the accusations as a “joke”. Diack, who will be stepping down later this month after 15 years at the helm of the IAAF, also questioned the timing of the reports, which came out three weeks before the athletics world championships in Beijing, which run from August 22-30.

(AP)