USA is as right as anybody else… Diseases that make athletes unbeatable
Further doping and WADA scandals became known around the world. It is curious they were not connected with Russia. Probably this is why it is told that Fancy Bears anonymous hack team who published documents that compromise many athletes is Russian. The sports staff of Realnoe Vremya finds out what these documents contain and presupposes what will happen to Russia next.
Bears mean Russia – it is clear
First of all, it should be noted the documents that were published on the Internet are authentic, confirmed WADA. But it is unclear whose interests the hackers are expressing. And the fact that Americans were hacked obviously means that the hackers use dishonest methods. And the group's name 'bears' made the world sum up: Russians did it. It seems to be a simple Mafia game when one player 'kills' a person whom the third one has a bone to pick with. It makes people think that the third person is guilty.
At the moment the hackers published several 'helpings' of documents about therapeutic permissions to use banned substances. The first document was about four American athletes, the next two – about tens of medallists of the Games in Rio from different countries. However, the juciest information about use of banned substances was about gymnast Simone Biles and tennis player Serena Williams.
Why does a gymnast need to change her consciousness?
She was the first person to win four gold medals in Rio. She is called an unbeatable 'robot' of the world. She is permitted to use a narcotic substance amphetamine. As the very athlete claimed, this substance is in the drug she has been taking from childhood because she was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Curiously, probably this diagnosis can not be made. It is detected by behaviour and relatives' opinion. And many doctors even don't consider it as a disease. Moreover, they don't prescribe a narcotic to hyperactive kids who have mood swings. In general, the tradition of such a diagnosis exists only in the USA. Michael Phelps was diagnosed with ADHD once.
An ordinary person usually thinks that amphetamine and other banned substances that change a person's consciousness is not a doping. It won't make a person stronger or faster. It won't enhance stamina. It won't help to increase muscles. But not only muscles are needed in gymnastics. A person who doesn't make mistakes is the winner. It is a person whose fear of doing a somersault was extirpated in childhood. What is more, Ritalin's side effect when it is taken for a long time is a slow growth. Gymnastics is almost the only sports where low height is vitally important for big victories.
Tennis players' usual medicine box
Biles also has an unbeatable colleague in the national team who is tennis player Serena Williams whose list of permitted substances she can use is much longer and more diverse: in different periods from 2010 to 2015, the tennis player was allowed to take prednisolone, methylprednisolone, hydromorphone, prednisone and oxycodone. They all are very strong drugs. Prednisolone is a hormone-like drug used to treat extreme forms of allergic reactions, asthma, heart attack, cirrhosis and other serious diseases. Oxycodone is a powerful opioid pain medication prescribed to oncology patients in serious cases. It is difficult to imagine what disease the strongest female tennis player could be diagnosed with that she needed to use these drugs.
Venus Williams also was in the first 'American' list. She had a similar list of drugs. Championat internet resource remembered Serena's words who commented Maria Sharapova's confession that she used Mildronate: 'Just even from a health perspective, I've never been a big fan of taking anything. I'm studying medicine but I've never heard of it. Maybe I'm not studying hard enough. I'm terrified, to be honest. It would just be a really bad situation if that was me'.
Legally, there can't be any claim: all athletes were given permission to use these drugs. It means they had a special examination, they gave all documents about diseases and could take banned substances for some period. But now Sharapova's two-year ban for a drug that doesn't make her better, persecution of other athletes for this drug, an awful can of worms organised for all Olympians, Yefimova's tears and the disqualification of field and track athletes and paralympians look clearly unfair.
We will have to say sport bye
On the one hand, Russia seems to have lost against the West while running a business smartly by means of allowed means: while preparing right papers, upholding interests by legal means. In practice, it is seen big efforts of separate athletes in this sphere doesn't help. Defendant Sergey Shubenkov told on Match-TV that he was checked not only in Russia but also personally asked to send his tests to the international laboratory: 'IAAF explained its deny by saying that tests go through the Russian Customs. According to their data, sometimes these samples could be open. And they also said I can bribe a doping control officer because there were precedents'. Presumption of Guilt is in action.
Imparciality of this situation has become obvious now. What ideal decision should Russian sports functionaries make to get out of this situation? The first option: to change nothing, continue this 'friendship' and remind our interests orally and hope the situation will be resolved on its own. It seems the functionaries chose this method: they say about a necessity for a common reformation of WADA. There is a 'but': very WADA has never said that his reformation is needed.
The second option is completely opposite: to boycott, leave all international federations, ban athletes to participate in competitions. This course of events will harm Russian sport only: all athletes will lose their job, spectators won't have international competitions, children won't have big idols from the motherland. And it is difficult to imagine that somebody will come and ask Russian sport to come back by promising to forget everything.
The third option is to cease the cooperation with all organisations, their financing and allow the athletes to compete. This scenario is impossible. Competition and doping control organisation system are too complicated. Only athletes will be affected again. They will have to pay their travel costs and doping controls on their own. In the end, it will be easier to leave Russia because it is an expensive pleasure to bring doping officers to remote Russian cities.
The fourth option: to create a new system, not a big one, but flexible, which is ready and able to act according to any game rules. Taking into account the difficulty the Russian bureaucracy makes decisions with, this option seems to be almost incredible. This way is the most difficult but it seems to be the only right direction in the current state of affairs.
Nevertheless, all events that have taken place this year in the Olympic sports gives us to understand that we won't see a sport we used to like at stadiums and on TV screen soon: competitions without exceptions and tricks, without distrust, presuppositions and subjunctive mood. It seems we will have to be waiting for its return for several decades.