White as snow

A Finnish female skier yesterday tested positive for doping.

This is the second time in her skiing career that she has tested positive and both her A-sample and her B-sample were positive in a doping test. First time she tested positive with then also traces of the so called EPO-hormone 2003 as a member of the FIS when she was part of the Finnish cross country skiing team, and now this second time she tested positive for the same illegal substance, this time as member of the International biathlon federation and she may be banned from competing for the rest of her life but that won’t be decided upon until next week

I always though that if you were to cheat you should do it so nobody sees it, and if caught cheating then don’t do it again.

Most of the Finnish cross country team that was caught red handed winning their own hosted the 2001 world championship in Lahti when 6 Finnish skiers were tested positive for doping with Hemohes. Just days before the skiing event a doctor’s bag with bloody syringes and empty, used bags of the Hemohes plasma-expanding fluid were found forgotten on a petrol station, and those championships were for long called the Hemohes championships here in Finland. The doctor’s bag was in the end were discovered to belong to the Finnish skiing team coach who was made to resign together with a couple of other coaches. This same female skier that now tested positive was also competing in cross country skiing in Lahti but her test was then clean and she was not among the tested negative for doping.

Quite embarrassing actually, it must’ve been, hosting the world championships during which most members of the home team tests positive for doping.
Anyway, now the Finnish biathlon association is demanded an explanation by the Finnish minister of sports whether they knew about the doping, if and who was involved in it etc in two weeks time as they are sponsored by the government and this might mean having refund paid sponsorships. This particular illegal doping substance is also said to be difficult to get by which also raises the question about how and where it was obtained from.

In any case skiing has got once again got a bad reputation here in Finland which probably means a major set-back of many sponsors withdrawing their support.

In the meantime southern Finland has been caught in a blizzard with hard wind gusts. This now means that all of Finland now will be white with snow but this is still far away from the normal amounts of snow at this time of year. Or maybe blown over by snow it should be in this case. At least that will mean favourable skiing conditions for the general population, that is, if the weather keeps cold enough for it to not melt away during the weekend.