Free delivery for orders over $400Linked to this post is a translated voiceover of “Doping – Top Secret: The Shadowy World of Athletics“. This is the ARD Documentary at the center of the recent doping scandal, which some are suggesting maybe the largest in the history of athletics. In case you missed the story, it concerns a journalist from Germany who was given access to more than 12,000 official blood tests on athletes from a whistleblower at the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). They were reportedly run on more than 5,000 individual athletes, and taken between the years 2001 and 2012, up to and including the 2012 London Olympics. It is, quite simply, the largest leak of athletes’ tested blood values the public has ever seen.
The journalist brought the database of lab test reports to colleagues at The Sunday Times, who analyzed the data with the help of experts. What they found was quite striking, I suspect especially so to those that have an illusion sport is fairly clean. Looking at the blood cell counts, more than 800 athletes (1 in 7) had values that a doping expert described as abnormal and suspicious of blood doping. The expert was quoted as saying that, “Some results were simply grotesque in their extremely. They were quite easily the worst that I have ever seen.”. Suspicious results were found after 146 medal-winning performances, including 55 gold medals. Suspicious values were also found after medal-winning performances in London, in spite of the attention paid to keeping the games clean. Russian athletes were most likely to have abnormal blood cell values, followed by Kenyan athletes. Those of a top UK athlete was also among the suspicious reports.
“Some results were simply grotesque in their extremely. They were were quite easily the worst that I have ever seen.”
This really is an excellent documentary and a fascinating story. I highly recommend giving it a view of the topic of sports doping is of interest to you.
References: