Szabo

[Guest]

The Times from London is reprting that the French police found a suspected banned substance in a car owned by Gabrielle Szabo. Let's hope it proves to be false. Here's the link:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 07,00.html

[Guest]

I just discovered this board yesterday...

The post above is one of the reasons this board will become such a treasure.

[Guest]

If I told Gabi once, I told her a thousand times, "I don't care if Ben Johnson is letting his Ferrari go cheap; don't buy it!"

[Guest]

Here's more detail. It says that the IOC no longer classifies it as an endurance enhancer but it's still on the banned list. What sort of sense does that make?

http://www.iaaf.org/news/Kind=2/newsId=21163.html

[Guest]

Whoops...wrong link...

http://www.sportserver.com/track_field/ ... 5282c.html

[Guest]

Tell me... SO WHAT if the substance is found to be a banned drug? That proves that she had a banned drug in her car that she wasn't driving, not that she used a banned drug, or even that she was in posession of a banned drug. If she doesn't test positive or admit to use (which she's obviously not going to), what can anybody do about it?

[Guest]

The fact that Jos Hermens - who also manages Geb among others - is trying to do damage control adds to the stink. Some guys joke that only white males are subjected to true, year round random drug testing. Maybe their jokes aren't far off.

[Guest]

If you were her manager, what would you be doing if not damage control?

[Guest]

I think he's referring to the fact that someone with Hermen's rep. is the one who turns out to be managing her, and is backpedalling like mad. Whether his rep is deserved or not, I'll leave that to another thread. But I've heard all the stories.

[Guest]

This story, like any story that throws suspicion of drug use on an athlete, saddens me. Because lack of conclusive proof of drug use does not prove innocence, once an athlete is suspected it casts an inescapable shadow over his/her career. Whether or not the drugs actually are Szabo's and whether or not their use has enhanced her past performances, everything she has done and everything she does do on the track will now be suspect. A frustrating reality for both the athlete and the fan.

[Guest]

More from the BBC. It appears that Szabo grassed on a 10k runner, Mihaela Botezan. Very odd and sad. Still, I can't understand why the IOC says this stuff is no longer considered as performance enhancing yet is still on the banned list. Can anyone shed any light on that statement? Since discovering this site last week my production at work has fallen 50%! I hope the T&FN guys realise how lucky they are that this is work for them!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/athletics/3031535.stm

[Guest]

>I think he's referring to the fact that someone
>with Hermen's rep. is the one who turns out to be
>managing her, and is backpedalling like mad.
>Whether his rep is deserved or not, I'll leave
>that to another thread. But I've heard all the
>stories.>>

Stories are for the letsrun board; let's keep this one for facts. Please?

[Guest]

Just let her off , there was no intent here. She had nothing in her system, did not fail a test. If her Federation reaches the same conclusion as the USOC , Carl Lewis case, which was no intent , than that's the end of the story. Other countries should adopt the USA style of protecting athletes.

[Guest]

I think many other countries DO protect their athletes far more than the US does.

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Can't really think of any... only the UK comes close.

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oh come now, without needing to name names, there are still countries where not only is the federation complicit in a doping program, but the government itself has it as a national policy. We didn't move to a new planet when the Berlin Wall fell.

[Guest]

pavkka, where are you from? does your country have an out-of-competition testing program?

the US does, and now it's run independently of the Olympic federation and USATF.

how many countries have that? the answer is very few, not the other way around.

[Guest]

One question. What exactly is "calf serum"? I have read in every news account of this incident that this is what Actovegin is made from, with no further explanation.

[Guest]

The UK does not "protect" it's athletes, they've been doing random year-round testing for years. No clue what calf serum is, probably something to make them grow faster and leaner would be my guess. I think athletes are still ahead of the testers though, wonder who was sitting around thinking, "hmmmm...calf serum, think I'll try some of that"!

[Guest]

>pavkka, where are you from? does your country
>have an out-of-competition testing
>program?

the US does, and now it's run
>independently of the Olympic federation and
>USATF.

how many countries have that? the
>answer is very few, not the other way around.

What good is a testing program if positive test results are never published and no one ever gets banned? We only hear about these positives if something leaks out into the press...

[Guest]

No athlete with any sense drives a car carrying banned substances across France. Numerous Tour de France competitors have discovered that. It's sensible to get someone else to do it then when the police search the car it's nothing to do with the athlete. But the gendarmerie seem to be eager to announce their results. Strange

[Guest]

according to eurosport.com

" Athletics 16:39
French border police, who seized drugs in a car belonging to Gabriela Szabo, clear the Romanian champ of any wrong doing"

http://www.eurosport.com/home/pages/V3/ ... 4607.shtml

[Guest]

Even if she is completely blameless, it is a sad state of affairs in the sport when these drugs are at such a saturation point that they are floating around and ending up in cars, hotel rooms, toothpaste tubes and the like.