Translated material
Chronicle
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) intends to recheck several dozen doping samples of the winners and medalists of the 2006 Winter Olympic Games in Turin for the presence of the banned drug of a new generation of erythropoietin - CERA.
“We received additional information about the possible use of CERA in Turin before the banned drug entered the market. We have sent the relevant information to the IOC,” the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) said in a statement.
According to the current IOC rules, athletes' doping samples are stored for eight years in case new methods for detecting prohibited substances emerge. Let us recall that on the eve of the Beijing Olympics, two years after the Games in Turin, several cyclists were suspected of using CERA. However, the names of the violators were not made public, with the exception of one - David Rebellin, and the Olympic medalist in the group race was deprived of silver.
Commenting on the information regarding the re-checking of doping samples, First Deputy Chairman of the Executive Council of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RusADA) Alexander Derevoyedov expressed doubt that CERA could be detected in the samples of Russian athletes, recalling that recently our compatriots were caught using recombinant erythropoietin. True, as WADA and the IOC noted, if instead of CERA, EPO varieties are found in athletes’ doping tests, this does not mean that the offenders will not be punished accordingly.
Dementieva lost in Madrid
Russian Elena Dementieva suffered an unexpected defeat from Romanian Alexandra Dulgheru at a tennis tournament in Madrid, the prize fund of which is 3.5 million euros. The top-level tennis player lost in the second round to the 38th racket in the world - 1:6, 6:3, 5:7.
It is curious that at the previous tournament, which took place last week in Rome, Dulgheru also became the author of a sensation, beating another Russian woman in the second round, Dinara Safina, who was “seeded” third. In the third round of the Madrid tournament, the 20-year-old native of Bucharest will have to measure her strength with the Czech Lucia Safarova, who knocked out Maria Sharapova from further competition in the first round.
The number of Russian participants in the Madrid tournament was reduced to two after the first days of competition. Nadezhda Petrova emerged victorious in the Russian derby against Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (6:2, 7:5), and Mikhail Youzhny defeated Slovakian Lukas Lacko (2:6, 6:3, 6:1). After the opening match, Russian Igor Andreev was forced to withdraw from the competition, who, due to injury, did not finish the match with Romanian Victor Hanescu. He was followed by Argentinean David Nalbandian and Czech Tomas Berdych, who also had health problems.