Polite Dissent

Olga Pyleva, the Russian biathelete who won Silver in the 15km biathalon was disqualified and stripped of her medal today after her urine revealed traces of the banned drug carphedon.

Developed in the USSR, carphedon was developed to treat certain neurological conditions such as amnesia. There are claims that it also increases stamina and makes a person more resistant to the cold, though evidence for these effects are sketchy at best. Carphedon is banned by the IOC and other sports organizations just in case it actually works.

The defense of Pyleva mounted by the Russian team raises more questions than it answers.

As is usual in these cases, the athlete always denies any personal responsibility and blames their physician or trainer. In this case, the blame is being placed on her doctor. “This was 100 percent the physician’s mistake,” states Dr. Nikolai Durmanov, the head of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency. He defends Pyleva, saying that the doctor that treated her for a sprained ankle gave her an over-the-counter medicine that contained carphedon, yet it failed to list the substance in question as an ingredient.

I find this statement interesting because several months ago a similar allegation surfaced in professional cycling and one of their physicians stated that carphedon was not available in any drug on the market. According to that report, carphedon is only available in its pure form, and then only from certain web sites. It’s also interesting that a doctor is being blamed for presribing an over-the-counter drug, and a drug that was mislabeled at that. Did this doctor know this drug he supposedly prescibed contained carphedon or not? If so, what’s he doing treating Olympic athletes? If not, then it’s hardly his fault. That is if this “over-the-counter-drug-containing-carphedon-but-not-labeled-as-such” actually exists. (Yes, I know that doctors routinely suggest over-the-counter medications; I certainly do. But in this instance it smacks of a team frantically trying to set up several layers of deniability between their athlete and a positive drug test.)

Durmanov continues: “She used this product openly. She thought it was a vitamin. It’s an accident.” Again, an interesting statement. Durmanov is now saying saying that Pyleva was using the medicine — given to treat a sprained ankle — as a vitamin. While this doesn’t necessarily contradict what he said earlier, it doesn’t make a great deal of sense either.

In all fairness, Pyleva did pass two urine tests in January. However, given her team’s patchwork defense of her most recent test, color me very suspicious.

Links:

• The MSNBC News article about Olga Pyleva
• The Wikipedia entry on carphedon (updated today!)
• A Cyclingnews.com article about Danilo Hondo’s positive drug test