A couple of days ago, I saw an interesting article (via cyclingfansanonymous, I think) that throws a whole new twist into the story of doping and how athletes can get away with it — at least for a while. The article quoted Stefan Matschiner, who claimed that one way he managed to keep his clients (such as Bernhard Kohl, the cyclist) from being caught by the anti-doping authorities was through a bit of bribery. Matschiner apparently paid some people at various “WADA-accredited laboratories in Central Europe” to test samples from his clients, with an eye towards figuring out just how much of a banned substance the athletes could use without getting caught.
The article was vague, and it took a bit before I found other articles referencing the same story. But apparently the genesis of the story begins with an interview that Matschiner gave to German television network ARD. This morning, VeloNews ran an Agence France Presse article in which Kohl backs up Matchiner’s story.
Now retired from the sport, Kohl appeared to back up those revelations when he said Matschiner paid just 150 to 500 Euros a time to laboratory employees for the testing of samples so that his athletes could avoid being caught by anti-doping tests.
“Matschiner would have our samples analyzed so we could find out exactly how far we could go (with drugs) without being caught,” Kohl told the Kurier newspaper.
Kohl said he personally benefited from two tests, one following his use of the blood booster EPO (erythropoietin), another for testosterone – both banned products.
“That way you find out exactly how much you could take at night to avoid being detected the next day,” added the Austrian, who was caught for using a new version of EPO called CERA that was previously thought undetectable.
Of course, the best laid plans of mice and men don’t always work out. Despite whatever testing Matschiner was able to get done for Bernhard Kohl last year, the Austrian cyclist still wound up testing positive for CERA. But what Matschiner organized was a time-honored way of beating the anti-doping tests. One which goes back as far as the mid- to late-1970s and the East German sports program, as documented by Steven Ungerleider in his book Faust’s Gold, Inside the East German Doping Machine.
And, apparently, it’s not just Matschiner who had an elaborate program aimed at beating the anti-doping tests. In early 2007, AFP reported that the Quickstep team had a little help avoiding positive tests, too.
An anonymous team rider reportedly told the newspaper [Het Latste Nieuws] of organized doping and recreational drug use, which he said is able to flourish because the team is helped by informant at the UCI who allegedly warned of impending drug tests.
Which is another way to keep from testing positive. If you know when you’ll be tested, you’ll know when to avoid taking anything that would lead to an unfortunate result.
There are a few questions I’d like to see answered in regards to Matschiner’s revelations. First, who approached who first? By the sounds of things, Matschiner was able to find people willing to do things for him, for a fee. But did he really corrupt these people, or were they already corrupt and seeking ways to make a bit of extra spending money?
Another question that comes to my mind is which labs Matschiner used to run his tests. Which WADA-accredited labs in Central Europe are we talking about? Which employees are we talking about? Anyone high up, or just your basic Joe or Josephine LabRat? And did those individuals merely perform tests to help athletes evade detection, or did they make sure that athletes who were tested in competition passed with flying colors?
For that matter, is it possible that these people weren’t so much as being bribed to do certain things, but rather, they were blackmailing various athletes. As in with a nudge and a wink saying, “If you don’t pay us, we can’t guarantee that you won’t come up positive.” Or perhaps an even more explicit threat to actually cause a positive result.
Whose anti-doping tests did these people work on during the time this was going on? Did anyone they assisted eventually test positive in the same labs? If any blackmailing by the lab staff was going on, did anyone refuse to pay, and if so, did they subsequently test positive?
Can we actually trust the results of any of the tests performed by the lab personnel who were a part of this, or should all of those results be thrown out — even if it means overturning a doping finding or two?
If what Matschiner and Kohl say is true, this is a serious stain on the integrity of the anti-doping agencies and labs. WADA needs to do a thorough investigation to determine which employees at which labs were in on the scheme, and offer a full public accounting of that investigation and its results. In other words, transparency, which is not something WADA is well acquainted with. And they need to determine whether or not people like Matschiner were able to corrupt the employees, or whether there were corrupt employees who were doing a bit of “freelance” work in their spare time. Because, if it’s the latter, WADA and their accredited labs need to find a better way of screening potential employees.
It sounds a bit like the lab staff were doing a bit of freelancing, given the relatively small amounts Kohl claims were paid for each test. But that may not be true. Until an investigation is done, we don’t really know the full extent of what was going on — if anything was going on at all. (What if Matschiner made it look like he had such a program, took money from his clients to pay for such work, and then pocketed the money, instead?)
The World Anti-Doping Agency was born partly out of a need to protect the Olympic brand name. If it turns out that several of WADA’s accredited labs really are corrupted, and if lab officials knew or suspected such activities were going on and did nothing to stop those activities, then it suggests that the effort has been more about window-dressing than solving the problem of doping in sports.
WADA needs to take action to find out who the lab personnel were that worked with Matschiner (and anyone else, for that matter), and it needs to determine whether any of the affected lab’s management knew what was going on. Once that is done, they need to demonstrate that sanctions for bad behavior will be imposed on lab personnel or, where appropriate, on entire labs. To do otherwise would be to diminish or destroy the credibility of the agency’s efforts.
WOW! Rant, that is really something….and it would explain a lot!
If this is true, this is huge.
The ADAs all believe that large numbers of athletes are doping and getting away with it. One way to do this is to dope enough to get a performance-enhancing effect, but not enough to trigger the doping tests. It’s a little bit like driving on a highway where the speed limit is 65, but you know that the cops won’t ticket you unless you’re driving over 70. You can safely break the law and drive 70 to your heart’s content, and get to where you want to go a little faster. The key is to know how much speeding (or doping) the cops (or ADAs) are willing to tolerate.
If the ADAs are selling this information, then we can figure that a lot of athletes are driving at 70, so to speak.
Theresa,
It would, wouldn’t it?
Larry,
If it’s true, I wonder if it is the ADA equivalent of the revelations that came out in the wake of a certain bungled burglary in a certain hotel/apartment complex (located next to the Kennedy Center) some 27 years ago. I guess time will tell.
In part, how big a deal this could become depends on how big an operation we are talking about, and how it was implemented. Did Matschiner do some calculations and figure out (perhaps tentatively) what dosage would avoid detection and still provide a performance benefit? If that was what was done, it is possible that few if any of the samples submitted tested positive. The lab personnel involved just might be able to claim they thought that they were helping a team do legitimate tests a la Slipstream and the like. On the other hand, if the scheme was to submit a large number of samples representing different dosages and determine that way how much could be taken, then certainly a number of samples would have tested positive and I would think that a WADA lab employee would have at least an ethical duty to report such.
Of course, Matschiner might have spun some story like “We think we might have some riders doping, and we would like to deal with it before it becomes public. Test these samples for us and see if any are positive; we can then deal with the rider(s) involved.
Ultimately, I feel that what will happen is that some low-level labrats will take the fall for this, while higher-ups will deny all knowledge of this, and WADA going along with this. It would be too damaging for WADA to admit that this was a big problem.
I guess I’m still a little baffled. Why would Matschiner bribe Joe/Josephine LabRat to do something that could be ordered and performed legally? There are many labs that will conduct sample analysis on anonymized human samples for a fee. This is done in the context of legal drug development all the time.
Not getting it….
eightzero,
That’s a good point. Why have the people in the anti-doping labs test things, when such tests could be done elsewhere — and perhaps even for a lower fee. Perhaps Matschiner wanted testing that can’t be done elsewhere (perhaps some of the EPO testing, for example), or perhaps he wanted to see how the specific testing at various labs would do in catching his athletes. There are many questions that need to be answered. Unfortunately, William may be right, a few low-level people will be hung out to dry, and that will be that. Then again, they may totally bury it and the vague stories we’ve heard will be the end of the matter.
Perhaps Matschiner thought the nature and quality of tests at a WADA lab were different than in other labs. If WADA testing was better, then he’d need to lower the “safe” dosage, but if WADA testing was not as good, then he might be able to get away with a higher dosage, and hence more performance improvement.
Whether the payments in question truly are bribes, in the legal sense, I don’t know. To me, a bribe implies influencing someone to do something he wouldn’t otherwise. Now, I don’t think that WADA labs are in the business of doing testing for private groups or individuals, so one might consider it bribery paying someone to conduct these tests, although it might not be an illegal bribe. Is it illegal to slip the maitre d’ a dixie to get a good table? But then, perhaps a bribe was used to ensure anyone involved in the lab kept quiet.
8-0 and the gang –
I think you guys are missing the point. This is not about the testing of samples; it’s about the testing of the labs that test the samples.
Let’s start with something we all know: it is possible to dope and get away with it. There are a number of ways to do this. You can dope in quantities too small to be detected. Or you can dope sufficiently in advance of the doping test, giving your body sufficient time to pass the dope (or enough of the dope) out of your system. Or you can use various masking agents to hide the dope from the testers. There are likely other strategies, and naturally, determined dopers would probably use a combination of these strategies.
All of this is simple enough in theory. The truly difficult matter is to develop a doping program that is both performance-enhancing AND undetectable by the testing labs. We could imagine a determined doping wizard, creating dozens of urine samples from dozens of athletes using dozens of different doping samples, then sending the samples to a lab to see which samples would and would not test positive.
But what would be the advantage of sending the samples to an ADA doping lab, instead of the Quest or other neighborhood medical lab? Well, remember that your normal, run-of-the-mill testing lab may not perform all of the tests in the repertoire of the ADA labs. For example, the isotope ratio testing used to convict Floyd Landis is not performed by many labs. Also, remember that strictly speaking, there are no standard testing procedures used by WADA labs. Instead, each lab is free to set up its own procedures, so long as the procedures meet minimum WADA standards. This means that, in theory at least, different WADA labs can test the same samples and reach different results, even if the labs run their procedures flawlessly and without error.
In short: if you want to determine if a doping strategy is safe, the only way to know for sure is to test whether the doping can be detected by an ADA lab.
Larry,
That’s a good analysis and seems like the best explanation for why Matschiner would want people at the ADA labs doing his tests. I wonder if the labs allow their staff to do “freelance work” on the side to make a few extra euros. It seems to me that the labs would have policies against that, which suggests that the fee/bribe paid to the lab staff (assuming Matschiner did so and he didn’t just lead various people on) was to compensate them for their time, maybe a bit of expense, and for the risk involved. The payments Kohl quotes sound awful low, though, given that these people might be risking their full-time jobs to do a bit of extra work for Matschiner. It leaves me wondering how many other coaches/managers/teams might have been doing the same thing, and how lucrative the overall scheme was to those on the inside.
“I used to be disgusted
And now I try to be amused……….”
Declan Patrick MacManus
Rant, the whole story is curious-strange.
For certain the labs would not permit their staff to do freelance work, at least not at the lab. It’s possible that staff at an ADA lab might want to “moonlight” and do some lab work at home, or at another lab, and that the ADA lab might tolerate this. It would depend on the ADA lab’s employee policies. But I can’t see the ADA lab allowing its staff to do freelance work AT the ADA lab, with the lab’s supplies and equipment. That would be like allowing GM workers to build a few “freelance” cars at the plant.
Remember all we learned in the Landis case: strictly speaking, ADA labs are supposed to be able to document every thing that goes on in the lab. If lab employees are performing freelance work at the lab, that would unnecessarily complicate the lab’s documentation. Moreover, the lab workers would have to comply with all lab procedures in performing its freelance work, or else risk compromising the work performed by the lab for its regular customers. For example, we heard a lot in the Landis case about chain of custody. Imagine the possible effect on ordinary course chain of custody if “freelance” samples were floating in and out of the lab with no chain of custody whatsoever.
Also, as we discussed above, the supposedly “freelance” testing being performed here was for the purpose of making it easier for athletes to cheat, thereby undercutting the role played by the ADAs. This is yet another reason why ADA labs would prohibit any kind of employee freelancing.
So I think we can rule out the possibility that this work was being performed freelance by lab employees with the tacit permission of the labs involved. Instead, I can see only two possibilities: (1) the employees were performing this work in secret, in violation of lab policies, and (2) the employees were performing this work at the direction of their bosses at the lab. I admit that the amount being paid for this testing seems absurdly small, given the risks involved if anyone was caught doing this work. It’s curious-strange all right.
All this is possible, and certainly worth scrutiny. However, I think at this point the inquiry should start at Metschiner’s story. It has all the hallmarks of being made up BS in an effort to shift the blame, obfuscate the truth, hide the omerta. This is just me sticking to Occim’s Razor: it is far more plausible that a cheater can spin a story like this (that as far as I can tell at this point, has no basis in demonstrated fact) than some mass conspiracy involving free lancing, bribes, illegal activity, and “one stop shopping for all your doping wizardry.”
This Story is the converse of the dancing monkey we all saw in Landis’ case. If the dancing monkey can deflect reasoned analysis of the facts, then why not break him out on the stage? Where it was the anti-doping authorities that broke out the DM in Landis’ case, here it is Kohl/Metschiner breaking out one of their own. Maybe they were paying attention to what worked in the past; what was good for the goose surely is good for the gander. Make up a BS story to cover up details, and no one will see the emperor lacks clothes.
In both cases, I simply ask “show me.” When I see reliable facts, not allegations, I can decide. Until then, I simply prefer to never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity.
That said, I am awfully suspicious that there are labs (and one in partcular) that are long in the stupidity department.
It was universal amongst any employer I ever had that doing free lance work on company time and/or with company supplies and equipment was forbidden. Usually, no one got upset if you spent a few moments on a company calculator balancing your checkbook, or phoned home to tell the wife you’d be a bit late. And of course, it is not too uncommon for people to do things behind the boss’s back, so to speak. I’ll even confess to doing some things like this.
But, in my mind, it one thing to borrow a few tools to fix your car or whatever, and another thing to do work which may be in direct conflict with your agency’s purpose.
But then, 8-0 may have it right. This could just be an effort to spread FUD about WADA and their labs. Spread enough and just maybe someone might get off, or at least, might not suffer so much in the infamous Court of Public Opinion.
8-0, dancing monkey? I don’t think so. If the IRS accuses me of tax fraud, how does it help me to claim that I’ve been paying bribes to IRS auditors?
Perhaps Matschiner is hoping to make a deal with the authorities: to name the names of crooked lab employees in exchange for lighter doping penalties. But if so, that’s not a DM situation, that’s just the usual police business of getting low level crooks to rat on higher level crooks.
Larry,
Curious-strange is a good description. Judging by what the head of the Austrian anti-doping lab says, if any such work happened there it would be against the rules and would be detected. Makes me think that would be true elsewhere, too, although I imagine that enterprising employees might find a way of doing things without being caught.
eightzero,
I share that “show me” attitude. Matschiner needs to provide more specifics about who he paid, when and how much, along with what testing they performed, and perhaps even copies of the test results. It starts with his story. If he can provide more details, then the story will have more meat than it currently does. From there, it’s a matter of verifying what he says and following wherever the trails may lead.
Who is this Lsrry guy, and can we buy him a vowel?