Katja Schumacher has been cleared of everything…
it was announced by DTU…
reason?
I am sure she will find it difficult to create relationships with other triathletes with this cloud over her head.
From Holger Erdrcih at Proevent.com (on xtriathlon.com)
- during the process it was proved that the decision was perfectly illegal
- the court has cancelled all the doping accusations on Katja Schumacher, on jnauary 29, 2005. It was never proven that she has taken intentionally illegal drugs.
- KS has decided to start racing again june 1st, 2005.
nothing more about what was proven or not etc…
I am sure she will find it difficult to create relationships with other triathletes with this cloud over her head
Not if she shares!
Basicly, KS went into the hearing with a strong legal hand. There were numerous irregularities in the formalities, and so the suspension was thrown out on technicalities. It seems that the discussion was not about guilt or not, but about the DTU ignoring their own proceedures and therefore the suspension was invalid. There was also mention of samples being either open or leaking when they arrived in the laboratory. Some reports say just the A, some say both.
An unpleasant outcome to the whole affair. A clear guilty / not guilty verdict would have been much better.
After this is done KS does not look good and the DTU looks very bad. Hopefully something like this will not happen again.
Get ready for the same thing to happen with the UCI/WADA, Tyler Hamilton mess!
Press release from IM Germany:
Due to the court decision and confirmation of the German Triathlon Federation (DTU) from January 29th, 2005 Katja Schumacher will stay banned for competing in triathlon and duathlon events until June 1st, 2005. After having confirmed and corrected the ban for a doping offense the results of the women’s race on July 11th, 2004 are announced as followed:
Nina Kraft (GER) Nina Fischer (GER) Imke Schiersch (GER) Silke Hamacher (GER) Inge Löhle (GER).
Wih the final decision in this this case Katja Schumacher will not be allowed to race at the Opel IRONMAN GERMANY in the future.
Regarding Katja Schumacher’s accusation of a possible manipulation of her own special needs in the 2004 race we as the organizers give the following statement:
Special Needs are extra voluntary service by the organisation and is in the complete own response of the athlete. This service is conducted by long-term experienced and reliable volunteers (in fact in the year 2004 this position was managed and controlled by policemen in private duty). There’s no proof that Katja Schumacher used in 2004 the special needs service in our race. The accusation by Katja Schumacher is a disregard of the honour of all our volunteers and is not proven in any case. We can’t accept her behaviour and unfair attack against our volunteers
that announcement makes the whole thing even worse as IMG could just disregard a decision made by a tribunal and a fed. org. and decide for themselves who wins, who doesn’t, etc…
unbelievable…
Her is a link to an interview she gave with triathletemag.com. What it came down to was for her levels of testosterone that high she would have had to ingest/injectd 8-10 prior to the test being adminstered.
http://www.triathletemag.com/story.cfm?story_id=9388&publicationID=92&pageID=1705
http://www.triathletemag.com/story.cfm?story_id=9384&publicationID=92&pageID=1705
Would there be any benefit to taking testerone so close to the race? Is it a conceivable strategy to blow the test out to cover up normal high readings?
OTOH, I once failed a drug test b/c I took a drixoral (over the counter allergy medecine) The test came back as an off the charts positive for exctasy. The second lab said the off the charts reading should have caused the first lab to look closer at their test results.
Triathlete: Based on this, what agreement did you reach with the DTU?
Katja Schumacher: I could sue for the money I lost due to not racing, but I wanted to get it over with. The DTU asked me to agree not to file a lawsuit and asked me not to race until June. The DTU agreed to drop the case and not pursue it any further. I agreed, because I didn’t want to go through this anymore.
Questions:
Why would you want to reach an agreement if you have been cleared for doping.
Why would you agree NOT to sue them for loss income if you have been cleared of doping.
Why would you agree NOT to race until June if you have been cleared for doping.
Does this not seem strange?
Shawn
yes, i agree on this and I don’t believe for a second that she was clean…
However, what bothers me is that IMG extends the decision to ban her from the event, not taking into account the DTU’s decision etc.
What happens if someone really is innocent?
It just sends the wrong message, which is that IMG takes unilateral decision and ignore the decision of the DTU, a federal organization they depend on…
"What happens if someone really is innocent? "
Ha ha ha ha ha ha!!! Wheew. Oh, man. Ha! Damn. Now that IS funny.
no it’s not…
it happens with murder cases…it can happen with athletes as well…
However, what bothers me is that IMG extends the decision to ban her from the event, not taking into account the DTU’s decision etc.
What happens if someone really is innocent?
It just sends the wrong message, which is that IMG takes unilateral decision and ignore the decision of the DTU, a federal organization they depend on…
IMG is a privately-run event, and is not sanctioned by organized triathlon (ITU and the national federations). So, they can do whatever they want.
The way I read their statement, they are not banning her because of the testosterone – they’re banning her because she is accusing the volunteers and the race organizers of tampering with her needs bag! I’d throw her out of my races too.
They’re saying, “Hey – if you think we’re such scumbags and crooks, then stay the hell out of our races.” Sounds entirely reasonable to me.
What a mess! This looks like the classic loose-loose situation where no one looks good and no one is happy.
It would seem there is still a great deal of information that is not out in the public domain.
Fleck
loose-loose situation
Don’t give that sneaky Francois an opportunity to correct your grammar - he’s never let me live it down 
.
I don’t think this is correct.
IMG is a privately run event that still has to comply with the DTU rules…
the whole thing plain sucks…
On the one hand, doping procedures that are handled improperly leading to possibly false positive AND false negative. Also allowing for drug cheat to get away with it.
Then a Federation making a deal with an athlete for money reasons.
Then a race organizer, under the direction of the above Federation who says “screw your decision, we will do what we want”…
Looks like doping problems are not anywhere near being solved…
To me the main issues with doping are:
- they are not homogeneous between sports
- they are not homogeneous betwen countries
and it seems now that some can just ignore the decisions…
The only loose thing here are the DTU procedures.
Remember that the procedures are designed to protect the athletes. Samples can’t be subject to tampering and the procedures are in place to guarentee that it doesn’t happen.