Yelena Soboleva yesterday denied she had manipulated her doping samples, after the world indoor 1,500m champion and six other leading Russian women athletes were banned ahead of the Beijing Olympics.
“I call what is happening now a provocation staged deliberately to knock out the potential medalists right before the Olympics,” Kommersant business daily quoted Soboleva as saying.
“All of us had the best chances to win medals in Beijing. I stress once again that I reject the accusations brought against me by the IAAF [athletics’ world governing body],” she said. “I also ask my fans to forgive me for being charged with what I am actually not guilty of.”
PHOTO: EPA
“The accusations are curious,” Soboleva said on Thursday in a televised interview. “The time was carefully chosen — we practically could do nothing — neither file an appeal nor look into the case. We are simply put aside and our hands are tied.”
Russian newspapers said the bans appeared to be a foreign plot to deprive the national team of at least five golds in Beijing. The Games start on Friday.
“Five of our golds have already been flushed down the drain,” the Izvestia daily said.
The seven banned are: twice world 1,500m champion Tatyana Tomashova, Soboleva, distance runners Yuliya Fomenko and Svetlana Cherkasova, European discus champion Darya Pishchalnikova, former hammer world record holder Gulfia Khanafeyeva and former world 5,000m champion Olga Yegorova. All except Cherkasova had qualified for the Olympics.
The athletes were charged with fraudulently substituting urine during the doping control process, and suspended by the IAAF. The Russian media alleged the athletes’ samples had been manipulated by a western company.
“The IAAF could do nothing better ahead of the games in Beijing,” All Russia Athletics Federation president Valentin Balakhnichev said of the suspensions. “It’s not a civilized approach.”
“Switched” read a front-page banner headline in Sport-Express daily printed in large type normally reserved for the death of national leaders.
“We have yet to realize the scale of the catastrophe,” the newspaper wrote. “It appears all of [the female athletes] are merely hostages in somebody else’s very big game.”
“There will be a special inquiry,” Russian Olympic Committee anti-doping chief Nikolay Durmanov said. “A less important question but a more pertinent one is: Why is the issue of last year’s tests emerging just a week ahead of the Games? Couldn’t this question have been discussed with us in May, June or March?”
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