The Hungarian Anti-Doping Association says that two swimmers are under suspicion of violating anti-doping protocols, but has so far declined to name the two athletes involved – citing privacy rights.
While the association said in a Facebook post that they would not reveal the identities of the athletes yet, Hungarian news site Index, the most popular news site in Hungary, says that they know the name of the two athletes, but “cannot name the athletes for the time being,” also citing privacy rights.
Index did, however, say that both of the suspected athletes are butterfliers, one male and one female. “The male is a renowned Olympian, and the female is a Hungarian champion,” the site says.
Index reports that the positive tests came via the biological passport program. In this program, athletes regularly submit to blood testing, which allows anti-doping authorities to watch for changes in levels of certain chemical markers to identify possible doping violations.
Index says that they received information that includes the name of the two swimmers and that the biological passports “show a significant difference compared to normal.” They declined to name the swimmers until the Hungarian anti-doping authority did the same.
“You can guess, but asking their names to the head of the Hungarian Antidoping Group is a fruitless attempt, because the two Hungarian swimmers suspected of doping are protecting their personal rights,” Dr. Agnes Tiszeker said in an interview with SzPress, translated from Hungarian. She is the president of HUNADO. “They look forward to the events of the following weeks under the protection of those rights. Confidentiality regulations bind the leaders of their sport club too.”
The manager of the Hungarian anti-doping authority has already pushed back on public opinions of anonymous experts over the results.
The process for blood passport programs under the WADA program first runs results through software that makes mathematical evaluations of the results. If the software raises suspicion, a panel of three WADA experts evaluate the results to decide if charges should be drawn.
These experts do not receive the identity of the athletes or any other personal data, and so only have the results of the blood passport doping control samples, and science, to make their decision. The goal is to prevent them from being influenced by human factors.
Hungary was represented in butterfly events by three different men at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Let me further complicate the guessing game: Soós Csaba confirmed that the news are true but “there are differences between doping and violating the doping rules”
Based on this it is not out of the picture that recreational drugs, prescription medicines or some other things like “too much vitamin B12” are involved.
Uhh…no. Blood passport issues wouldn’t be triggered by things like vitamin B12, caffeine, recreational drugs, etc. To my understanding, this would most likely be the result of hormone manipulation or blood doping.
Two names consistently coming up. ‘Renowned’ was pushing the envelope a little.
There are some – intentionally- misleading statements in the original article. While it said both swimmers are butterfliers, you should know that by default most of the Hungarian swimmers are butterfliers ( someone who competes in this specific swimming) ). But it said nowhere that the Olympian suspect competed in butterfly on the respective Olympic game(s). Hence I would rather dig in which Hungarian Olympic swimmer has not been in any major event since March/April when his name was listed. For the women suspect it is probably someone who is not quoted in the international swimming community. Otherwise they would have used more hints…
Yes, by defination Richard Marton and Laszlo Cseh could also be options. Both are butterfliers and Olympians, although not competing in butterfly events in Tokyo. But it doesn’t seem like them either. I can’t think of anyone else.
It could also be Holoda…
Come to think of it, if I were one of the other possible suspects who was not accused, I would just say so. Nothing prevents them from clearing their own names, and that would of course reveal the culprits. I personally wouldn’t have my name be speculated about and dragged through the mud.
I think this is the reason why the did not start it. Because at the end the public can figure it out. As the swimming community in Hungary not that large, they want to protect their friends/team mate etc. And obviosly, also the national federation won’t be happy if some of the swimmers just start that.
I am corious who could be the the female swimmer. Most of newspaper stated the “most famous hungarian swimmer is not involved.”
According to the news the female is a “hungarian champion”. It’s interesting the only female name I heard is as famous least the male. But I have doubt.
I love how everyone here is title-dropping rather than name-dropping even though we all know who the options are…
Rumors saying it’s Kenderesi.
He hasn’t competed since June, missing both the European championships and the national short course championships.
one of 3 male suspects in the top 3 for male swimmers in the world currently, one of them is an olympic medalist and the other a sc wr holder. “renowned olympian” is simply too vague to draw a definitive conclusion, as it doesn’t say how renowned they are, and all 3 are renowned in some way
Yeah I’m surprised at how quickly people narrowed it down to two. All three butterfliers at the Olympics for Hungary are renowned.
It could be even narrowed down to 1.
The probability of it being Szabo is low, considering he was still competing in Melbourne days ago.
https://magyarnemzet.hu/sport/2022/12/ismert-magyar-olimpikon-uszo-keveredett-doppinggyanuba?continueFlag=e64c0e1fa73e7082c8d326e5a1fffc73 Magyar Nemzet, another Hungarian media site, writes that according to their information, the male swimmer is not the best-known athlete.
Meanwhile, there are a lot of things that point to Kenderesi. Rumors surrounding the pool, his absence from competitions etc.
This article says that the most famous hungarian swimmer is not involved. The most famous hungarian swimmer is a female.
Before this senstence, the article says that the male is a well-known olimpian and the female is a hungarian champ.
So according to this article the most fanous hungarian swimmer not specified as male.
But this is just a correction. I don’t think also that the most famous man swimmer is involved either.
I would also just like to add that “renowned” is not exactly the best translation for the wording of Index, “known” would be much more fitting.