The Russian Anti-Doping Association, RUSADA, has issued a pair of suspensions to swimmers, both with cases dating back to 2023.
Aleksandr Borovtsov, 27, and Denis Beskorovainyi, 23, both swam their last meets in 2023.
Beskorovainyi, who represented the Moscow Region, last swam at the December 2023 Vladimir Salnikov Cup. There, his best finish was 4th in the 100 IM in a time of 53.44. That 100 IM was his best event, and in 2022 he finished 5th at the Russian Short Course Championships and Solidarity Games in a best time of 53.23.
He was given a two year suspension, backdated to the start of his provisional suspension on January 9, 2024. The shorter ban length implies that the arbitrator(s) who decided on the suspension believed that he did not intentionally dope.
Borovtsov was given a suspension of 4 years and 6 months starting on the day of the decision, but with credit for the served period of the provisional suspension back to December 18, 2023. A suspension of longer than 4 years implies intentional doping and aggravating factors in the decision, though no specific justification for the ban length has been announced.
Borovtsov tested positive for metabolites of drostanolone, tamoxifen, and anastrozole, which is a cocktail of an anabolic steroid and hormone modulators.
His last meet of record that SwimSwam could identify came in July 2022 at the Russian Championships. There he finished 19th in the 50 free (23.21) and 30th in the 100 free (50.89) in long course. In his best event, the 50 free, his best time of 22.77 came in October 2020 in long course.
Neither swimmer represented Russia internationally in any significant way, though Borovtsov did swim at a Russian-hosted World Cup meet in 2018.
They’ll expect one of us in the wreckage, brother!
Wild to see tamoxifen be used for performance enhancing purposes. It’s a drug that my wife is on post beating breast cancer for blocking estrogen.
Believe it or not, almost all performance enhancing drugs were developed for a purpose other than making people better at sports. Estrogen blockers, ADD meds (which are somehow okay if you get a permission slip), and female fertility drugs are ones you see people getting popped for a lot, and none of them were designed with the goal of enhancing sports performance.
4 words that are usually not uttered together: “Russia Hands Doping Suspensions…”
I meeeeeean…Russia historically has led the world in doping violations, though India dethroned them last year: https://sportstar.thehindu.com/other-sports/india-tops-wada-doping-violations-report-2023/article70419526.ece#:~:text=For%20the%20first%20time%20India,doping%20country'%20in%20the%20world.
I guess I don’t have any data on which countries suspend their own athletes the most.
I can’t help but wonder if this is a Putinesque chess game: “Let’s can a couple of nobodies and make it look like RUSADA is not a joke.”
I mean. Maybe, but there’s no more evidence of that in Russia than anywhere else. And some of the swimmers suspended have been fairly high profile. Never their superstars.
Russia handing out a couple of bans to nobody’s two years later who were most likely retiring anyway. Probably paid the swimmers off to make RUSADA look good.
Damn!
I just said the same thing above, but you say it better.
Bottom line: You cannot trust ANYTHING that comes out of Putin’s Russia.
And one of those has been suspended until the end of next week
Paid? More like ripped up their draft notices.
Sacrificial lambs.
Precisely!
RUSADA. Lol.