On the day before the World Anti-Doping Agency revoked the accreditation of Russia’s only ISL-certified anti-doping lab, Russian president Vladimir Putin says that he’s “totally certain” that Meldonium “influences the result.
“This substance was never considered as doping,” The Associated Press has quoted Putin as saying during a marathon phone-in program on Russian television. “It doesn’t influence the result. That’s totally certain. It just keeps the heart muscles in good condition under high load.”
While it’s become widely-known that the drug was very popular among Russian athletes, Putin says he doesn’t think the country was being targeted by the drug being outlawed on January 1st of this year after a recent run of Russian doping scandals.
Meldonium is responsible for the positive tests of Russian World Champion swimmer Yulia Efimova, as well as former tennis world no. 1 Maria Sharapova.
He does, however, thinks there should have been more research done on how long it takes to clear the body before outlawing it. Most of the Russian athletes who have tested positive for the substance in early 2016 have claimed that they took it when it was legal, and that the substance just hasn’t left the body.
WADA’s justification for banning Meldonium was “because of evidence of its use by athletes with the intention of enhancing performance.” WADA didn’t clarify at the time where its line was drawn between Meldonium and other widely-used supplements that are not banned.
The drug was developed in the 1970s to treat angina and myocardial infarcation – two conditions of the heart. Clinic trials run in 2010 indicated that the drug improved the exercise tolerances of patients with stable angina.
While the drug’s makers don’t believe it should be considered performance-enhancing, they do say that in its early days, it improved the endurance and oxygen-carrying capacity for Soviet troops operating in high-altitude, low-oxygen environments.
WADA recorded 123 samples with traces of Meldonium between January 1 and March 25, 2016.
When pressed about his country’s chances of competing in track & field events at the Olympics (the country’s athletics federation has been suspended since November), Putin said “they’re obviously in a hard situation, but you have to be ready for anything, it seems to me, if you ask my opinion…Of course we will fight for decisions to be fair. The Russian Sports Ministry, our sports organizations are working with good lawyers at a world level on this issue and are studying all aspects of the topic.”
For maybe the first time…I agree with Vladimir Putin.
WADA’s a really dumb organization. And unfortunately, most people assume they have some sort of moral authority to weed out “cheaters.” While they’re mostly just pretty corrupt – like most multinational, unaccountable organizations! – and randomly throwing darts to classify what’s “performance enhancing” and what’s not.
Nobody wants to agree with Vladimir Putin, but you know he may be right:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meldonium
Wikipedia is not a dictionary. It is written by people like us.
JP – while an open-source encyclopedia comes with a different set of challenges than I guess what you would call “a dictionary” (and what I would call a traditional, printed, encyclopedia), it is statistically on par in terms of accuracy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia
What exactly would healthy athletes be taking it for then?
These are healthy athletes taking a heart drug. Why are they taking it then if not to enhance performance?
Because they simply aren’t healthy. There were cases of athetes being treated with meldonium for symptoms of heart disease or temporary dysfynctions of the cardiovascualr system. The medication was appointed by doctors and most of these athletes stopped treatment before Jan 1st 2016. Out of all athletes positive for meldonium half of them are from Eastern Europe and Russia, the others are from the West, the USA even South America and Asia. Meldonium has no effect on stimulating the cardiovascular system or metabolic function. It has regenerative effect on the heart AFTER heart incidents or extreme, abnormal effort. Truth is, modern athletes of all physically exhausting sports, have great issues with keeping up with their health. There are no healthy… Read more »
Meldonium is just a drug that prevents the heart from damage in case of overload: PART OF INTERVIEW WITH IVAR KALVINS, INVENTOR OF MILDRONATE: http://mildronate.biz/index.php?route=product/category&path=59
Putin is to pharmaceuticals as Sarah Palin is to climate change.
Bad analogy ‘Swimmom’, unless you’re giving credit to Sarah Palin, because she is in good company:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming
He needs to go back to shirtless horse riding. He’s really making gay people look bad these days…
I prefer the bear-riding one. More macho, you know..
Russian economy
More seriously the quote “It doesn’t influence….” is hilarious.
He should have given meldonium to Russian’s economy to avoid a recession.
When does he retire?
“It doesn’t influence the result… It just keeps the heart in a good condition under a high load” that’s like saying ‘it doesn’t enhance performance, it merely enhances performance’
I’d like to know what the rest of the swimming world is ready to do about it if Russia just completely gives an FU to both WADA & FINAs rules.
If this goes unchallenged, then I will skip these live events when they’re broadcasted on TV and simply read the results on the Internet. Has our sport become the “no backbone” sport now?! First China (their JWR breaststroker), now Russia (Efimova & who knows how many others). This is disgusting.
Rowdy & company, at any point do you feel compelled to speak up?
Well I’m glad we’ve finally consulted the expert. Case closed!