By John Bagratuni Jul 4, 2009, 10:25 GMT
Hamburg - Speed skater Claudia Pechstein is believed to be the first athlete sanctioned via evidence from a biological passport, which underlines that doping issues in Germany can be quite unusual.
The case made public on Friday is just as unique as the recent decision of the nation's equestrian federation FN to disband all its national teams over doping and dubious medication practices.
It comes a year after national networks ARD and ZDF terminated their Tour de France broadcasts in protest over the latest doping cases at the famous cycling race. Rider Stefan Schumacher was then among the first to be caught via the new method of retests for CERA, the latest generation of the blood booster EPO.
Germany is still coming to terms with the state-sponsored doping programme in the former Communist East, while the Western cousins saw heptathlete Birgit Dressel die from multiple organ failure from a cocktail of 101 medications - including steroids.
The nation has heard the claim of Olympic 5,000m champion Dieter Baumann that someone spiked his toothpaste with the steroid nandrolone. It has seen the tearful confession of cyclist Eric Zabel that he, too, used EPO in the 1990s.
Naturally, doping is not restricted to Germany.
There have been various Tour de France doping debacles ranging from Tom Simpson's death in 1967 to Floyd Landis being stripped of the 2006 title after failing a drug test.
There was disgraced Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson, the Balco lab case involving Marion Jones and others, or the shame brought on Olympic hosts Greece at the 2004 Athens Games from Kostas Kenteris and Ekatherini Thanou.
Still, the famed German efficiency doesn't seem to end with doping issues.
The FN had just disbanded its national teams when the news broke last week that a horse of five-time Olympic dressage champion Isabell Werth had tested positive for an illegal sedative.
Now it's Pechstein, with five gold, two silver and two bronze the most successful German Winter Olympian ever. Werth tops the Olympic dressage merits list.
'Fallen icons,' said the Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily in an editorial on Saturday.
'It's becoming empty on Mount Olympus ... It was not anyone who fell from the Olympus in these days, it was athletes who were rated icons ... The doping cases around Isabell Werth and Claudia Pechstein are like beheading German high-performance sport.'
'Who are you supposed to believe? Which performance is clean, which comes from cheating?' the paper asked.
The FN's decision to disband the teams in the Olympic sports of dressage, show jumping and three-day event was partly made over pressure from the state TV networks.
This could be interesting for speed skating as well, as the sport is an important part of the winter sport television marathons.
Germany's medal haul at Olympics has always been boosted by riders and skaters on the 400m oval, which makes the outcome of the unique Pechstein saga even more important.
The ruling body ISU said on Friday that Pechstein was responsible for blood doping via a new rule since January 1 that evidence gathered from the biological passport can lead to sanctions.
The ISU said its decision was 'based on the evidence of Pechstein's profile which included abnormal values and abnormal changes of values in a series of tests (in particular in the tests conducted during the World Allround Championships held in Hamar on February 7-8, 2009).'
While the DOSB welcomed the actions taken by the FN in equestrian, it joined Pechstein and her lawyers and the German speed skating federation DESB in their scepticism.
'The DOSB detects that there is no positive doping test and that the sanction is based entirely on circumstantial evidence,' the DOSB said in a statement Saturday.
'The evidential value of this circumstantial evidence is doubted by renowned experts. It will depend on the proceedings before the CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sport) whether the international federation can prove a violation of anti-doping rules.'
Germans can ready themselves for some lessons in biology as Pechstein's lawyers have said that the charges were based on elevated values of reticulocytes (immature red blood cells).
The toothpaste saga around Baumann, or the urine sample manipulation affair engulfing Kathrin Krabbe and Grit Breuer in the 1990s, are straightforward cases, by comparison.
It remains open what the CAS judges will decide, but Pechstein's affair has added yet another chapter to Germany's (in)famous doping history.
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