Ex-Olympic skier Mika Myllylä admits to having used EPO hormone

Finnish Anti-Doping Agency: “This is perhaps the most significant doping confession in Finnish sporting history.”

Mika Myllylä

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According to the commercial Finnish television channel Nelonen’s news programme Nelosen Uutiset, cross-country skier and Olympic gold medallist Mika Myllylä has admitted to having used EPO hormone.
      Dr Timo Seppälä, the Medical Director of the Finnish Anti-Doping Agency (FINADA), considers Myllylä’s “coming out” to be perhaps the most significant doping confession in Finnish sporting history.
      “It is fairly surprising that an athlete of Myllylä’s calibre says it like it is. Of course it is great that he admits his use of the banned substance. This clears the air”, Seppälä commented on Tuesday night.
     
According to Nelosen Uutiset, Myllylä told the National Bureau of Investigation (Finland’s central criminal police) of his use of EPO in connection with the supplementary police investigation into the so-called STT case.
      Det Chief Insp. Pauli Huuskonen, who is in charge of the investigation, would not shed further light on the content of the investigation on Tuesday.
      Helsingin Sanomat was not able to reach Myllylä himself for a comment.
      According to Seppälä, the ex champion skier’s confession attests to the suspicion that the use of doping was wide and systematic among the cross-country skiers in the 1990s.
      “In those days EPO did not show in the tests, and this was widely known. The substance must have been in a relatively broad use elsewhere as well, even though once again the issue seems to fall onto Finland”, Seppälä says.
     
The suspicions of the use of EPO first surfaced after the 2001 Nordic Skiing World Championships in Lahti.
      At that time Myllylä and five other skiers were caught using the plasma expander HemoHes.
      A working group led by Lauri Tarasti later concluded that the substance had been used in an attempt to mask the use of EPO.
      “This latest piece of information hardly comes to me as a surprise”, Tarasti summarised yesterday.
      “Of course I do not know if the other five skiers caught in Lahti have something to confess with regard to the use of EPO. It is possible.”
     
In the 1990s, Mika Myllylä won six Olympic and nine World Championships medals.
      His career peak took place towards the end of the last millennium, when for example at the Ramsau Nordic Skiing World Championships he won three gold medals and one silver medal.
      More than likely the ex-skier may keep his medals, for the statute of limitations for a doping offence is eight years.
      “But for example the International Ski Federation and the Olympic Committee may still ponder if the medals could be removed”, Seppälä continues.
      Myllylä has not declared at which stage of his career he used EPO.
      The central criminal police investigation has concentrated on whether some of the key figures in the Finnish cross-country skiing told lies in the so-called STT case.
      Myllylä is not suspected of having committed any crimes in this respect.
     
The preliminary investigation about to be concluded relates to an STT news item from 1998, according to which there were widespread doping activities within the Finnish Ski Association in the 1990s.
      The subsequent libel trials resulted in certain skiing directors receiving compensation. The police have now tried to find out if someone lied at those court proceedings.
     
In the summer of 2008 the State Prosecutor Pekka Koponen requested the NBI open an additional investigation. The request was based on hearing evidence from the former head coach Kari-Pekka Kyrö.
      According to Koponen, there was reason to suspect that the former decision not to bring charges against certain individuals may have been based on insufficient information.
     
The suspects are MP and Olympic gold medallist Marjo Matikainen-Kallström, former cross-country skier Jari Räsänen, former head of cross-country skiing at the Finnish Ski Association (FSA) Pekka Vähäsöyrinki, former head coach and head of cross-country skiing Antti Leppävuori, and the former FSA managing directors Esa Klinga and Jari Piirainen.
      The titles of the suspected crimes are “aggravated fraud” and “false disclosure”.
     
Myllylä's alleged announcement naturally has the potential to cause a huge ripple-effect, and could support the initial STT premise of widespread and systematic doping.
      It is in any case unlikely that we have seen the end of an embarrassing chapter in Finnish sport that many would like to see closed.
     
     
There have been many articles on this subject in these pages. The links below should lead the reader on to earlier stories, dating all the way back to 2001's Lahti doping fiasco and to 2000 and the STT case.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Six suspects still in frame over Finnish Ski Association doping case (22.9.2008)
  Additional preliminary investigation to STT doping case to be completed by end of year (27.11.2009)

See also:
  Matikainen-Kallström denies doping allegations in National Bureau of Investigation hearing (4.6.2009)
  In reopened doping-in-cross-country-skiing case, several individuals are suspected of aggravated fraud (20.3.2009)

Links:
  Mika Myllylä (Wikipedia)

Helsingin Sanomat