Finland’s Antidoping Agency rejects coach’s allegations

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Dr Timo Seppälä, the Medical Director of the Finnish Anti-Doping Agency (FINADA), was not startled by the most recent comments of the former head coach of the Finnish cross-country skiing team, Kari-Pekka Kyrö.
     
According to the allegations presented by Kyrö in Wednesday’s Helsingin Sanomat, the Finnish Ski Association has not understood that in other countries doping control is an important competitive tool.
      Kyrö says that in real top-ranking sports countries the cooperation between athletes and antidoping officials is smooth and seamless.
      ”It does not make any sense if antidoping agencies were to act as experts giving instructions to the users of doping substances”, noted Seppälä.
     
”I do not quite understand what he means. If he suggests that doping controllers should cooperate with top-ranking athletes, I can only say that our agency is entirely independent”, commented Pirjo Krouvila, the Secretary General of the FINADA.
      ”Naturally I can only report on how we conduct doping tests, but I dare to doubt the existence of such cooperation in any other countries, either”, argued Krouvila.
     
In Kyrö’s view, doping has been in the hands of the chosen few in Finland, if compared with Norway, Russia, and Italy.
      ”It is true that we have previously suspected that in some countries doping control and the users of prohibited substances could be cooperating to a certain degree. But I should think that it is no longer the case today”, Seppälä concluded.
     
Juha Viertola, the former Secretary General of FINADA, commented that it is just realistic to suspect that in some countries the system could be weaker.
      ”It is clear that all organisations are not equally reliable. However, I would not like to name any countries. As for Norway, there are no signs of such cooperation in that country. As far as I know, the Norwegian organisation is excellent”, noted Viertola.
     
On the other hand, Seppälä is amused by Kyrö’s comment that the officials of FINADA do not understand anything about sports, neither are they capable of testing for the right things.
      ”Well, the international testing standards set by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) determine what kind of tests have to be conducted and what kind of substances have to be screened for. The problem is that it has not been possible to detect certain substances, including erythropoietin”, Seppälä argued.
      ”When discussing the testing of the right substances, Kari-Pekka Kyrö has apparently forgotten what happened in Lahti in 2001. There the tests detected just the substance that Kyrö did not know would be tested”, Seppälä noted, in a reference to the mass bust that overtook Finland's cross-country skiers at the Nordic World Championships. .
     
Kyrö also claims that the Finnish Ski Association was the most effective distributor of doping substances in Finland in the 1990s.
      ”Even Kari-Pekka Kyrö cannot know everything that happens. I think he presented his opinion in a rather overstated fashion”, Seppälä added, while admitting that the STT libel case implied that there might be some truth in Kyrö’s allegations.
      ”It is naturally impossible to say what has happened within the Finnish Ski Association before all the details have been unravelled”, Seppälä concluded.
      None of the former rop-ranking Finnish skiers have been willing to comment on Kyrö’s allegations.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Former cross-country skiing coach accuses Finnish Ski Association of orchestrating doping (18.6.2008)

Links:
  WADA
  Finnish Antidoping Agency

Helsingin Sanomat