Shot-putter Ville Tiisanoja gets two-year ban for doping

Athlete denies involvement of others

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Finnish shot-putter Ville Tiisanoja has been given a two-year ban from all competitions and a EUR 50,000 contractual fine as punishment for doping offences. In addition, all his competitive results since June 27th this year are rendered null and void. This includes the Finnish national title he won in July.
      Tiisanoja, 30, was caught for using testosterone, a prohibited performance-enhancing substance. The Vantaa athlete gave three positive tests in the course of the summer, in each of which there was an excessively high level of testosterone present. Tiisanoja publicly admitted that the findings in the A-samples were correct, and hence there will be no need to examine the B-samples.
     
At a press briefing arranged on Wednesday afternoon, the President of Finnish Athletics (SUL) Antti Pihlakoski thanked Tiisanoja for his cooperation, which allowed the matter to be resolved quickly. He nevertheless pointed out SUL's firm line on such cases and stressed the significance of the punishment as a warning to others.
      Ville Tiisanoja read his own prepared statement at the press conference, giving a complete confession in which he acknowledged the legality of the test results and admitted he had used small quantities of testosterone from Midsummer onwards. The positive test results were observed in late June and twice in late July. One of the three tests was carried out in competition during the Finnish National Championships, where Tiisanoja won his event.
      Tiisanoja said that the idea had come to him following poor performances during the winter indoor season. He commented that he had not felt the risk of getting caught was very great, and said that he had fallen into cheating out of a desire to return to the international elite in the sport.
      He apologised to all parties affected by his actions, took full responsibility for the use of prohibited substances, and denied that either his trainer or any of his fellow athletes were aware of what he was doing. He did not disclose where he had got the substance or how it was taken.
      Decisions on his track & field future were to be left to a later date, he stated. It is perhaps worth noting that the two-year ban runs until the final day of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
     
This was the first time Tiisanoja has been tested positive for a doping offence of this kind.
      However, in 2002/2003 he was given first a temporary ban and ultimately a caution by the athletic authorities for bringing the sport into disrepute, after French customs stopped and searched a car driven by Tiisanoja and discus-thrower Timo Tompuri.
      Customs officials discovered four ampoules of testosterone, 38 tablets of ephedrine, 44 tablets of clenbuterol, and 245 tablets of melatonin in the vehicle, which the two men had driven from Spain. Melatonin is not a doping substance.
      The pair claimed that they were unaware of the items in the car, and after appealing to the athletes' legal protection committee the ban was rescinded in early 2003 in favour of a caution.
     
In August 2005, testosterone and Tompuri's name resurfaced shortly before the World Championships in Helsinki, following the seizure by police of a sizeable consignment of performance-enhancing drugs, including growth hormone and testosterone, from the home of a former leading Finnish discus coach.
      Ville Tiisanoja represented Finland at the European Championships in Gothenburg earlier this month, and finished 11th. Last weekend he withdrew at the last minute from the Finnish team taking on Sweden in the annual Finnkampen track and field match, citing 'flu as the cause. His best international showing - in a career that promised much but ultimately failed to deliver - was 6th at the 2002 European Championships in Munich.
     
In a commentary piece in today's Helsingin Sanomat, sports journalist Ari Pusa notes that the doping incident will inevitably cast a shadow of doubt over Finnish athletics, like it or not.
      In particular the performances of Finnish shot-putters in major competitions will be seen in an unfortunate new light. Have other Finnish athletes been indulging?
      Pusa notes that many have found it easy to believe that Finns are probably not taking banned substances, since with a few exceptions the modest results achieved in competition have hardly suggested any additional tricks are being employed. And yet in the light of this latest development he has to wonder just what substances the world's best must be on, when the results have galloped so far ahead of those of the Finns?
      The recent high-profile cases of Justin Gatlin and now Marion Jones have tended to suggest that the anti-doping forces are getting the upper hand.
     
The writer also asks a few probing questions of the timing of these disclosures: if the test results were positive in June and July, was it possible that Finnish Athletics somehow knew of them and still sent Tiisanoja to represent Finland in Gothenburg?
      If this were so, it would bring back awkward memories of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, when it transpired that long-distance runner Martti Vainio had failed a test earlier in the year. It was covered up, Vainio went to L.A., and he was caught for steroid use, being stripped of his 10,000 metres silver medal amid much public embarrassment at home.
     
Pusa states that Finnish Athletics President Antti Pihlakoski has insisted the information about the positive tests came from the Finnish Anti-Doping Committee only last Thursday, one day before the traditional Finland-Sweden match.
      Two hours before the shot-put competition was due to begin, Tiisanoja withdrew from the team. Pihlakoski commented that it was not legally possible for the athletics federation to go public with the true circumstances of the withdrawal before the popular two-day meeting.
      Pusa speculates that an equally pressing reason to delay such an announcement was simply that it would have thoroughly deflated the atmosphere at the match.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Police deny they "held up" sports doping investigations (8.8.2005)
  Temporary ban for shot-putter Ville Tiisanoja and discus thrower Timo Tompuri (19.12.2002)

Links:
  Finnish Athletics

Helsingin Sanomat