Sport is made for betting

It's damn cold outside, so the best thing about that weather is that biathlon season must be starting soon! If you haven't read my blog in previous European winters, you'll have missed how excited I get about betting on this sport, particularly trading in-running on Betfair. It is a brilliant sport once you understand how the format works. Anyway, Russia had five competitors caught for doping last season, including three top 10 biathletes, and the International Biathlon Union (which can't be too harsh against them as Russia is the biggest nation in the sport) has handed out a rather lame $68,000 fine to the national body. Hardly a massive penalty given how endemic in the system it had become, and their past history... Biathlon union fines Russia $68,000 for doping BERLIN (AP)—The International Biathlon Union has fined Russia $68,000 for a series of doping violations. The IBU sanctioned the Russian national federation Monday after five of its athletes were caught...

So to all the Russian readers who sent me abuse for releasing the story before it was confirmed.... take your blinkers off and wake up to the real world. Russian newscentre VES believes that the testing in Lausanne has returned three positive B samples for a variety of EPO, initially believed to be CERA. The hall of shame: Albina Akhatova Ekaterina Iourieva Dmitry Yaroshenko The announcement from the International Biathlon Union is believed to be imminent. May they never grace a biathlon competition again. There is no place in professional sports for drug cheats. "We are facing systematic doping at the large scale in one of the strongest teams of the world," IBU President Anders Besseberg told reporters in the eastern resort town of Pyeongchang. "Either we have been able to catch them all, or we have only seen the top of the ice mountain," he said. "There is no, absolutely no, excuse for what the three doped Russian athletes and the people behind them have done...

The Russians are at it again. Thinking it's 1981 and they can get away with whatever they like. Training camps being held at short notice in remote parts of Russia where WADA officials can't get visas without waiting for three months, almost no local testing etc. Shoddy, and they've been caught for it. No articles yet with the news in English, but numerous others in various languages via NewsNow The IBU aren't releasing names as yet, but reports link the failed tests to Akhatova, Iourieva and Yarochenko. It's a real shame the Russians have to stoop to such depths when some of their star athletes look like this! The World Championships start next weekend. Did they really think they could get away with it? It's time biathlon brought in a rule like weightlifting where repeated positive tests from the one nation kicks everyone from that country out. Otherwise biathlon will become as tarnished as cycling, and nobody wants to see that....