While the International Olympic Committee is making its decision regarding the participation of the Russian team in the Winter Games Olympic Games 2018 in Pyeongchang, let's remember famous athletes who legally doped, having permission from the IOC and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

Simone Biles (Ritalin), 2016

The 20-year-old American gymnast has been taking doping since childhood due to “attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.” As a result, Biles tested positive for methylphenidate (a psychostimulant) in August 2016 and went to the Rio Olympics, where she won four gold medals.

Serena Williams (oxycodone, hydromorphone, prednisone, prednisolone and methylprednisolone), 2015

With the approval of WADA, the former world number one took a number of prohibited drugs for five years, but the diagnoses and illnesses that the athlete was treated for were not specified.

Venus Williams (prednisone, prednisolone, triamcinolone and formoterol), 2015

Serena's older sister Venus Williams was also found to have been using illegal drugs for as long as four years with WADA approval.

Marit Bjorgen (steroids), 2009

Norwegian skier Marit Bjorgen is categorically against the participation of Russian athletes in the 2018 Olympics.

Elena Delle Donne (amphetamine and hydrocortisone scandal 2016)

In 2014, the American professional basketball player received permission to take amphetamine and hydrocortisone banned by WADA with the permission of the commission and actively used the substances during training and competitions for two years. The result was a gold medal at the Rio Olympics.

Michelle Carter (testosterone metabolite and hydrocortisone), 2016

The athlete was found to have several prohibited substances in her blood, but was allowed to participate. She set a US national record at the Rio Olympics.

Jack Conger (amphetamine), 2016

The athlete received a gold medal in Rio. Amphetamine was found in his sample.

Sam Dorman (prednisone), 2016

The athlete won silver in synchronized diving with Michael Hixon during the Rio Olympics.

Hizem Fischer (glucocorticoids), 2014

A professional rugby player and his team fell short of a medal at the 2016 Olympics.

Tervel Dlagnev (two prohibited substances), scandal 2016

Two banned substances were found in the sample of the American heavyweight wrestler, but this did not help him win a medal.

Many celebrities have lost their medals and titles once it was discovered that their bodies contained foreign substances. There are still many questions and doubts among leading experts about whether doping can be used. To answer this question, you should find out what it is and what it is used for.

Doping - what is it?

Doping is the use of prohibited substances of natural or synthetic origin that allow one to achieve the best results in sports. Taking the drugs helps to temporarily increase the activity of the endocrine and nervous systems, increases muscle mass due to protein synthesis. Such drugs are on the special list of the World Anti-Doping Agency. Their use leads to unwanted side effects and is harmful to human health.

How does doping work?

The most popular type are anabolic steroid hormones. Such doping drugs contain testosterone, which is produced by male reproductive cells. With the help of anabolic steroids, physical strength, muscle volume and endurance increase. After certain strength limits have been reached with the help of drugs, they raise the capabilities of the human body to a new level with renewed vigor.

Doping in sports - pros and cons

For an athlete, what is important is the result that he can achieve through hard training. Therefore, all possible means are often used to achieve high results. It would be a mistake to hypocritically declare a desire to keep athletes healthy. And only sports doping allows an athlete to maintain the body’s performance under enormous physical exertion.

Experts have differing opinions on whether doping can be used. Scientists who spoke in favor say that:

1. Allowing the use of doping will make sports safer, and there will be a desire to develop safer and more effective drugs.
2. Legalizing doping will help prevent drug overdoses and harm to athletes.

Scientists who opposed it say that:

1. Allowing doping could lead to clean athletes also taking it and the integrity of the sport could be destroyed.
2. Athletes who take doping put themselves at great risk: cardiovascular disease, drug addiction, serious liver damage, gender reassignment, aggression.
3. Doping makes sport unattractive and no longer distinguishes it from any other commercial activity.
4. The use of doping leads to unfair sport, violates the very concept of equality between athletes, and success in in this case is achieved not through hard training, but through the body’s chemical reaction to the substance.

Types of doping

There are the following types of doping in sports:

1. Stimulants. Helps improve performance, blood pressure, cardiac activity, disrupt thermoregulation.
2. Analgesics. They have an effect on the central nervous system, increase, and the athlete with an injury is not able to understand its severity, which leads to even greater damage.
3. Beta blockers. They help reduce heart rate, have a calming effect, improve coordination, and are used where serious physical activity is not needed.
4. Diuretics. Helps you lose weight quickly. Such drugs are taken in order to improve and before doping control, in order to quickly remove prohibited drugs from the body.
5. Erythropoietin helps increase endurance.
6. A growth hormone promotes accelerated growth muscle mass, reduction of body fat, accelerated wound healing, strengthening the immune system.
7. Insulin. Used in strength sports.
8. Anabolic steroid. They help increase muscle mass up to ten kilograms per month, increase strength, endurance, productivity, and reduce body fat.
9. Gene doping. This is the transfer of foreign genetic material or cells into the athlete's body. Many times stronger than all other drugs that once existed.

Doping for athletes

Doping in sports dates back to the times of the USSR. In those days, doctors created all kinds of drugs to improve the physical endurance of athletes. A list of popular medications gradually emerged:

1. Erythropoietin is a prohibited doping for athletes.
2. Anabolic steroids in the form of testosterone, stanozolol, nandrolone, methenolone.
3. Blood transfusion - autohemotransfusion and blood transfusion.
4. Stimulants in the form of cocaine, ephedrine, ecstasy, amphetamines.

Brain doping

Doping for chess players is represented by drugs that improve brain function and mental activity, these are simulators and nootropics, the former have a powerful but short-term effect, the latter have a cumulative effect and are suitable for long-term stimulation. In the first and second cases, the drugs help:

• stimulation of blood flow in the brain;
• improving the quality of nutrition of brain cells;
• eliminating oxygen starvation;
• improving cognitive abilities;
• improving memory and attention.

Endurance doping

Chemical or natural doping helps achieve your goals. Chemical doping for running is used in the form of analeptics, growth hormones, diuretics and anabolic steroids. Natural components are represented by beets, shellfish, leuzea, St. John's wort. Each of the above helps:

• improving endurance and performance;
• getting rid of fatigue;
• increasing tone;
• stimulation of muscle tissue growth;
• removal of fluid.

Doping for muscle building

Doping agents help build muscle mass in the body, they improve strength and burn subcutaneous fat. Pharmacy doping in bodybuilding is represented by the following drugs:

1. Hypoxene increases endurance by 15%, relieves shortness of breath, improves the utilization of oxygen in the blood, has a beneficial effect on the cardiovascular system, it is a kind of doping for the heart.
2. Pentoxifylline lowers blood viscosity and dilates blood vessels. Contraindicated in case of cardiovascular diseases and elevated blood pressure. The drug is available according to a doctor's prescription.
3. Schisandra improves the tone of the central nervous system, improves digestion and sleep quality.
4. Potassium orotate is involved in the creation of protein molecules and helps build muscles.

Doping for strength

One of the important factors in achieving high sports results is physical strength. For this, athletes use auxiliary drugs:

1. Actoprotector, increases resistance, has a positive effect on nervous system, cardiorespiratory system and muscle tissue.
2. Amino acids assist in protein synthesis.
3. "Branch chain amino acids". The effect of doping is manifested in an increase in energy by 10%, restoration of glycogen in the muscles.
4. L-carnitine increases endurance, relieves fatigue, pain, burns excess fat.
5. Produces methionine and prevents the body from becoming dehydrated.

Why is doping harmful?

Doping also affects the psychological sphere, causing aggression, a thirst for victory and achieving goals. But due to the fact that anabolic agents are derivatives of male hormones, they suppress the functioning of the endocrine system of the male reproductive system, which leads to:

• reduction of testicles and their hormonal activity;
• reduction in fertilizing ability to complete infertility;
• deposition of fat cells in places that are characteristic of the female body;
• enlargement of the mammary glands.

In women, male pattern hair loss and pilosis occurs on the head, hair appears on the face, chest, and abdomen, the voice becomes rough and low, the menstrual cycle is disrupted, the uterus atrophies, and the secretion of the sebaceous glands and reproductive function increases. The harm of doping in men and women is manifested in increased cholesterol levels, the appearance of atherosclerosis, the development of ischemia, and liver damage.

How to dope?

If you want to do doping at home at no extra cost, you can use the following recipes:

1. Energy drink. It tones and stimulates. Brew three tea bags in 200 ml of water with boiling water. After ten minutes, pour the solution into a plastic half-liter bottle, fill the rest cold water. Add 20 tablets of ascorbic acid, shake, place in the freezer. During each workout, take the drink in small portions.
2. Drink without caffeine. Take a bottle, pour half a liter of mineral water into it, dissolve a few tablespoons of honey in it, add the juice of one lemon, 0.15-0.30 g, 10-20 drops of adaptogen alcohol tincture. This drink will fill you with energy, additionally stimulate and motivate you.

Doping - interesting facts

Doping first became known during the Olympic Games in 1960. The use of illegal drugs is considered the most main problem modern sport and many interesting facts are associated with it:

1. During archery competitions, athletes take the same drugs that surgeons use during operations to prevent their hands from shaking.
2. During doping control, a pregnancy test is considered a mandatory condition for female athletes, as scientists have learned that this situation can increase some physical capabilities.
3. In the 1990s of the last century, scientists took blood from athletes, froze it, and then infused it on the eve of the competition. This helped improve blood circulation and increase endurance. However, no one could detect traces of illegal drugs.
4. At the end of the twentieth century, it was proven that almost all athletes in the weightlifting category won thanks to the use of doping drugs.

Athletes convicted of doping

The history of world sports remembers the athletes who were caught doping:

Doping- these are special medications used by athletes to forcibly increase the body's performance during competitive activity or during the educational and training process. The properties of a particular doping depend on the sport for which it is intended. In general, the pharmacological actions of these drugs can be completely opposite. As a rule, doping is prescribed in a course, but cases of single use often occur. It all depends on the tasks set, as well as the mechanism of action of a particular medicinal substance.

If you look at the publications of the IOC MC, you can conclude that doping is almost freely used in all countries. What are the reasons for such widespread use of, sort of, narcotic drugs? It's all about prizes, fame and money. The mercantile interests of coaches and athletes are gradually growing and organizations, cities and entire countries are becoming ill. Hundreds, or even thousands of books have been written about how to properly use doping. But it is rarely mentioned that the use of these medications negatively affects the athlete’s health.

Due to a number of cases involving the use of doping by athletes, which resulted in death, the IOC MC was forced to ban the use of a number of certain pharmacological drugs, both in training and in competitions.

As for the definition of the concept of “doping,” there is still no consensus on what exactly is considered it. And this is important, because the use of doping by athletes can lead to certain sanctions and appeals. An approximate definition is as follows: “Doping is a biologically active substance, a method and methods of artificially or forcedly increasing athletic performance, which has various effects on the body. side effects" Thus, for example, blood doping is not a drug. What he really is? Regular blood, which was taken from the athlete and processed with special methods earlier, then introduced back into the athlete’s body before the competition to increase the total amount, plus oxygen transport function together with nonspecific stimulation occurring due to the breakdown of red and white blood cells.

So, where did it start? history of doping in sports? The history of doping agents in sports dates back to a time when there were no anabolic steroids. The first documented case of doping was registered in 1865, when special stimulants were used by swimmers from Holland. After the good results of the Dutch in every country, athletes of all disciplines began to try using these drugs. The first Olympic Games, which took place in 1896, were also a place where doping additives such as codeine and strychnine were successfully used. At the 1904 Olympics, marathon runner Thomas Hicks was literally taken from the dead by pouring a mixture of brandy, codeine and strychnine into his body. But all this was, as they say, self-indulgence; the real era of doping began in 1935, when synthetic testosterone was created. It is believed that Nazi Germany owes its victories at the Olympics in 1936 to this drug. Everything repeated itself when, at the Olympics in 1952, Soviet athletes showed incredible results. The Americans did not expect such humiliation from their main enemy at that time and also decided to take up the development of androgynous drugs. And you know, they succeeded. However, testosterone did not suit all athletes, especially female athletes.

The fact is that this drug had strong side effects, which in some cases were unacceptable. For example, female athletes began to develop secondary male sexual characteristics. Something had to be done, and the issue of developing new doping drugs came up on the agenda. Drugs such as nandrolone, norethandrolone, oxandrolone, oxymetholone and methandrostelone were created. The latter drug has gained enormous popularity. Athletes from many countries began to use this doping almost every day. But these were just flowers. It all started in 1968. In general, the 1968 Olympics became the most doping in history. And it doesn’t matter that in 1967 the Anti-Doping Committee was created, headed by Prince Alexandre de Merode - there was still no necessary equipment to determine the exact location of certain drugs in urine or blood. We needed money. And who do you think provided the funds? The answer is simple - USA. The question may arise - “why?”. The thing is that the Americans had equipment that could detect the presence of methandrostenol in an athlete’s urine. And many Soviet national teams trained on this particular drug, when the Americans themselves had already switched to stanozol, an anabolic steroid unknown to the world at that time.

In general, as everyone should understand, an eternal struggle has begun. Who with whom? Doping and anti-doping control. Every year in different countries Thousands of different doping agents are synthesized, and anti-doping services need to be constantly on alert, because the record set may not be the merit of the athlete, but the merit of those people who managed to create a drug that easily bypassed the anti-doping commission.

Lately there has been a lot of talk about the use of doping by our athletes. Moreover, even many Russian athletes were suspended from participating in the Olympics.

Today I want to tell the whole truth about the use of doping in sports.

Does doping improve athletic performance?!

Yes and no no. There are sports where athletic performance is improved with the help of doping, and there are sports where athletic performance cannot be improved.

In general, doping “works well” in cyclic sports such as cross-country skiing, running, biathlon, swimming, ...

IN game types sports, no matter what doping you use, your sports results will not improve. Therefore, there are practically no positive doping tests in football, basketball, and volleyball. No matter how much muscle mass or endurance you have, if you can’t hit the ball, you can’t do anything about it. In addition, in team sports the role of gaming intelligence plays a big role. In football, what matters is not how you run, but how the team is built team game and how they play the pass. Of course, all this cannot be achieved with the help of doping.

Or the example of basketball. Well, if you don’t have a shot, then you can’t do anything about it. And no doping will help here.

In fact, there are many sports where it is simply impossible to use doping to influence any results.

Example: diving, synchronized swimming, snooker, chess, curling,…

Well, they will “fill” a diver with any doping and that he will become a better jumper?! The story is similar in curling.

Here it is necessary to separate sports where doping can affect the results and those that cannot be influenced by any doping.

I would say that doping can only be used in cyclic sports and no others. Everything else is from the evil one (WADA).

Are there any sports where doping is allowed?!

Yes, there are such sports. First of all, these are mixed martial arts UFC and MMA. Doping is actually allowed there.

An example is the American fighter Jeff Monson. He officially takes anabolic steroids, as can be seen from his anabolic neck:

But at the same time, this fighter did not achieve any significant results. 2 years ago he lost a fight to Fedor Emelianenko.

Or an example when the same Fedor Emelianenko defeats a much larger fighter:

This is probably why the popularity of this sport has grown very much recently.

Eat what you want, drink what you want, get into the ring and win.

This is where the popularity of this sport lies.

Are there any athletes who do not use doping?!

In cyclic sports there are no athletes who do not use doping. No and cannot be. Absolutely all athletes use doping. And it doesn’t matter who it is: Russian, American, German, French...

In cyclic sports it is simply impossible to run fast without doping.

All statements by Western athletes that they do not “eat” doping are from the evil one. All Norwegian skiers and biathletes dope. Everything.

For some reason, 70% of Norwegian skiers and biathletes suffer from asthma. And because of this, they can take medications that are not allowed to others. A simple injection of spray is done before the race and the volume of the lungs increases sharply.

No matter who says that he is a “pure” athlete, it’s all a lie. There are not and cannot be any clean athletes. It just can't be the default. This is a sport of the highest achievements and in order to achieve results you need to “eat” it all.

Why are some athletes caught for doping, while others are not?!

As I said above, all athletes use doping. But for some reason some are caught and others are not. Everything is simple here.

There are prohibited drugs that should not be used. These drugs are doping. This is a whole list of these drugs.

But the whole point is that if the sports medicine of any country makes any new and modern medicine, then this drug is not on the list of prohibited drugs, and therefore it is not considered doping.

Genetic engineering has become very popular lately.

Thus, it turns out that a country where sports medicine is developed receives the same doping, but it can be used absolutely legally, since it is not on the list of prohibited drugs.

The most interesting thing is that modern dopings that are not on the list of prohibited drugs are much higher in effectiveness than those that are on this list.

Those. We have such a situation that countries where sports medicine is developed can use doping absolutely legally.

This whole story is incomprehensible and absurd. It is clear that many African and Asian countries do not have such pharmaceuticals, but countries such as the USA and Germany do.

And it turns out that African athletes must fight those who dope.

And also, I think it’s clear that the United States is lobbying to add to the list of prohibited drugs those used by its rivals and, conversely, to remove from this list those drugs used by US athletes.

This whole story with Mildionius is from this “opera”.

What is WADA?!

WADA is the world anti-doping agency. This is a kind of inquisition in modern sports. They identify athletes who dope, and take away all their awards and remove them from the sport.

WADA consider themselves to be crystal honest.

In fact, it's the other way around. WADA has sponsors who pay them money. Depending on the sponsors, WADA makes certain decisions.

An example is the story of the American cyclist Armstrong. It was a mega star. But at one point Armstrong quarreled with his sponsors and WADA issued a verdict that he had been doping for 10 years.

The question arises - How did Armstrong successfully pass doping tests for 10 years?

It turns out that WADA knew that Armstrong was doping and covered him up for 10 years. Or that WADA was blind and didn't see anything?

Well, it turns out that WADA is essentially a werewolf - I cover whom I need, and I punish whom I need.

Let's now talk about the detection of doping among Russian athletes

Do Russian athletes dope the most?!

No. The main indicator should be considered not even the total number of athletes caught (the stronger the country, the more athletes and doping tests it has), but the percentage of violations. In 2014, Russia was in 53rd place in this ranking with a score of 0.9%. This is quite good, because in 2013 the figure was significantly higher - 1.36%. But we can still do better: in 2014, the percentage of violations in the United States was 0.7%, in China it was even lower, 0.4%.

In fact, this whole doping story is a political order.

WADA took as a basis the reports of two senile people (a German and a British). There was no evidence that anyone was doping, there was just speculation.

A similar story happened in the late nineties when the US representative to the UN shook a test tube and said that there was chemical weapon. After that, the United States bombed Iraq, but chemical weapons have not yet been found there.

That is, there were reports from two senile Russophobes who stated that Russians use doping. And on the basis of these speculations the case was “fabricated”.

First of all, our Olympians were removed from those sports where the president of the federations was a Briton or an American.

Of course, this is pressure on Russia and is more reminiscent of a pig’s howl than reality.

Remember how the Boeing was shot down in Ukraine. The Boeing had not yet been shot down, and the Western press was already blaming Russia. It is clear that the Boeing was shot down by Ukraine on the orders of the United States. Moreover, the Boeing was shot down not from the ground, but from the air, as evidenced by the massive small holes in the aircraft's fuselage.

It’s the same here. All this howling about Russians doping will continue until August 2018, when the World Cup will be held in Russia. The main goal of all this is not the Olympics at all, but to take away the World Cup from Russia.

But if we return to the story with doping, then I can say that if we are completely honest the ban on dopine should be completely lifted d. Eat what you want, drink what you want, whoever comes to the finish line first wins. Otherwise, the sport will simply die.

Competitions between racers, athletes and other supermen and superwomen have long turned into competitions between pharmacists and IOC anti-doping structures. Because even “faster, higher, stronger” is often purely physically impossible without stimulants.

Ever since they came up with the idea of ​​testing the blood and urine of athletes for prohibited drugs before competitions, doping dramas have erupted almost every year. Let's remember the most iconic among them.

1. How to swallow strychnine and win

Actually, the history of identifying and suppressing excess substances in the blood began more than a hundred years ago. At the Olympic Games in St. Louis, Thomas Lorz was the first to reach the marathon finish line. But it turned out that he traveled part of the way - and Thomas Hicks, who came after him, won. Immediately after the finish line (which he barely made it to), we had to pump him out. It turned out that when the runner fell on the road, the coach decided to cheer him up with a dose of strychnine sulfate and a sip of cognac. And this fact did not at all prevent Thomas from receiving a gold medal.

2. How the stimulant brought it to the finish line

Hicks died in old age, recalling his victories. But Danish cyclist Knud Jensen was not so lucky. In 1960, at the Olympics in Rome, he took a handful of amphetamine tablets, washed them down with coffee and passed away right at the race.

Seven years later, another cyclist, Tommy Simpson, died from an amphetamine overdose during the Tour de France. In the same year, the IOC Medical Commission was established. That’s when the list of “don’ts” appeared and serious checks began before the competition.

3. How the “death competition” began

1987 turned out to be a sadly fruitful year. In one year, chemicals sent more than one athlete to the next world: football player Don Rogers was helped by cocaine, all-around athlete Birgit Dressel was helped by a whole first aid kit in which many potent drugs were found. And erythropoietin took the lives of several cyclists at once.

4. How to hide for years but lose your records

Former IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch considers the saddest day in the history of the modern Olympic Games the story of Ben Johnson. On September 24, 1988, the Canadian athlete set a record in the 100-meter dash at the Games in Seoul - 9.79 seconds. And three days later he was disqualified - doping tests showed the presence of the anabolic steroid drug stanozolol in his blood. It turned out that Ben’s addiction to stanozolol was known long before these games: back in 1986, at the Goodwill Games in Moscow, traces of anabolic steroids were found in his blood, but the story was not made public.

In 1989, during the trial, the runner admitted that he had been cheating since 1981, and both the championship title and all his records were taken away from him.

“People risk their health by doping, but they also earn money for their family. Just look at the Argentinean Guillermo Cañas. Yes, he was disqualified for doping, but with his play he provided for a large family, which, I think, is very grateful to him.”
Christophe Rochus, Belgian tennis player

5. How to organize an entire doping race

The 1998 Tour de France was particularly scandalous and was nicknamed the “Tour of Doping.” In the car of physiotherapist Willie Voe, they found a lot of harmful things: drugs, amphetamines, hormones and other illegal chemicals. The entire Festina team was disqualified at once. The race was won by Marco Pantani, who, as it later turned out, also dabbled in doping. “Who hasn’t used it, tell me?!” – famous cyclists of those years sincerely said in interviews. Pantani was later found to have a syringe with insulin, and he died from a cocaine overdose.

6. How to excuse yourself from the mafioso’s machinations

In 1999, during the thirteenth Pan American Games, the famous Cuban jumper Javier Sotomayor was caught with cocaine and disqualified for 2 years. Olympic champion, world record holder in high jump. Liberty Island, perhaps, also has the most elegant excuse for drug use: Fidel Castro himself then said that Javier was not guilty, it was all the machinations of the Cuban-American mafia. A couple of years later, the athlete was caught with the anabolic steroid nandrolone.

“Now, to be honest, many Russian athletes use doping. Many of my relatives believe that such disqualification will help cleanse me, but why should I suffer?” – Sergey Shubenkov, Russian sprinter, world champion in the 110-meter hurdles.

7. How to get caught online and go to jail

The year 2003 brought another unhealthy “harvest”: two dozen cases of the use of prohibited tetrohydrogestrinone were identified at the US Athletics Championships. After a doping conspiracy was uncovered, 13 of America's top track and field athletes were suspended for two years. The investigation revealed an entire network spreading the infection, led by the BALKO laboratory.

Then the famous track and field athlete Marion Jones also found herself involved in a scandal - her already won medals were taken away from her, she was deprived of the title of multiple Olympic champion, and she was also sent to prison for six months for giving false testimony.

8. How to hide from the medical examination in an accident

New doping heights were reached at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. Two dozen scandals were published by the Greeks themselves - Olympic champion in the 200 m race Kostas Kenteris and his colleague Ekaterini Tanou. They hid from the meetings of the IOC disciplinary commission in the hospital, getting into an accident - despite the fact that they were not injured at all in the incident. Among other athletes, Russians also made mistakes: weightlifter Albina Khomich, shot putter Irina Korzhanenko and runner Anton Galkin.

“How many athletes of the Russian athletics team take doping? Majority. 99 percent. Athletes get everything they need. The faster the drug leaves the body, the more expensive it costs,” Evgenia Pecherina, Russian discus thrower.

9. How to stop being the strongest team in a day

This is Sajad Gharibi, not photoshopped.

In 2006, just before the start of the World Championships, an entire team of weightlifters from Iran was disqualified. Iranians were considered one of the strongest in this sport, but the majority, 9 out of 11 people, failed doping tests. Three more teams came close behind the “leaders”: the Russians and Kazakhs had 6 team members each burnt out in doping tests, and the Argentines – three. But here it was done without disqualification - they got off with fear and large fines.

10. How to eliminate all the best racers from the race

“The craziest doping year” of the beginning of this millennium is so far called 2008. It was as if the Tour de France riders were being hit by a plague: one after another, erythropoietin was found in their blood. Manuel Bertrand, Moises Duenas Nevado, Riccardo Rico, Leonardo Piepoli. The cycling stars kept falling and falling like meteorites from the sky on a warm August night. I wonder what wishes their colleagues made?

11. How not to click on a link and embarrass yourself

Maria Sharapova was lucky to become the “first sign” of this year’s Meldonium scandal, so she has suffered the most so far. Defenders of the Russian tennis player point out that this drug was added to the list of prohibited drugs only recently. She herself justifies herself honestly: “On December 22, I received an e-mail from WADA, which informed me what changes had been made to the list of prohibited drugs. The link showed what the list looked like, but I didn’t click on it.”

It must be said that Masha is not the only tennis player who does not read threatening letters. Several of her colleagues admitted to doing the same thing to them. “It’s hard for us to understand these strange names,” said world number four Gabrinho Muguruza. “If I check this, I simply won’t understand most things!”

“I think this is all nonsense. Athletes take what their physiotherapists or doctors give them. I think that Sharapova will still play at the Olympics. Although we need to watch how events will develop,” Shamil Tarpishchev, President of the Russian Tennis Federation.