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TENNIS

Federer: tennis ‘could do more’ against doping

Roger Federer has warned tennis chiefs they must bring in tougher measures to weed out drug cheats in a bid to avoid a repeat of the Russian athletics doping scandal.

Federer: tennis 'could do more' against doping
Photo: Migual Medina/AFP

Russia has been accused of “state-sponsored” doping by an independent commission set up by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in a report which has stunned the sporting world.
   
The shocking revelations could eventually lead to Russian athletes being excluded from the 2016 Rio Olympics.
   
Swiss great Federer, speaking in London ahead of his appearance in the season-ending ATP Tour Finals, is a firm believer in testing players as a deterrent, but the 17-time Grand Slam winner is adamant his sport can do more to stamp out drug issues.
   
“I think it's very important. The player needs to feel that there are going to be tests often to shy them away from the stupid thoughts they might be having,” Federer told reporters at London's O2 Arena on Friday.
   
Tennis' anti-doping programme falls under the jurisdiction of the International Tennis Federation and the exact amount spent on it is not made public.
   
And Federer believes the sport's bosses have the resources to ensure players are tested after every match once they reach the latter stages of tournaments.
   
“I think they try their best but I think we could always do more. We have a very clear thing of what we should be doing — more testing,” he said.
   
“In my opinion where the points become greater, the money becomes greater and we need to be tested. It is very simple. That's how you scare off people.
   
“I don't understand that sometimes you have a run and you win a couple of events, and the next thing you know you haven't been tested. It just can't be that way.
   
“I'm always surprised when I win a tournament, I walk off the court and it's like, 'Where's the doping guy?' I don't get that. I hope in the future it's going to be better.”

Hardline stance

While world number three Federer takes a hardline stance, Novak Djokovic, the reigning Tour Finals champion and world number one, has a different view.
   
Djokovic launched a stinging attack on the anti-doping programme at the Tour Finals in 2013 after his fellow Serb Viktor Troicki was given a 12-month ban for missing a doping test.
 
On Friday, Djokovic backed the doping programme but criticised the 'whereabouts' policy for being too strict.
   
Athletes have to inform the testers of where they will be for a period each day to enable random out-of-competition testing.
   
“The whereabouts demands are a little bit too much and a bit unnecessary to write where you are every single day of the year,” Djokovic said.

“If you don't appear at the place where it is written down then you get a warning, then two warnings and then suspension. I think that is a bit too much.
   
“The tennis season is very long. They know where we are and they can find us.
   
“When you're in the off-season you are going back and forth and changing cities and locations and it can be hard to track down and fill in the whereabouts sheet.”

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SPORT

Nurse weeps as tells German court of her blood doping role

A nurse, one of the co-defendants in the trial of a German sports doctor accused of masterminding an international blood-doping network, described on Friday how she helped athletes dope with illicit blood transfusions.

Nurse weeps as tells German court of her blood doping role
Mark Schmidt talks to his lawyer in court. Photo: Peter Kneffel/AFP
Sports physician Mark Schmidt, 42, and four co-defendants who allegedly aided him, stand trial in Munich accused of helping at least two dozen athletes undergo blood transfusions to boost performance.
   
So far, 23 athletes — mainly skiers and cyclists — from eight countries are known to be involved.
   
If found guilty, Schmidt and his co-defendants face jail for up to 10 years under anti-doping legislation introduced in Germany in 2015.
   
One of the accused, named only as Diana S., told the court how she first helped Schmidt in December 2017 when she travelled to Dobbiaco, Italy, to administer a blood transfusion before a skiing competition.
   
Blood doping is aimed at boosting the number of red blood cells, which allows the body to transport more oxygen to muscles, thereby increasing stamina and performance.
   
 
“It was about transportation, blood and athletes, but at first I didn't know what was behind it,” she is quoted as saying by the German media.   
 
“The treatments were always such that before the race the blood was taken in and after the races, the blood came out.”
   
She claimed to have been given precise instructions “via WhatsApp or by phone calls” where to go, which car to take, who to treat and how much blood to take or inject.
   
The trained nurse, who often sobbed while speaking, was told to dispose the bags of used blood on her way home after the “treatments”.
 
The single mother of three said she was motivated to earn extra money, having been told she would earn 200 euros ($237) per day.
   
At one point, she claims she told Schmidt that she wanted to stop.
   
“I told him that I was too agitated and too scared” to keep doing the clandestine work, because a sense of “panic travelled with me”, but Schmidt convinced her to stay involved. “It is also true that I simply had a shortage of money.”
   
Schmidt is alleged to have helped skiers who competed at both the 2014 and 2018 Winter Olympics and cyclists who raced at the 2016 Rio summer Olympics, as well as the Tour de France, the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a Espana.
   
He was arrested in Germany as part of Operation “Aderlass” — or “blood letting” in German — which involved raids at the Nordic world skiing championships in Seefeld, Austria in February 2019.
   
A verdict in the trial is expected by late December.
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