It’s a terrible mistake, says Pyleva

By Elizabeth Piper

TURIN (Reuters) – Russian Olga Pyleva learned on Friday she
must face Italian magistrates after the judicial system swung
into action following her positive doping test for a banned
stimulant at the Turin Winter Olympics.

Pyleva, the first Olympian here to be thrown out for a
doping violation from pre-Games testing, was given a two-year
ban by the International Biathlon Union on Friday but said it
was her last competition in any case.

Pyleva, who had won silver in Monday’s 15-km individual
biathlon, was stunned to hear she was being called in for
questioning by Italian magistrates, which judicial sources
confirmed to Reuters on Friday.

“What? There is a case against me?” Pyleva, visibly
shocked, asked reporters, adding she did not want to end her
career this way.

CAUGHT DOPING

Under Italian law, athletes are liable for conviction if
caught doping through an accord between the International
Olympic Association and Italian government accord before the
Games agreed that nobody convicted could be directly jailed.

The worst-case scenario would be a two-year suspended
prison sentence.

Asked whether she thought she would be convicted, Pyleva
said: “I hope not. I really hope it won’t happen.”

The mother of a nine-year-old son from Krasnoyarsk in
Siberia has been stripped of her medal and had her
accreditation taken away.

The official Olympic news service had reported that she
would be flying home to Russia on Friday but Pyleva said she
would be remaining in Turin for the time being.

“I don’t know what I am going to do,” she told Reuters and
reporters from Russian and Norwegian television companies.

“I want to say that I have never intentionally used any
banned substances. It is a huge and horrible mistake,” she told
reporters after testifying at the hearing but before the ban
was announced.

“I hope they believe me. I have always been open. I have
spoken only the truth,” she said. “The worst thing for me is
having a doping scandal, I just never thought it would happen
to me.”

RIGHT MEDICINE

She has said she took the drug for an injury.

Her private doctor, Nina Vinogradova, blamed the Russian
pharmaceutical company saying she had prescribed the right
medicine which was approved by the drug’s manufacturer.

“It’s a new medicine but it had all the necessary
certificates,” Vinogradova told a news conference in
Krasnoyarsk.

But Russia’s biathlon chief shifted the blame on the
doctor.

“She (Pyleva) never told us that she took some medicine
which was prescribed by her private doctor,” Alexander Tikhonov
said in televised comments. “The doctor just made a mistake in
prescribing the wrong medicine.”

A gold medallist in the 10-km pursuit at the 2002 Salt Lake
City Games, Pyleva tested positive for carphedon, a prohibited
stimulant, on February 13 after the women’s 15-km individual
biathlon.

Russian media on Friday pointed a finger at Leonid
Tyagachyov, president of the Russian Olympic Committee.

The Sovietsky Sport newspaper said Tyagachyov had publicly
promised no repeat of a huge doping scandal that rocked Russia
at the Salt Lake City Olympics four years ago.

“Yesterday’s Olga Pyleva drama proved that Russian sports
officials are simply not capable of learning lessons from
previous doping scandals. And from their mistakes as well,” it
said.