Tennis
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<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Bovidae" data-cid="563284" data-time="1457427191">
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<p>It will be interesting to see what punishment the ITF and WTA dishes out. She'll take a huge hit in sponsorship money and won't be participating in Rio. </p>
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<p>Marin Čilić didn't receive much of a suspension when he failed a drug test in 2013.</p>
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<p>As TR mentioned above it runs both ways due to her popularity in the game. I'm sure this is a massive headache that the WTA didn't want, they are trying to work out how to appear to punish Maria but yet get her back in the game asap</p> -
<p>D you need to actually <em>trust</em> them Siam? To, well, you know.</p>
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<p><a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11603006'>http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11603006</a></p>
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<p>Time for the Warnie's mum excuse yet?</p> -
<p>incredibly stupid...assume her manager should be taking some heat too, but ultimately she is responsible, honest mistake or not, just incredibly stupid.</p>
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<p>If she was warned specifically, you assume they knew she was taking it, and as such, there were others using the same 'medication' also.</p> -
<p>Derek Lowe (pharma chemistry professor, long and successful career in drug development, excellent blogger) has a column on Meldonium.</p>
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<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote"><a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2016/03/08/up-to-speed-on-meldonium'><strong>Up to Speed on Meldonium</strong></a><br><br>
By Derek LoweMarch 8, 2016<br><br>
I will freely admit that I had never heard of meldonium (aka mildronate) until yesterday, when it made headlines across the sports pages (and cost Maria Sharapova a great deal of endorsement money). That’s probably because it’s never been approved in the US or anywhere in Western Europe. That category of drugs is a relatively small and very mixed bag. Very few countries have companies or institutes that actually develop new drugs, and once you get past North America, Western Europe, and Japan things thin out pretty rapidly. India and China have only started getting into from-the-ground-up drug discovery business relatively recently, so you have Israel, Australia, and not too many others once you get outside the three regions mentioned above.<br><br>
But eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union are a case all by themselves. The division of Europe during the cold war era caused two parallel scientific worlds to develop, and there were two worlds in the pharmaceutical business as well. There were (and are) extremely capable chemists and biologists in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic states, former Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany, Poland, etc., and a lot of pharmaceutical R&D was done during the cold war years that never really mixed with the West. Those readers who remember the Warsaw Pact chemistry and biology journals know about the sheer volume of work that came out of these countries (although from what I’m told, there was often a justify-your-relatively-good-job-comrade aspect to all this publishing).<br><br>
Meldonium is one of these. It came out of Latvia in the 1970s, and the only places where it’s an approved drug appear to be parts of the former Soviet Union. There can be several reasons for this sort of cold-war hangover in approval, but I have no problem invoking my standard answer to questions that start off with “I wonder how come they. . .â€, which is “Moneyâ€. Drugs that were approved under the old government(s) in this region have by and large been carried over until today, and seeking approval in the EU or the US is an expensive proposition for something whose patentability is shot.<br><br>
But there are other factors. An outstanding drug caught in that situation could easily be the subject of some research to produce a newer derivative or improved formulation that would be patentable, but when you haven’t seen that happen, it increases the chances that the drug itself is something that probably wouldn’t find much of a niche. Meldonium, though, has been the subject of recent clinical work in several countries, generally in people who’ve had heart attacks or strokes. <strong> It’s prescribed for ischemia in cardiac patients, and the increased blood flow is surely the reason that it’s caught on among some athletes</strong>. <strong>Sharapova’s claim that she has been taking it for years for “medical reasons†doesn’t sound very plausible, at least at first, considering what the approved patient population looks like – they tend not to have very effective backhand strokes.</strong><br><br>
She claims to suffer from magnesium deficiency and a family history of diabetes, but I’m having trouble drawing a line from those to meldonium. Most of the time when people talk about a family history of diabetes they mean something like Type I or MODY, either of which would have presumably shown up long since in Sharparova’s case. And a professional athlete would seem to be at little risk of Type II, with its strong connection to weight gain and lack of exercise. As for magnesium deficiency, that’s a staple of “Could You Have This Common Disease?†columns, usually with reference to vague symptoms (tiredness!) that everyone feels. Magnesium is not a particularly rare element in a varied human diet and it can be easily supplemented. A true problem with its absorption is something that can be demonstrated clinically. Unless Sharapova has something to back that diagnosis up, it’s not very solid, either.<br><br><strong>The compound – a very simple structure – appears to work as an inhibitor in the carnitine biosynthesis pathway, and may have several other activities. Landing in that pathway might well be enough all by itself; metabolically, there’s a lot going on at that intersection.</strong> The World Anti-Doping Agency has now banned it, on the<strong> basis of studies that say that it increases endurance, speeds recovery, protects against stress, and may have CNS effects as well.</strong> Unless more evidence comes to light, I’d say that this case is exactly what it looks like.
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<p>An interesting comment on metabolic effects - possibly increases efficiency of oxygen use.</p>
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<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote">Mention of carnitine and ischaemia together suggests an effect similar to carnitine palmitoyl transferase inhibitors like perhexiline which switch metabolism from fats to carbohydrates – preventing the fats from being transported into the mitochondria. Contrary to what I remembered about fats having more energy than carbs, carbs apparently give more ATP per unit oxygen (over 30% with perhexiline, but not sure we really know why it is quite so high) – more bang for the buck to support the struggling heart. Are CPT-1 inhibitors are banned for athletes too? As you say, as long as an athlete doesn’t run low on glucose, then maybe it is an obvious way to boost performance.
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<p>Some background on athlete use from the British Journal of Sports Medicine.</p>
<p><a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://blogs.bmj.com/bjsm/2016/03/08/meldonium-use-by-athletes-at-the-baku-2015-european-games-adding-data-to-ms-maria-sharapovas-failed-drug-test-case/'>http://blogs.bmj.com/bjsm/2016/03/08/meldonium-use-by-athletes-at-the-baku-2015-european-games-adding-data-to-ms-maria-sharapovas-failed-drug-test-case/</a></p>
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<p><strong>ABSTRACT</strong></p>
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<p><strong>Background: </strong>The aim of this report was to estimate the prevalence of meldonium use in athletes competing in the Baku 2015 European Games to contribute to the surveillance of substances on the 2015 World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Monitoring Program. Meldonium is reported to be used by athletes to potentially enhance personal performance and shorten the recovery period after physical activity.</p>
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<p><strong>Methods: </strong>Three sources of data were reviewed to determine the prevalence of meldonium use during the Games including: 1) athlete self-reported declarations of drug and supplement use; 2) declarations from National Olympic Committee medical teams of the list of medicines that they imported into Azerbaijan as part of their stock of drugs for administration; 3) results from the anti-doping laboratories reporting the detection of meldonium.</p>
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<p><strong>Results: </strong>Meldonium was declared as imported into Azerbaijan by 2 of 50 National Olympic Committee medical teams at the Games, but athletes from 6 countries declared the use of meldonium. Only 23 of the 662 (3.5%) athletes tested between 8 – 28 June 2015 declared the personal use of meldonium, which included 13 competition winners. However, 66 of the total 762 (8.7%) of athlete urine samples analysed during the Games and during pre-competition tested positive for meldonium. Meldonium use was detected in athletes competing in 15 of the 21 sports during the Games.</p>
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<p><strong>Conclusion:</strong> This study highlights the widespread and inappropriate use and prescribing of this prescription drug in a generally healthy athlete population. Subsequent to these findings, WADA has included meldonium as a prohibited substance on the 2016 List of Prohibited Substances.</p>
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<p>This bit is interesting -</p>
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<p><em><strong>Conclusion:</strong> This study highlights the widespread and inappropriate use and prescribing of this prescription drug in a generally healthy athlete population. Subsequent to these findings, WADA has included meldonium as a prohibited substance on the 2016 List of Prohibited Substances.</em></p>
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<p>IE "We are not sure its of any use - in theory it might be, but quite a few people are using it so we should ban it."</p>
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<p>Kinda highlights the massive lack of resourses WADA has. They are down to banning stuff they don't really know enough about & only find out about via declarations</p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Tim" data-cid="563764" data-time="1457610636">
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<p>Well, do you expect them to spend $100M on a full on clinical trial?</p>
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<p>"Meldonium, though, has been the subject of recent clinical work in several countries"</p>
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<p>There's a lot of detail re what it does, WADA just don't have the muscle to access it nor the money to pay someone to access their results. WADA don't have to do a trial, they just have to access trials.</p>
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<p>But WADA's budget for 2016 is $28m (feck all of which has actually been handed over to them) & they have all the muscle of a 5 year old girl / Billy Vunapola.</p>
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<p>So WADA are limited now to banning stuff they don't know the effect of - or OKing it because they don't know the effect. Or even - as was the case with this stuff, not even knowing it existed till it popped up on disclosures. Sharapova & co were not hiding the fact they used it, that disclosure is the only way WADA even knew to think about banning it.</p>
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<p>This wasn't like Armstrong & EPO where they had to try find athletes using it, the athletes were filling in forms <em>specifically saying</em> they were using it (tho' its not clear Sharapova disclosed ahead of the Aussie Open).</p>
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<p>Maybe they are better off just blanket banning literally everything. And if someone wants it in they can submit a clinical trial explaining what it does. Mo Farah chugged 2 expressos 20 minutes before his Olympic final in 2012. Ban that shit barring a full clinical trial on caffine</p> -
@Rocky-Rockbottom that is without a doubt the best tennis commentary i have ever heard. bravo sir
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@mariner4life said in Tennis match fixing?:
@Rocky-Rockbottom that is without a doubt the best tennis commentary i have ever heard. bravo sir
I agree -- RRB has a unique style, but damn it's interesting. Keep writing the magic good sir
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A bit bizarrely the bookies have now apparently installed Roger as the favourite. I'd think his old legs would struggle to get past Raonic or Stan, but stranger things have happened - and he doesn't yet have to play either.
He's only got to get past Murray's conqueror Zverev to make the semis - and you'd tend to think he should do so. This is big bro Zverev, not the more dangerous little bro, who pushed Rafa to five sets.
In any case, all sorts of people will be getting excited about their chances now that Andy and Novak are on the plane out.
In other news, I just watched Hingis and Paes win at mixed doubles. Hingis is probably as mad as a cut snake, but she's wearing well!
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That forehead might be the least of your worries. RRB would struggle to come up with this.
Martina Hingis and her mother 'beat up her estranged husband and threa
Thibault Hutin said Hingis and her mother, Melanie Molitor, beat him and scratched during a dispute at their apartment in the Swiss village of Feusisberg
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I know everyone kinda wants the retro final of Rog v Rafa, but there's no way that can happen can it? Surely they are too old to get past Raonic, and especially Wawrinka.
Rocky there is a chance that the two womens finalists will be bigger than the two mens finalists, with the Williams sisters raping and pillaging their way through the draw. Surprisingly, despite having 90% of the field, there isn't an -ova left. Wait, no, there is one. My mistake.
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@mariner4life said in Tennis match fixing?:
there isn't an -ova left.
If that was an abbreviation for ovaries then I think that is Rocky's point.
Or her - Plíšková. Didn't know who she was so googled and this is what I found...
Don't open that @Virgil your wife may be looking in the window again.
