There is a story that to improve the effectiveness and bypassing of anti -doping restrictions in the competitions athletes from the USSR, the GDR and some other countries specially pregnant before the performance. We decided to check whether this information has a scientific justification and whether such cases have really happened.
They wrote about such practice "Moscow Komsomolets", "Championship.com", Sports.ru, Eurosport And "Facts.ua". The victories of the gymnast Larisa Latynina, the skiers of Larisa Kurkina and Julia Chepalova, some media attributed to pregnancy. And on November 21, 1994, German television company RTL Issued Air with supposedly recognition of the use of this method for obtaining a gymnast of Olga Karaseva gymnast.
Various stimulating means to improve sports results Applied Since the time of ancient Greece. Then these were plant and animal drugs: sesame grains, fly agaric and lamb testicules. One of the most unusual doping was used by the ancient Egyptians - before the competitions, the athletes took the interpreted rear hoof of the Abyssinian donkey, welded in oil and mixed with pink petals. In the late XIX - early XX centuries, popular stimulants They become Cocaine, Strichnin and Heroin. The era of synthetic doping begins at the Olympic Games in 1936, when the German team took 89 medals a year after the invention of synthetic testosterone.
Initially, the anti -doping policy in sports was advisory in nature, but a series of deaths of athletes (including Knuta Jensen, who fell dead during the race, and in his blood, an overwhelming dose of amphetamine was discovered) led to the fact that in 1967 the International Olympic Committee Enters Mandatory tests to the competition.
Now there are five categories of prohibited substances and three illegal groups of manipulations in the VADA anti -doping list. Human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) - a hormone produced by the outer shell of the embryo - belongs to the second category. During pregnancy, he is responsible for the development of the fetus and placenta, and also helps the woman’s body better cope with stress and physical activity. HCG straight Forbidden Only for men, like a luteinizing hormone similar to him, but there is no mention of women in the list. Vada does not consider the appearance of these indicators in analyzes during pregnancy with athletes as doping and, therefore, cannot be considered a reason for disqualification, otherwise it would violate the personal rights of the athletes, discriminated and limit the right to personal life. It is believed that athletes from the countries of the socialist bloc actively used this legislative loophole.
In the entire history of the Olympiad in it Accepted Participation of 11 pregnant athletes, including in the late stages. For example, Canadian Kurlingist Christie Moore Spended The national team includes the fifth month of pregnancy, and Nur Saryani Mohamed Taibi, who represented Malaysia in bullet shooting in 2012, was In the eighth month. And although Moore shared the “gold” with the rest of the team, its contribution to the game was not significant. And Taibi did not take a prize at all.
This is not surprising, because the 11-12th week is considered the most “productive” for sports achievements, that is, the very end of the first trimester. Candidate of Medical Sciences, gynecologist-endocrinologist Nona Ovsepyan Explains: “HCG is a hormone that provides a normal course of pregnancy. In addition to its main function, it helps to increase the secretion of female and male steroid hormones. On a small period of pregnancy, the maximum synthesis of hCG occurs and at the same time increases the level of testosterone. This state of hormonal background can be compared with the intake of anabolic steroids that athletes use as doping. The maximum level of hCG, synthesized in a small period of pregnancy, can serve as a doping in pregnant athletes. ” In addition to hCG, during pregnancy, testosterone products are increasing, which can also have a positive effect on the results of the competition.
At the same time, the opposite result may also have pregnancy at these terms. Such a story It happened With the Olympic champion in shooting, Marina Logvinenko-due to heavy toxicosis, the athlete barely held the rifle and was able to win only bronze. In this case, her pregnancy ended The birth of a daughter, so it is hardly possible to attribute her “position” by the pursuit of the result.
Pregnancy planned for competitions and then interrupted is usually called “contractual” or “forced”. It is unequivocally determined whether the athlete had a welcome or “forced”, neither anti -doping agency, nor a fact, nor a fact, could not be pregnant. You can only analyze which of the medalists after the games became a mother and who is not (it should be borne in mind that on average up to 20% of the pregnancies End spontaneous miscarriage).
The daughter of Larisa Latynina Born In December 1958, while the gymnast itself in July at the World Sports Gymnastics Championship took five gold medals. It turns out that she performed at the end of the first or beginning of the second trimester. Larisa Kurkin's skier after receiving Gold in Turin Turned to the hospital with complaints of poor health. There, the doctors informed her that she had taken the award not alone. A little less than six months later, Larisa gave birth to daughter Dasha. Julia Chepalova in 2009 was Disqualified for two years for doping. At the same time, she has four children - the eldest daughter Olesya was Born in January 2003, and before that, the athlete received the last “gold” in February 2002 at the Salt Lake City Olympic Games. The second child was also born a year after the medal. Thus, Latynina and Kurkin really performed on the most productive time, and Chepalova with the same probability could be or not to be pregnant during the Olympics.
As for Olga Karaseva, the information that she resorted to "contractual" pregnancies, appeared In the press in 1994, when the German television company RTL posted supposedly a telephone conversation with the athlete. Moreover, on that air, the speaker introduced herself as Olga Kovalenko, an honored master of sports in gymnastics, the 1968 Olympic champion in Mexico City, the 1971 world champion, and the repeated champion of Europe and the USSR. Karaseva really bore Kovalenko’s name at one time - for her husband, but at the time of the exit she had already changed her back. Moreover, at the time of recording of the broadcast, Karasev was in a cruise on the Mediterranean Sea along with other Olympians. It was on that air that the scandalous confession sounded: “We were forced to get pregnant from our coaches, and at the ninth to twentieth week, on the eve of major competitions, we had to have an abortion. The fact is that just at these terms in a woman, the level of hormones in the body increases sharply. This stimulates physical strength and allows you to achieve high results. That's how we won. ” Immediately after the interview, the gymnast was going to sue television, but at some point she considered it unnecessary. Three years later, the AIDS-Info newspaper published an article by Irina Ovanesyan “In bed with a coach”. Then the gymnast could not stand it and still filed a lawsuit against the protection of honor and dignity to the court. The court took her side and ordered the publication to publish a refutation and pay compensation.
In 2015, an interview with an anonymous gymnast Published EUROSPORT site. The interlocutor claimed that such a practice is still widespread, but did not give any evidence of his words.
No confessions from athletes that their pregnancy was contractual was published. Thus, although this story looks logical from the point of view of medicine, confirmation that one of the medalists “adjusted” his pregnancy to the championship, and then interrupted it, no. At the same time, some winners really took prizes, being in a position.
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