The 2015 Pan American Games has been heavy both on fast swims, and controversy, this week in Toronto, and it got the latest dose of the latter when Peruvian Mauricio Fiol announced on his Facebook page that he had failed a post-race drug test.
(translated quote below, original Spanish at the end of the article).
“Today is a very difficult day for me, because I just found out that I tested positive in the anti-doping test…I am very confused because I am always one who promotes the fair play, hard work, and with a lot of effort I get to my goals… I do not understand what happened…I apologise to the whole country, to my club, my family, my coaches, my sponsors,,,
I am with the authorities to see that is what I have to do now.”
This is a huge blow to Fiol, who on Tuesday swam a 1:55.15 in the 200 meter fly final to place 2nd behind Brazilian Leonardo de Deus.
That swim broke the Pervuain Record, as did his preliminary swim in the 100 fly of 52.25 that had him qualified 2nd through to finals. Fiol is no longer listed on the start lists for the A-Final, with Guatemalen Luis Martinez bumping up to take his spot.
If Fiol is ultimately stripped of the medal, Peru would lose its only swimming medal of the meet so far. The Canadians would benefit biggest from that ultimate loss of a medal: Zach Chetrat would move from bronze to silver medal position, and Alex Page would move from 4th place to the podium.
Untranslated Spanish below.
Hoy es un dia muy dificil para mi, porque me acabo de enterar que di positivo en la prueba antidopaje,,, estoy muy confundido ya que siempre soy yo en el que promueve el juego limpio, el esfuerzo sano y con mucho esfuerzo llegue a mis metas,,, no entiendo que puede haber pasado,,, me disculpo ante todo el pais, mi club, mi familia, mis entrenadores, mis auspiciadores,,,
Estoy con las autoridades del cop asesorandome para ver que es lo que debo de hacer ahora
Uuuuhh. How are you confused? Confused that the gear you were on didn’t get out of system as soon as planned. If your gonna cheat You better be ready to admit it. Dont play dumb
@Luigi:
I already said that there are a lot of other explanations
a) A swimmer just recently started to focus on a certain distance/style
b) A swimmer grew a lot in the last couple of year
c) A swimmer just recently started to focus on swimming
d) A swimmer has been injuried for a long time
…
I dont know the stories of all these swimmer, therefore i am suspicious when i see huge time drops at high age, but if someone can give a good explanation for these time drops, i will be the first one to congratulate these swimmers for their performances. Someone told me that Kelsi Worrell was seriously ill and… Read more »
Actually, in Peru you cant really increase your standard of living by being a “successful swimmer”…you can’t increase your standard of living by being an athlete period. That’s why a lot of athletes go out of the country to succeed (e.g. soccer players), that’s why you don’t see a lot of peruvians at the Olympics. A lot of kids would rather go to college after high school and find a job than train for something that they like. A lot of them know that they can’t have a career as a professional athlete. Peru is not like the U.S or Canada that athletes can get paid a bunch of money for being a well known athlete. It sucks, but its… Read more »
What comes next will be interesting. Will he be treated as he were a Brazilian or Chinese go,d medalist and get a slap on the wrist or at most three months, or will he get two years to make an example that PEDs are bad (for some)?
What ever happened to “innocent until proven guilty”?
Apparently innocent started using an anabolic steroid, and then morphed into a faster guilty.
It’s a shame, really. Clearly he is talented. Likely he received very bad advice from someone he trusted, and made a very poor decision that should cost him dearly.
This is why I always say, I will never truly have 100% faith in any athlete. If you do, you really are naïve – Scepticism is healthy when it comes to any extremes in life, elite sport is included in that.
Yall do Realize in swimming there is such thing as progression… By everybody starts off good and some people just work their ass off and finally have a big drop. This “coming out of nowhere ” conspiracy is quiet annoying de to the simple fact in swimming and many other sports some people just do well later than others.. It’s called train and believe in yourself and you can anything you achieve. Just because everyone isn’t a Michael phelps of the world doesn’t mean you can’t one day be that type of swimmer. … Now I will say cheating is cheating he should’ve been smarter if he is innocent with who handles and watches what enters his body. But there… Read more »
Yes his progression from 2014 South American is about 3 sec, the Brazilian is 2 secs. He does train hard (6 hours a day plus land exercises). I think he made a poor choice. What is annoying to me is that he is not assuming his responsibility. I do think they should suspend him for 2 years, which means bye bye Olympics. But let him come back later. About Michael Phelps, he is unique: perfect body proportions, height, and produce less than half of lactic acid..how can anyone compete with that! Still he has made plenty mistakes post Olympics and have been sanctioned also. Anyways what I’m trying to say is that everyone deserves a second chance to straight up.
Mikaela de Deus swam 1:55 on 2013 worlds.
I apologize. I didn’t know that Rafa. I still believe everyone deserve a second chance. Hopefully he learned from all of this.
In my opinion all dopers should get a life long ban, they exactly knew what they were doing and they will still profit from doping years after they stopped doping and after their ban ended. Its sth. different if there is a reason to believe that the athlete really didnt know what he was doing, for example if he was careless enough to use a medicine or food without first checking it, or if the substance doesnt really help to improve his performance.
Wow I m Peruvian and I know he train very hard. He made an awful decision! He still young so I hope he asume like a man what he has done and come back clean!
That is actually all i wanted to say: Be more suspicious about athletes that come out of nowhere and not just if they are from China or Russia. I am not saying that someone like Kelsi Worrell is doped, i just wonder how she was able to improve so fast. There are a lot of other explanations that are perfectly fine, for example …
a) She focused on other distances before
b) She only started to take swimming really serious a couple of years ago
c) She has grown a lot during the last couple of years
…
I dont know her story, therefore i am suspicous and it would be great if someone could tell me her story.
Her improvement has been more consistent that it might appear if you look at her sc yards times and not long course.
Speaking of which, does anyone have Fiol’s year by year improvement track record?
Mauricio Fiol’s progression;
2012 – 1.59.0s
2013 – 1.58.2s
2014 – 1.56mid DQ’d – best time stayed as 1.58.2s
2015 – 1.55.1s – Doped.
He would have been 18 in 2012, so he was a talent, looks like the PEDs were just too tempting. Shame.
So, in short, his rate of improvement was actually very believable.
Worrell has had great results in the tiny pool (25 yards) the past few winters and summer of 2014 should have been a breakthrough for her in long course, but she ended up with mononucleosis/glandular fever during the selection meets, and that impacted her results.
Like many Americans who seem to suddenly appear on the long course world stage, she spent a couple of seasons rather hidden in plain sight in the realm of short course yards.
I think from 2012 to 2013 (as a 18/19 yo) she improved her 100 yard fly time by about 3s and from 2014 to 2015 (as a 20/21 yo) she improved her 100 m fly time by about 2s, do you have an explanation for that? What would be a conversion rate for yard/m? Was her 100 yard time from last year equivalent to a 57 low swim in m?
More than equivalent. She went 49.81 in the 100y fly short course. Time conversion utilities put it at 56.16 (which they’re never right), but she went 57.24. This makes sense. Natalie Coughlin had the previous yards record at 50.01 and her best long course was 57.34.
After her electrifying 100 yard fly swim at NCAAs, she had a lot of people saying that ‘hey, I know that yards brilliance doesn’t always translate to long course meters, but she could have the kind of summer that make it look like USAS made a big mistake in selecting their Worlds team in 2014.’
2nd attempt here. My phone is being difficult.
Worrell was a 53.7y in HS so it was mm ore like a 2 second drop… and her last two summers (when she’d compete LCM) she dealt with mono and an injury (her best times are from April… doesn’t even look like she swam in July or August).
So there’s your two big drops.
Being suspicious is one thing. Throwing bull$#!+ out there without looking into it (or listening to the announcers on tv) makes you kind of a jack@$$.
And the one time you are right doesn’t justify the 10 times you are wrong.
I am not wrong just because athlete X hasnt been caught until now, but i honestly dont expect you to understand it, you probably dont know enough about sport to judge if these improvements are possible without doping …
Every doper has an explanation, its up to you if you want to believe it. I am looking at the time development and Fiol is one out of 3 athletes i named yesterday. One out of 3 has been caught after less than one day, i think thats a pretty good rate for me, lets see when/if the other two will be caught. Its clearly too early for you to say that i was wrong, unless you can name a… Read more »
I dont expect any world class swimmer from brazil to be caught before 2016 olympic games or any swimmer from USA at all (we all know what is going on with FINA), but it will be interesting to see what happens with Grabich. Maybe some were really stupid enough to use a drug that is easy to test, Fiol apparently was stupid enough, although its very difficult to get caught if you try your best not to get caught.
Thomaslurzfan, honestly I don’t think you are behaving any less arrogant by waving around your one right guess and hinting you are right in the rest of your assumptions. Sure, certain leaps and bounds are suggestive of doping, but clean athletes have been known to improve by leap and bounds. It’s not always about cheating, sometimes they change their training, or their technique, or their commitment … and innocent until proven guilty must remain our gold principle. My two cents.
There are many swimmers who make huge gains their first year if freshman year. Many times very talented swimmers are underdeveloped coming out of high school (despite putting up decent times). As a result when they get to college they see HUGE gains. Very common and completely explains what her improvements and addresses your concerns.
I am not sure about Kelsi Worrell, but I know Mauricio Fiol was swimming both Free & Fly until this year when he started concentrating wholly on butterfly.