Belarusian National Rowing Team Searched For Meldonium In France

The team coach believes the search was initiated by the Paris Anti-Doping Agency.

The Belarusian national rowing and canoeing team was subjected to a search at the training camp in France. The team’s head coach Uladzimir Shantarovich has told about the incident at a special meeting with journalists, BelTA informs.

According to the coach, the search was initiated by the Paris Anti-Doping Agency and approved by the public prosecutor of Agen with involvement of police forces.

“At about 8.30 a.m.on April 12 a police officer came over to our training camp in Le Temple Sur Lot, France and asked all athletes, 15 people, to come downstairs with their passports.I went to my room to change, and there were already five people waiting at my door. I asked “What will you look for?” and they answered directly “Meldonium”. Five more rooms of our team were searched – the doctor’s, the physiologists’, the massage therapist’s and the coaches’, but the representatives of the French Anti-Doping Laboratory, who arrived together with the policemen, found nothing suspicious. The interrogation of the athletes who came through an incredible emotional shock continued later in the evening. Besides, they tried to provoke our leading athletes so that they confess of using the forbidden preparation.

I have spent forty years in the professional sport and have never come across anything like this. I only saw on TV like a group of SWAT policemen broke into some den. Something very similar happened to us in France.

This incident looks like a clear provocation aimed at suspending of the national rowing and canoeing team from participation in the upcoming Olympics. I consider such behaviour of the Paris Anti-Doping Agency unacceptable,” Uladzimir Shantarovich has said.

The Belarusian national rowing and canoeing team will continue preparation for the upcoming season in Brest upon return from France. The plans of the team, which has 12 Olympic licenses in hand, include participation in the World Cup series, Championships of Belarus and Europe, upon the results of which they will form the Olympic team to go to Rio de Janeiro.

The Belarusian Ministry of Sports and Tourism is analyzing the situation that the Belarusian national rowing and canoeing team faced in France, Deputy Minister of Sports and Tourism Aliaksandr Hahieu has said.

“The Ministry of Sports together with the Belarusian Canoe association, the Belarusian National Olympic Committee and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have involved all the channels to study the situation. It is widely known how much noise the cases of using meldonium caused in the world. According to the data provided by WADA, 172 athletes were caught using this preparation. Unfortunately, a minor concentration of this preparation was discovered in the doping-tests of some Belarusian athletes. Everyone knows the situation with weightlifter Andrei Rybakou who was in the end allowed to participate in the official tournaments. Last October, the National Anti-Doping Agency informed all sports federations that meldonium had been included in the list of forbidden preparations. We come across the situation that the national rowing and canoeing team faced in France for the first time ever. I think they did not only want to struggle with the practice of doping use but made an attempt to interfere with the pre-Olympic preparation of one of the leading Belarusian teams. The Belarusian side has sent a letter to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) asking to clarify the actions of the Paris Anti-Doping Agency, which initiated searches and the sportsmen suffered a serious emotional stress,” Aliaksandr Hahieu has said.