Stian Angermund on Freetrail

Stian Angermund shares with Dylan Bowman the full timeline of events of his doping scandal back from 2023 and gives us insight beyond the stories we read in the news about it.

It’s worth a listen, especially hearing about the personal toll this ordeal took on Stian and his family.

My take, after hearing it all is that given that a false accusation can ruin someone’s career and life I don’t understand why the chain of custody on these doping samples is so opaque and untraceable. This feels like in those bad courtroom drama TV shows where the fumbling cops mishandle evidence and thus the accused can’t or shouldn’t be held accountable or convicted. And yes, you can make the argument that the onerous is on the athlete to proof the contamination, but if, like in this case, the sample was held in a personal refrigerator for several days before testing then this leads to too many questions. And yes, making us, the public, believe that the system is flawed also doesn’t help our sport.

What I don’t remember being addressed in the interview are two things:

• Why was the DNA test of the sample not completed?
• How would a urine sample get cross contamination during handing?

At the spear-end of our sport things are becoming more professional – that is a good thing – elites competing at this level want this. But we’re far away from a world where we have entire teams of people who prepare meals and nutrition plans, set training schedule and observe every step of the athlete who’s being paid millions of dollars to “just dribble”. We’re far away from institutional doping, (I hope). A positive doping sample leaves the athlete alone, scrambling for a reply, possible solutions, and has to learn and understand the process on his own. As our sports progresses this is something that needs to be addressed, either by the sponsor or by a national federation or an organization. I don’t know if it’s true that the false positive numbers and wrongly accused percentages are as high as Stian says it is. I’d love to learn more about this, cause these numbers are pretty damming for the entire system, if true. Especially given that this results carry serious consequences for the athletes.

Finally, going by this interview I think there’s enough doubt in the process that I would consider Stian cleared to race and compete again. Again, going back to the ‘courtroom drama reference’ from above: if the accusers have introduced so much possible contamination to make the evidence provided questionable, than there can’t be a clear ruling and we should to assume innocence. Again, I’m not an expert by any means, I just watch too much TV, apparently?

Another great podcast interview by Dylan part of the “new” Freetrail – the show that addresses the hard stuff. Kind of love the new focus. Not just all flowers and kittens anymore.