Doping again. The lie of sport, what we do not talk about. And the hammer throwers from the Soviet orbit return, with their enigmas, their unexplained, uninvestigated, too early deaths. Sergey Litvinov, bronze medalist at the 2014 European Championships, confessed on Thursday on his Facebook account: “I doped in 2012. I took two prohibited anabolics, Oral-Turinabol and Oxandrolon. I did it in April and May, to try to qualify for the Olympic Games. I benefited from the Russian system, from their lack of control over doping.”
Litvinov’s doping, his sudden confession, seems to shed some more light on the strange deaths of Sedykh, Nikulin, Tamm… and his own father, also called Sergey Litvinov. The four of them dominated the hammer throw worldwide, absolutely, in the eighties, and all have died without reaching the age of 70. The shadow of the chronic use of anabolic steroids, its long-term effects, the damage caused to tissues, hangs over the deaths of these Olympic medalists, true legends of the cable and the seven and a quarter kilos steel ball.
“In the long run, the side effects of anabolic drugs appear, and for the worse,” Javier Cienfuegos, the current Spanish hammer throwing champion, told ABC, “and it may be that these deaths are related to their use, yes” . The athlete from Extremadura remembers that he competed against Sergey Litvnov, his son, who has decided this week to confess to his doping. «I competed several times against him. He pitched well, he had a good school. He was always interested in everything, I spoke with him in Germany, when he had already retired, a very nice guy.
Litvinov admits that his throws improved two meters after taking the anabolic drugs. “It’s funny because the hammer was flying very far, even without using good technique, without noticing that great feeling that long throws give you.” Why has Litvinov now decided to confess to his doping? Have the deaths of his father and his companions influenced? Sergey himself has explained it sincerely, with humility, with regret. «It is true that the Russian Athletics Federation pressured me that year to dope, but it was all my fault, it was my decision. And I want to apologize to the community, to the world of athletics. The World Anti-Doping Agency has removed all his results from the competitions he played between July 2012 and February 2016. They have also withdrawn his European bronze, which has gone to the Belarusian Kryvitski. The irony is that Krivitsky was also sanctioned in 2015. He tested positive for growth hormone.
