Experiment from ARD film provides clues German doping case faces spectacular turn
A scientific study on attack scenarios from the ARD film "Schuldig" (Guilty) could have a decisive influence on the doping case of the Saxony weightlifter Vicky Schlittig - and put the anti-doping institutions in need of explanation.
Actually, everything seemed clear: in a doping sample taken on the sidelines of the European Junior Championships, the German weightlifter Vicky Schlittig was found to have taken oral turinabol, a banned steroid. An East German athlete with a GDR doping classic in what is possibly the most doping-contaminated sport in the world - everything fits together.
But now a spectacular turn of events is in the offing. The district court judge in Chemnitz, who is supposed to judge the criminal dimension of the case under the case number 9 Ds 810 Js 40922/21 according to the Anti-Doping Act, has cancelled the main hearing eight days before the deadline. On September 1st, he ordered a biochemical expert to be called in.
It has to be clarified whether there are other possibilities how the substance could have entered the athlete's body than a deliberate ingestion by her. The public prosecutor's office can confidently take the volte-face as a severe rebuke. "The prosecution has not done any investigative work to produce any evidence," says Schlittig's Berlin lawyer Steffen Lask, "the prosecution is based on a positive doping finding alone."
Strong evidence of transdermal transmission
In the coming days, the case is likely to become even more complicated for investigators, and proving guilt even trickier. Lask has hired a Dutch anti-doping expert who is currently working on a second expertise. In his paper, Douwe de Boer from Maastricht, an experienced anti-doping expert, takes into account the latest scientific findings that a Cologne research group published in mid-August on the detectability of oral turinabol among other substances in the scientific journal "Drug Testing and Analysis".
Brief der Internationationalen-Test-Agentur an Vicky Schillig.
The study was based on an experiment that was the focus of the ARD documentary "Guilty" last year. The possible parallel to the Schlittig case: In the film, experiments were conducted with the administration of dehydrochloromethyltestosterone, the chemical name of oral turinabol, through the skin – a substance that is normally administered by tablet. The suspicion: Could Vicky Schlittig be the victim of a transfer of doping substances via touching the skin? Intentionally or unintentionally?
"The study explains that a person can be positive through skin contamination," says Douwe de Boer, "and then in the case of the Dehydrochlormethyl-Testosterone, that it gives a very specific signature. And then in the case of Vicky Schlittig, that signature is present in her urine, so that strongly suggest that she was subjected to a transdermal application."
What is particularly striking in this context is that Oral-Turinabol is now only available on the black market - as a powder, tablet or liquid to be injected, but not as an ointment. "We must therefore assume," says de Boer, "that she is innocent."
10,000 euros spent in the fight for innocence
Alarmingly neither the investigators in the field of sports law, i.e. the International Testing Agency (ITA), nor the public prosecutor's office in Chemnitz, which brought the charges at the local court, are pursuing the findings. It is particularly remarkable that the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) does not even know that the scientific study has long since been published. When asked by ARD, the agency asked when the study would be published.
The inconsistencies of Schlittig's scientific findings include not only a strange pattern of the degradation products of oral-turinabol in the urine analysis, but also the very small amount of the substance found in the urine, which would rule out an actual doping effect. Moreover, Schlittig was tested frequently and regularly - 26 times within five years - and all tests were negative, including shortly before and after the positive test.
Training in the chicken coop
But Oral-Turinabol, which accelerates muscle building, would only make sense for a doper if he took it over a longer period of time. Schlittig's lawyer Lask says: "These unusual analysis results are not taken into account by the ITA, on the contrary, they offer us a four-year ban. I think that is unfair."
Vicky Schlittig's life has been permanently disrupted by the doping test. Her contract with the German Army, the Bundeswehr, has been terminated. The proceedings have already cost about 10,000 euros. She had to move back in with her parents in Gröditz, Saxony, and now trains alone in a converted chicken coop. And whether any institution that has to decide on her guilt will appreciate all the evidence, even exculpatory evidence, is anyone's guess. "It is a very psychological burden. I wouldn't wish it on anyone to go through this," says Schlittig, "it puts a lot of strain on you."