The eight-year-old positive doping sample of Christos Volikakis from 2016 caused a shock to Greek sports. As announced by the International Cycling Union (UCI), the top cyclist was found to be doped in a control carried out in 2016 at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
Initially the sample was considered negative, but the re-check – which has been institutionalized for years – came up with a “red” result. Volikakis, who declares his innocence, was placed on temporary suspension until the examination of the second sample and is at risk of a four-year ban.
The 36-year-old athlete made public the list of negative test results and his “biological passport” and made the following statement through his lawyer Anastasios Duga:
“”My principal participated in the Olympic Games in Rio, Brazil in the year 2016 in the sport of cycling-sprint, in which he was ranked 12th in a row. After the end of the race, specifically on 16.8.2016, the Organizing Committee of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games invited him to provide a sample (urine) for a sample test, to be checked by the Committee. Indeed, on that date he provided the relevant sample material, which resulted in two sample codes and a negative test result.
On 01.03.2024, my principal received, out of silence, the relevant letter from the Hellenic Olympic Committee, on behalf of the International Olympic Committee, which informed him that in a re-check of the first sample which he had provided at the time (2016) a prohibited substance was detected in his body! The substance referred to in the relevant letter is a substance that my principal does not know and has never used!
My principal from the beginning of his career until today, as a world-class athlete, embracing the values of sports, has never received any substance that would enhance his performance, precisely because each performance is a huge personal physical and mental effort and effort.
It is also surprising that this particular sample was re-checked after almost eight full years since sampling, especially considering that the position it occupied then was not even close to the medal positions! In fact, on the day of sampling, the result was negative.
In any event my principal, a world-renowned cyclist, professes complete ignorance of both the type of substance which appears to have been detected in the test and the manner in which it may have been found there, given the fact that he has never in any way received such a substance , let alone during the 2016 Olympic Games. He has already requested the opening and analysis of the other sample, which was taken in accordance with the regulations, on the same day.
Mr. Volikakis, has passed countless checks in his cycling career, in all parts of the world as well as sudden checks but also after races he was checked every day for four consecutive days. He has, based on the law, all these years an electronic – biological passport and they take a urine and blood sample from him. During this time he has never given the slightest reason. So after so many years, in the year 2024, he was told that he had a banned substance in his body! We have also requested that the second sample be opened.
Mr. Volikakis will take legal action for his vindication, because it is questionable how after 8 years all this is happening. Finally, I declare as his advocate that we will fight until the end for the justice of Mr. Volikakis and for the restoration of the injustice he is suffering”.
Retesting of frozen samples has been established for about two decades. As the World Cycling Union explains: “Under the World Anti-Doping Code, samples can be stored for 10 years after collection, which was extended from eight years to 10 years after the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics]keeping the same legal consequence in the case of reanalysis”.
It is recalled that Pigi Devetzi was caught doping during the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008, as a result of which she was stripped of the medal she had won.
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