– My life fell completely to pieces, said Angermund, four-time world champion in mountain running, in an interview with news on Thursday 8 February. He spoke about what happened on October 20 last year. Then he received the email from the French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD) stating that he had tested positive for the banned substance chlorthalidone after his victory in the Orsières-Champex-Chamonix mountain race on 31 August. Chlorthalidone is a blood pressure medication that can be used to mask other doping use. When asked directly by news whether he has taken the medicine for that purpose, Angermund replies “absolutely not”. He claims he has not taken the drug at all. Angermund therefore saw hope that it could all be due to a misunderstanding when on 30 October – ten days after the discouraging message from the AFLD – he received an e-mail from the organizers of the Ultra Trail du Mound Blanc (UTMB). It said: “We apologize for the delay, but we needed to get the anti-doping results first. It’s time for you to get your prize money!” FAR DOWN: Stian Angermund is looking for an explanation as to why he tested positive for a banned substance. Photo: Benjamin Dyrdal / news Asked for confirmation To be sure that he had understood correctly, Angermund sent a reply with a question on 2 November. “Can you confirm that the anti-doping results are clean and that you have received information?” On 6 November, the answer came: “Your anti-doping tests were cleared”. In the same email, Angermund was again encouraged to withdraw his prize money. news has gained access to this e-mail exchange. After receiving confirmation from the organizer that they had been told that his doping test was clean, Angermund chose to accept the prize money. – Yes, I had to accept them, and I will probably have to send them back again, he says to news. – Wasn’t informed The organizers state in an e-mail to news that the first prize was 10,000 euros, just over NOK 110,000. But how could the organizers have received a different message about the test result than Angermund himself had received? To find out, news first contacted the French Anti-Doping Agency. The response from communications manager Julien Marival is that the organizers were not informed that the test was negative – nor that it was positive. “The organizers were not legally informed of any positive test result, unlike the athlete himself, the national and international federation and his national anti-doping agency,” writes Marival. Confronted with this, the organizers replied the following in an email to news: “To be compatible with WADA (the International Anti-Doping Agency), the controls were carried out by the French Anti-Doping Agency, which exclusively informs the athlete in the event of a positive test. We therefore had no information about the result until Stian communicated it to us on Saturday 10 February.” WORLD CHAMPION: Stian Angermund has four WC golds from various forms of mountain running. – Internal misunderstanding On a follow-up question about why Angermund was then informed of the opposite, the answer is: “At the end of October, the teams that answered Stian were internally instructed to pay out the prize money as quickly as possible. They erroneously concluded that the anti-doping tests were OK. Hence the answer and the phrase ‘Your anti-doping tests were cleared’, which was an internal misunderstanding.” The email was written by Sabina Mollart Rogerson, who is director of the company that handles all communications for the organizers. The organizers emphasize at the same time that Angermund is not disqualified from the victory, as long as there is no verdict in the case. “If a winner is disqualified for doping-related cases, the prize money will be redistributed in accordance with the regulations,” they state. – Very disrespectfully, news’s sports commentator Jan Petter Saltvedt reacts strongly to the internal misunderstanding. – If you don’t know, as the organizers now claim they don’t, then at least they shouldn’t say anything. This kind of emotional rollercoaster is a kind of extra punishment that no one, guilty or not, has earned. It is not only unprofessional, it is very disrespectful, says Saltvedt. Confronted with Saltvetd’s statement, the organizers reply: “We can only repeat what was said on Friday, and that the organizers are not aware of test results or have access to information about them. It was due to unfortunate human error.”
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Was told that the positive doping test was clean – explained by “internal misunderstanding”
