German XC Racer Helen Grobert Banned for 4 Years After Testing Positive for Testosterone

Apr 9, 2020
by James Smurthwaite  
Helen Grobert shocked herself with a fourth place finish.

German XC racer Helen Grobert has received a 4 year ban after failing an out of competition urine test.

Grobert, 27, was the 2015 German champion, placed 12th at the Rio Olympics and has a best World Cup result of 4th, earned at the season opener in Stellenbosch in March 2018. Grobert has not raced since that result and in June 2018 announced she was going on an indefinite hiatus from the cycling world for "health reasons".

It has now been revealed that testosterone was detected in a urine sample taken from Grobert on November 15, 2017 and that a retroactive ban of four years has been handed down by the National Anti-Doping Agency of Germany (NADA). The ban will be instated from March 24 2018, when Grobert stopped racing, and will last until March 23, 2022. Grobert will also have all results from the date of the test stripped.

Helen Grobert

Testosterone is generally used to increase muscle mass. It is listed in S1 of the WADA Prohibited list and is banned in and out of competition. The decision is not yet final and Grobert can launch an appeal through the Court of Arbitration for Sport.


Press Release: NADA

In an arbitral decision dated March 31, 2020, the German Sports Arbitration Court decided to suspend the internationally competing mountainbiker Helen Grobert for 4 years for an anti-doping rule violation according to Article 2.1 of the German Cycling Federation Anti-Doping Code due to the presence of the prohibited substance testosterone in the urine sample from November 15, 2017. The arbitration panel thus followed NADA's request for the sanction. The period of the ban began on March 24, 2018 and ends on March 23, 2022, taking into account the temporary suspension. All competition results with the resulting consequences in the period from November 15, 2017 to March 24, 2018 will be canceled. The decision is not yet in force.

As soon as the decision is in force it can be found in the NADAjus data base on NADA's homepage.



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205 Comments
  • 676 4
 For those struggeling to pronounce her name properly : Helen Grow-beard.
  • 237 0
 Who says ze German's have no sense of humour...
  • 30 119
flag pensamtb (Apr 9, 2020 at 3:12) (Below Threshold)
 Maybe that's what she took the testosterone for.. to grow a beard?
  • 35 42
flag RoadStain (Apr 9, 2020 at 3:15) (Below Threshold)
 Can we put her head to head with Rachel McKinnon?
  • 67 0
 @pensamtb: you got the joke! Hooray!
  • 35 7
 "Dude looks like a Lady"
  • 17 17
 @jjhobbs: Englishmen with stiff upper lip
  • 49 6
 @WAKIdesigns: She'll have a stiff something if she keeps on with testosterone.
  • 48 22
 @bigtim: I don’t know, every clitoris I’ve been next to got stiff at some point... experience may vary...

I’m getting too old to be here
  • 3 1
 @RoadStain: still not a fair fight
  • 14 1
 @WAKIdesigns: I was talking about stiff talking to. Pervert.
  • 3 7
flag Xc2dh1 (Apr 9, 2020 at 5:35) (Below Threshold)
 Grow-balls
  • 1 2
 I always liked Nadine Reider more anyway ????
  • 3 0
 i have to give credit where credit is due, that is probably one of the funniest things i have ever read lmao
  • 2 0
 @jjhobbs: Robin Williams
  • 1 0
 Hahaha that's solid gold mate!
  • 1 1
 @WAKIdesigns: "I’m getting too old to be here"

Thanks to modern medicine, that is no longer the case.....

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WANNqr-vcx0
  • 1 0
 @WAKIdesigns: Get on some testosterone therapy and ur thoughts of gettimg to old will quickly diminish.
  • 1 3
 @bohns1: it's illegal in Sweden... or should I just buy jelly bears from the big man with zits, then do blood tests myself?
  • 1 1
 if only she had read Dr John Lee’s book what your doctor can’t tell you about menopause. progesterone cream and mike mahlers estrogen control supplement that’s all. nevermind
  • 1 0
 @WAKIdesigns: what what...
  • 1 0
 @WAKIdesigns: lots of good ugl labs bud!
  • 1 0
 @WAKIdesigns: u mean u cant get bloodwork done there upon request? Guess u gotta get old quicker then.
  • 1 0
 LOL, what about her equally beautiful twin sis Hannah Grow-beard?
  • 1 0
 @RoadStain: lol,great tune
  • 1 0
 @jjhobbs: WAKI...he berings out the best in me......he, completes me....
  • 81 15
 can't wait to hear the other side of the story. .. . ... it'll be a treatment from some illness she was undergoing. . ... or took a sip from the wrong bottle. .. .. ...
  • 103 33
 Leave Maes alone with the treatment. That ban was illegitimate. But Rude and Graves are indeed kinda questionable.
  • 65 119
flag jimoxbox (Apr 9, 2020 at 3:00) (Below Threshold)
 @Hugo26: Maes just as questionable as Rude and Graves
  • 18 6
 You are going soo below threshold in 8-10 hours Big Grin
  • 16 0
 this could be 'I sat on a colony of wild testosterone in the woods'
  • 21 35
flag audioshnoll (Apr 9, 2020 at 4:53) (Below Threshold)
 Seems like we finally found one adverse effect of drinking semen...
  • 12 6
 @ismasan: maybe she just got laid prior to the test... while men’s testosterone levels drop post sex women get a boost from sex and orgasms. There are no puns intended by transfer of bodily fluids by my statement.
  • 11 1
 Haha, you´ll get downvoted heavily as soon as America gets up Big Grin
  • 19 11
 Took a drink from Richie rudes water bottle
  • 4 1
 She ought to still have a good chance of making the German women's Olympic swim team, right?
  • 38 10
 Maes had an extraordinary case of bad luck. He was almost dead in the middle of nowhere with no cell phone, and a doctor popped out of a bush with a rarely prescribed drug to fix it. Fortunately he was saved and a few days later won the EWS, a completely natural recovery from not feeling your leg due to an infection a few days earlier. Even more unfortunate, he had just gone from spending years as a mid pack to podium rider to a year of dominated both EWS and downhill, what a bad time to accidentally take a masking agent! Maes has to be the unluckiest guy since Lance.
  • 12 11
 LMAO at the Maes apologists. He is dirty too get over it.
  • 5 3
 @JohSch: is it fun to watch the digression of the forums as our country awakens from their slumber? I wish I could firsthand experience seeing the effects of ignorance sweeping the forums so rapidly....
  • 3 3
 @GorgeousBeauGaston: Maes should have used the Lance playbook and said that he got cancer during that fall in the woods. He would've been able to ride it a lot longer before the eventual bust.
  • 7 4
 @GorgeousBeauGaston: Maes was looking pretty good after "nearly dying".

Lets assme his shitty story was true. He had no reception and therefore couldnt check if the drugs that were about to be administered were UCI legal. So far he hasnt done anything wrong, BUT WHY THE f*ck did he not check it as soon as he came home, informed the UCI and withdrew from racing? He waited it out till he got caught.
  • 1 1
 @PaulBoettig:
i think that was why he got the ban, if he had owned up straight away they prob would have given him a med waiver and the doc a word in his ear and let it go. i believe it was becsuse it was still in his system two weeks later when tested. Prob why he didn't fight it. though if i was the UCI that Doc would never be working at an event again if he didn't know what drugs where legal or not or the correct reporting procedures if he had to go off script to save the riders life.
  • 3 0
 @GorgeousBeauGaston: mid pack? you must be fast!
  • 4 0
 @Hooch73: it wasn't a UCI event and all the docs were local volunteers helping out.
  • 1 0
 No, no. It was clearly from a contaminated steak. Everyone knows there’s a chance of eating beef with so much testosterone in it that you subsequently return an AAF. Actually, it’ll probably turn out that she inadvertently took a bite from another persons steak. But she’ll not say who’s steak it is or how much testosterone was found so one cannot determine whether her AAF actually came from a nibble of some other cheaters steak.

And once her suspension is up she’ll be back and everyone will pretend nothing ever happened. Maybe she’ll even attack people who call her a cheat because she is a convicted doper.
  • 8 1
 @GorgeousBeauGaston: yeeeah, pretty hard to believe Maes's story.

Except the injury was real, the doctor with no affiliation to Maes was real and the drug is extremely common for that type of injuries and is prescribed daily at Whistler's hospital, as mountainbiker and doctor Clark Lewis from Whistler confirmed.
  • 45 1
 And bang goes the Land Rover sponsorship. No way they'll defend 'er after this discovery.
  • 13 0
 yup she can say "ta ta" to that deal.
  • 7 0
 Maybe she can evoque an appeal, there is a wide range for sponsorship
  • 3 0
 low-key puns there nice.
  • 2 0
 Such an unfortunate discovery
  • 1 0
 Her mood is probably Oslo Blue.
  • 2 0
 Sponsors may fall flat fender. Shit. That's no good.
  • 45 1
 She put that needle in her bum, cause all that losing was no fun
  • 18 0
 Now it's the needle and the damage done
youtu.be/k0t0EW6z8a0
  • 7 0
 Sitting behind the pack made Helen feel all alone, so what’s wrong with a shot of testosterone?
Now Helen can make friends in the middle of the pack, but the UCI decided to attack!
Poor Helen will have to make an excuse, too bad some else already used the one about drinking the wrong juice.
Maybe tell everyone it was from a friendly doctor that saved you from a bad boo-boo, oh crap that was also used too.
Oh Good grief, young Helen did say, I’ll tell them it was from bad beef, that will surely win the day!
  • 35 0
 She had to cheat to get to 12th in the Olympics. Makes you wonder how a clean rider can ever get in the top 10, let alone win.
  • 23 0
 ....Or, just how good at doping are the top 10?!
  • 7 0
 @bartonw: the best!
  • 7 1
 @DHhack: Exactly. Everyone knows about Lance. That said, the UCI stripped the entire top 20 from pretty much all those seven years of the tour because they all were doping in one way or another...give or take of course. Several documentaries point to the fact that 1) UCI knew about it all along, they just were loving (and still do) all the cash from coverage rolling in and 2) All the teams a well aware that if you want to be anywhere near the top 10, doping is the only way to go in road biking especially since it's 95% endurance based.
  • 5 1
 @bman33: as a roadie in college (early ‘90s) it was obvious that most were cheating at the amateur and collegiate levels. Probably child’s play compared to now what’s legally purchased over the counter. Oh well, I’m having more fun now playing in the dirt!
  • 7 3
 @DHhack: I love it how nobody in strength sports gives a damn. There are 3 16-19yr old head cases on my gym. They haven’t stop growing in height, yet their chests shoulders are huge, and biceps are bigger than thighs of other kids in their age. One of them is pumping out 3s of 90kg. Whoever worries about how to make kids play clean, should ask them first if they mind playing dirty.
  • 18 0
 @DHhack: back when I raced Cat 4 road, when people found out I was a doctor they were asking me if I’d write EPO and testosterone prescriptions. In cat 4.
  • 7 0
 @DrPete: Yep. I forgot the name, but there was pretty famous/infamous amateur grabbing all the KOM's in California a few years back. Someone, and ex pro I believe, made it a mission to call him out and expose his cheating. If I remember lots of doping at the amateur /older rider level was exposed. I'll try to find some links to that scandal
  • 2 0
 @DrPete: I believe it. Too bad they probably couldn’t hang with the average Sunday morning shop ride.
  • 10 0
 @DHhack: I was just amazed that anyone thought I’d be willing to risk my medical license to prescribe drugs under the table so some jackass can win a pair of socks and bragging rights.
  • 8 0
 @bman33: cheating Strava on road is so easy and cheap I am surprised people bother going for KOMs. Just see analysis of efforts of top riders, then get into the car and drive at speeds very close to theirs at given locations... honestly, Strava KOMming is so lame, is deserves no less...
  • 4 0
 @DrPete: most people have no clue about medical licensing (I’m married to PhD neuropsychologist). They think y’all can do whatever you want.
  • 1 0
 @DrPete: I’m pretty sure there are some 50+ CAT 2 dual slalom racers on a program. CAT2! In their late 50s!

I love those guys
  • 2 0
 @bman33: The guy you are referring to (if I remember correctly) called himself "Thorfinn-Sasquatch", and was supposedly on a ban for doping. Phil Gaimon is the one that called him out and started taking all the KOM's.

Ended up being his post pro racing career. Taking KOM's, and putting it on Youtube.

Interesting point of reference, on a local big climb (30 miles and 6000'), I averaged 200w for 2:45. Phil, and a local pro friend of mine did it in one hour less than me! (in my defense it wasn't an all out effort, but I wasn't cruising either!)
  • 2 0
 @JSTootell: Yes! That's him. Thanks for the update/research. Lots of Dbags out there for sure. That sounds like a nice climb indeed. I live in Colorado, so we have some nasty climbs. I am the guy who will make it up, but not setting any records. I am an old BMX/DH semi pro so I climb only to go down fast...and for the cardio, but not setting any KOM by far. Big Grin
  • 28 11
 This feels like nothing more than a slap on the wrist they’ve essentially dished her out a 1 year ban (next year) since there won’t be any racing this year. IMO doping bans should just be permanent. Also how does the testing process take so long!
  • 24 8
 Should be banned for far longer and stripped of her titles, no room for cheaters in this world
  • 14 9
 NOTHING worse than cheaters. Ban them for life. No question about it.
  • 6 4
 Give her a second chance I say.. When she's had a year to think about her decision
  • 79 0
 4 years not racing often means the end of a career. Another reason why 4 years is the default length of a serious ban is to make sure that the athlete can't compete in the next olympics. Callin for harsher punishment of athletes doesn't help anyway. It would be more effective to include team managers in the ban so that they have an incentive to prevent their athletes from doping instead of supporting it.
  • 42 1
 She might of just borrowed a buddies waterbottle
  • 2 0
 @mtb1201: TRUTH, If all the pro racers taking 'supplements' legaly, misstakenly or otherwise there'd be no fkng sport
  • 15 0
 Although it wasn´t official, it was already known she tested positive. I was surprised to read this, not because it was news but because it wasn´t. I knew about this since, well, about June 2018. There were no health reasons, she knew what was coming for her. This is a proper 4 year ban, not a slap on the wrist, and probably well deserved I may add. On a note this took so long because it went through the appeal, the testing itself was much quicker.
  • 18 2
 @wellbastardfast: borrowed watterbottles are only punished with 0.5 years (in the winter time) Wink
  • 6 1
 @wellbastardfast: i didnt know she was riding a yeti
  • 12 0
 Please read this:
The period of the ban began on March 24, 2018 and ends on March 23, 2022

and then this:
All competition results with the resulting consequences in the period from November 15, 2017 to March 24, 2018 will be canceled.

And now you can comment again. (except trolls, it's ok with you.)
  • 13 0
 @fracasnoxteam: Please don't let the actual article contents or facts get in the way of a heated discussion. You should know better.
  • 16 14
 You are correct. There -ARE- exceptions, as there are scenarios where it is not the competitor's fault. If I were at the elite level and wanted to screw someone I could simply put Testogel on a doorknob on a door they are going to open (or whatever, you get it). The same can be said for a drug test, there are always wives tales about marijuana brownies at a company gathering and drug tests the next day at the same company.

When I was racing road there was a story about a cyclist who had an aunt spiking his food in an effort to help him. He got a + test and subsequently committed suicide. Not at ALL saying that is the case here, but that the scenario calls for exemptions from the lifetime ban, no matter how thin the excuse may be. Plus, there is not a human alive that does not deserve a second chance.

This, however, does bring up, again, the overall questions....why is a girl taking testosterone cheating, but a man taking estrogen and racing as a woman not cheating?
  • 7 8
 @RoadStain: I agree, I could give second chance even to @chriskneeland. The only people who don’t deserve second chances are people who believe that some people don’t deserve a second chance.
  • 3 8
flag RoadStain (Apr 9, 2020 at 4:39) (Below Threshold)
 @WAKIdesigns: I have zero doubt that when I was young and going from Junios to Pro...myself and every other person near me took what ever we were told. Pills, potions, lotions, IV's....what the hell did we know? We were 17-20 years old and lived in vans.
  • 10 13
 @RoadStain: I Have an irresistible gut feeling that people who are highly judgmental of dopers have disgusting personalities. It’s like folks who say they don’t do drugs, or better, folks who openly, proudly claim they are sober. I have a strange feeling they also reserved themselves to dry humping until they got married. Ehm... if I could take testosterone A sa part of TRT protocol under supervision of a doc, I wouldn’t think twice. I’d take it.

I am not earning money racing, I am in no position judging racers for anything.
  • 7 8
 @WAKIdesigns: I would much rather hang out with Alcoholics (who are sober and hanging out with Bill W) than with the dudes in a bar. One of the two groups is at least not living delusions and potentially in denial.
  • 5 1
 @BigE-Rosen: it’s cute that you have such a black & white world view. Do you disclose all your expenses when you do your taxes as well???

Edit: I saw your profile and says you’re 19... explains why you think that way. Get ready for a world of hard lessons then.
  • 6 0
 @Ttimer: revoking licences of team doctors supervising this would end it all. I bet they would even run internal tests to ensure atheletes ain't juicing on their own
  • 12 2
 @BigE-Rosen: @BigE-Rosen: Cheaters always find a way to get in and succeed, in any competitive scenario. Hell, if you scam and cheat enough in life you can even become president of the united states!
  • 2 0
 @ismasan: Possibly yes. But hard to implement. Revoking doctors licences requires the criminal justice system. That is not something the sport can do on its own. Banning teams from competition whose managers were involved in doping is comparatively easier.
  • 3 22
flag RoadStain (Apr 9, 2020 at 5:51) (Below Threshold)
 @jptothetree: seems to me that you have the standard mentality of a stereotypical loser in life. It is not that somebody else beat you it is that they must have cheated. It really is a tragic way to go day by day. Possibly suicide is the best answer in many cases.
  • 2 0
 Punishments should only be applied to people who have done wrong. Other people around an athlete may or may not know about or be involved with the cheating. Guilt should not be assumed, it should be decided based on evidence.
  • 1 2
 unless you figure:
- its likely the end of her career
- the titles/results are stripped for the post cheating period
- everyone cheats, but not everyone get caught
- you cant make sure theres no corruption. why is this found 3y later and no one else is listed f.e.?
- what do you do when male to female trans are ok, yet female with testosterone shoots arent?
  • 6 1
 @jptothetree:
look at the lance case, i'm usually pretty forgiving and allow them a second chance. In lances case no, not because of the doping but his systemic destruction of other riders who went against or threatened to out him and ruining their careers. He was a monster who would do anything to stay at the top and was in denial for ages until his sponsers left him for tarnishing their reps before he finally admitted to what he had done.
Maes i think was a situation handled badly, was he juicing, i doubt it, did the doc screw up royally, i think that is closer to the truth, a simple phone call at the hospital by the doc or after the race would have gone a long way to stopping what happened to the rider.
  • 7 6
 @Hooch73: I love Lances show. Most podcasts with him are ace.

You have to understand that he's a product of French and Italian dope shennenigans in the 1980s/90s undoubtedly supported by UCI and WADA. Many ask me: how do you tell your kid to play fair then? I will tell him that No1 Being a Pro athlete is not exactly on top of the list of most meaningful occuptions in the world, No2 Getting near the top of any developed sport like road cycling or Olympic running is a prime sign of mental sickness, with body ruining training protocols. You are messing up your body and by the time you re 40 you are a wreck of a human, so don't. No3: Judging by No1 and 2, doping is a rotten cherry on the rotten pie.

It is not our children's fault that we have such unrealistic expectations of entertainers that top athletes are. It is not the fult of our kids that we decided that high level sports are some pure, idealistic endeavour, a higher plane of human existence. They are not. All developed sports like road cycling are rotten to the bones. I'd have a hard enough time recommending high level MTB to my kids. If my daughter at some point in far future will be dating a top athlete I'll be seriously worried. I have a top athlete in my family, with all the due sympathy he's not the best chap to be around when race or insta live is over.
  • 6 0
 @WAKIdesigns: lance isn't a product of anything but a shitty childhood and a natural cunning. he's an inherent sociopath and found ripe breeding ground to ply his trade.
  • 2 2
 @Hooch73: You are missing one of the aspects of racing. In that era (when I was racing) or today. No matter what the folks at the pointy end are pretty darn Type-A. From there, every one of them (us) was either running FROM something (LA had daddy issues)...or, running TO something (I will not name names, but running to the expectations of daddy-mommy).

If your parent(s) were Oly Gold winners, you too were expected to win gold. Or, the options are - drinking, drugs, destructive lifestyles -vs- beating yourself day after day on the bike. I know quite a few people who left the pointy end of the game and ended up homeless, addicts, and dead (Pantani). Up at the top, lives are disposable, emotions are a weakness and the only thing that matters are results.
  • 7 0
 @WAKIdesigns:
i only don't like him as had no care about destroying the lives and careers of anyone who threatened his little empire.
cheats are cheats. scumbags who destroy lives to protect themselves are criminals.
  • 5 1
 @Hooch73: Absolutely agree with you. His cheating is the least of his faults. He is a lier, a bully, and an all-around A**hole. He is not worth listening to about anything.
  • 1 0
 @mtb1201: never said she was the only one?
  • 1 2
 @BigE-Rosen: please, can you refrain from using such insulting pronouns as "she" when describing a person? I will have to report you to....well, someone, let me send Rachel McKinnon and see who I need to report you to.
  • 4 1
 @mm732: It is a toss-up, who has destroyed more lives, Lance, or Hillary......wow......
  • 2 0
 @wellbastardfast: or maybe she had some steak from Contador's meat guy? ????
  • 3 1
 @ @WAKIdesigns: This whole woe is to Lance Armstrong falls apart very quickly when you read the actually reports on what he did and what he directed occur when he was involved in racing and doping. Openly attacking people and threatening people who questioned his association with known facilitators of doping. Using Trek to go after LeMond when he challenged Lance Armstrong. Attacking the leading anti-doping advocate in the world when he questioned Armstrong.

Lance Armstrong is nothing more than a convicted doper and cheater. It’s disturbing that people to this day attempt to defend him and what he has done.
  • 1 0
 @BigE-Rosen: Tar and feathers more appropriate...Add Maes, Rude etc...
  • 1 0
 @nordland071285: You mean "his" decision...
  • 1 0
 @RoadStain: Your crazy-white-man is showing LOL
  • 1 0
 @WAKIdesigns: As a guy who hasn't had a drink in about 15 years, nor ever used drugs, you can add me into the "disgusting personalities" category.

Oh, also, not an alcoholic. I just don't drink or do drugs.

@RoadStain: A friend of mine is the brother of a former Olympian and had a lot of pressure put on him (mostly by himself) to meet high expectations. He luckily has been able to separate his brothers legacy from his own and just enjoys cycling now (though he does race as a pro).
  • 23 2
 ballsy move..
  • 29 16
 And some people are okay with transgenders competing with obviously changed/un-natural testosterone levels... all while they still have many other physical differences that surgery can’t change. Like different musculoskeletal structure and lung capacities. Where are people going to draw the line?
  • 15 6
 @dkidd: You linked to the UCI regulation that only specifies a testosterone level requirement for transgender athletes. Their point is that there are biological advantages beyond that which can't be "corrected" for...
  • 12 9
 @BrigadierBuege: and my point is that the matter is studied in-depth by highly qualified people, and that even the most cursory of google searches will result in plenty of useful information.
  • 8 4
 @dkidd: people who use the word ignorant are often projecting
  • 11 7
 @dkidd: And yet, boys and girls are NOT the same. It takes are really special kind of retard to deny this whole chromosome thing.
  • 2 0
 @dkidd: The UCI use testosterone levels because that's the only measure they CAN use.

You are right, the most cursory of google searches will result in plenty of useful information for the use of testosterone levels as being the best measure available. But then, a most cursory of searches will find plenty of useful information against it too.
  • 2 1
 @RoadStain: yes! Yet they still allow men dressed as women to race against women...
  • 3 1
 @Golden-G: Despite my identifying as "Special", every time I try to enter the Special Olympics they tell me no....time to call the ACLU.
  • 16 5
 So were her T levels still below the then UCI maximum of (at the time) 10 nmol/L? If trans men-to-women can have testosterone at a certain level, shouldn't women be able to dope up to that level? Or train at an even higher level, so long as they "cut down" their T levels for the test, like a wrestler cutting weight?
  • 7 8
 I am all for transwomen competing in the women's division, but the 10 nmol/L is ridiculous. I think they're moving it down to 5 nmol/L and I support that one.
  • 11 1
 Holy crap these comments are brutal. Especially when there's really not much information and no response from her. Sounds like she might even care if she's done racing anyways.

Brutal keyboard warriors today. Someone piss in ur oatmeal?
  • 1 0
 Too much testosterone in most of the comments here already. I don’t get how people don’t trust the government, don’t trust pinkbike, don’t trust the UCI, but any time NADA or WADA make a statement it’s swallowed whole.
  • 5 2
 Yeah, it is the ugly side of PB. I hate to see people bash an athlete like this.
  • 1 0
 @vinay: I think it's a pretty clear cut case that she has accepted she did wrong since we are now 2 years past the start of the ban. She should have owned her mistake back then though and told the truth as to why she was leaving the sport
  • 2 0
 @rrsport: Checked that top comment here, 631 upvotes at the moment, disrespectful as f*ck, regardless of what she has done. Especially considering the history of the country of athlete and "top commenter". Talented (very) young female DDR athletes got drawn in a special program. Because of the f*cked up nationalism, prestige and ego that goes with the olympics (the very reason I hate the event) the powers that be decided that there were most medals up for grabs in the female categories as in many countries women weren't in the position to dedicate enough time and energy in sports to be competitive, the DDR and USSR invested loads in supporting their female athletes. Or let me put it straight, they drugged them to the point that it completely destroyed their lives. Loads of testosterone. If they wanted to get away from it, there were molested, mutilated. They got praise for "making their country proud" but when later on the whole program was revealed, it were these athletes who got smeared. And losing ones femininity is not considered "cool" in our society, affected female athletes were made more fun of than that they were properly compensated. Even thirty years after the wall went down (so which makes it common German history) these athletes were still not compensated properly. They could get 5000 euro or so. Peanuts for a destroyed life. Now I'm not German so I'm not sure how much the current Germans themselves know of this piece of their history. But I'd consider it quite sensitive at the very least as this is testosterone again. Not laughing matter. So in this case of this mtb athlete here, did she actually choose for the path of doping or was she under some kind of pressure from team, coaches or whatever? Yet even if she did this by choice, in the historical context I consider the comment and especially the number of upvotes it got, sickening.
  • 4 0
 @vinay: in general you get massively downvoted on PB for being decent and/or making sense. God forbid.


But hey if you jump on the bandwagon you'll get the upvotes your small ego desires....


Kinda like all the people that were talking crap ALL over the media/web about Rose dropping out of the UFC fight. Then less than a day later it comes out she had Covid deaths in the family and the fight got canceled anyways. LOL! In general people are pretty freaking narrow right now...
  • 23 11
 She seems like a nice gal .. why would she wanna be a man?
  • 15 5
 Leave the doping to the roadies, we don’t need this shit in our sport.
  • 3 6
 Tri folks took over the practice, in a HUGE way. Best part, it is the AG's not the pros.
  • 6 0
 Lets be honest, if you're gonna dope, doing it as an amateur is probably the best way. Then, just as people take you seriously, you switch over to being a influencer via instagram. That way you can lean on your credentials of state and regional podiums without ever being drug tested. That being said, doping doesn't provide skills, time, or training dedication.
  • 1 0
 @PHeller: That's the baseball program.... LOL! Dope up. Get paid. Then stop and people wonder why you're not punch 40 plus over the fence anymore and you claim shoulder and back injuries. Take the money and run. LOL!
  • 6 0
 Im sure a load of these cheat. Most just get away with it and she was one that got caught.
  • 4 0
 Every time one of these articles is published I say the same thing;

They’re all on drugs. The ones who get caught are just worse at hiding it.
  • 1 0
 100%
  • 2 0
 It probably was not only testosterone, but she likely took part in ozone therapies and got blood infusions as well. At least that's what Freiburg's prosecution was looking into.
classic.rad-net.de/index.php?newsid=49196
  • 3 0
 And we all know who else was racing with her in the team...naive who may think a young girl with organise and plan such a treatment alone! .....
  • 6 2
 She rides for Transition now.
  • 4 0
 At first, I was like: “how do you get fired on your day off?”
  • 2 0
 Stole some boxes.
  • 3 0
 News Flash: it is more likely than not that most elite endurance cycling athletes are doping. The ends justify the means.
  • 1 0
 In the right context, would Gatoraid not have been a PED in a land before folks paid attention to electrolytes?
  • 2 0
 @RoadStain: it's what plants crave.
  • 1 0
 @RoadStain: there’s a stark difference between a supplement and and anabolic steroid / hormone injections.
  • 1 0
 @RoadStain: minus 1 and
  • 4 1
 No doubt it was asthma related???? all the top cheats seem to have it
  • 1 0
 due process. ie giving her time to appeal etc before finalising the case.
  • 3 2
 Cheating in a world cup race? How Rude of her.
Would be interesting hearing her side of the story. Probably just drank from someone else's water bottle or something.
  • 4 0
 GODDAMN YOU BERNICE!!
  • 2 0
 I like Helen, was a bit sad when she stopped racing suddenly. I think her sister is a racer IIRC
  • 15 16
 Isn't this a null point if we're moving towards a world when LGBTQWXYZ1234 can't simply pull a 'crying game' and go ahead and compete with the women anyways?. I don't endorse any kind of cheating (which this clearly is) but at least she was born a woman. FFS.
  • 4 3
 yep. let them go nuts. shoot it up. Open Mod class baby.
  • 1 0
 I feel that genetic engineering of humans is more of a nullifying point here than home one replacement therapy.

No need to take drugs if you’re CRISPR’d into being a superior athlete genetically from birth.
  • 2 0
 Meanwhile other XC racers and their chemists are having the time of their life during the quarantine lol .
  • 2 0
 When will riders learn to not take sips from other people's water bottles??
  • 6 4
 If she were a man, and a enduro racer... only 6 months
  • 1 0
 I only don't like him for his antics of destroying the rep and careers of anyone who threatened his little empire.
  • 1 0
 If they’d just allow everyone to use the testosterone, it wouldn’t be cheating anymore when one person did.
  • 3 2
 Maybe she is transitioning so she becomes a he and can race with men....no wait ... That never happens.
  • 2 0
 If this was in 2018, why is she only being banned now?
  • 16 1
 It's more complicated than it looks. There's growing evidence that a side-effect of testosterone is a significant distortion of how that person perceives time. She actually received the ban in 2018 but can only process the information now. Apparently at this very moment Helen is being greeted by her team at the finish line of the German nationals in 2019 and is being told of this news. It's tragic really.
  • 3 0
 @IrishTom: the little talked about side effects of being a male
  • 1 0
 She hasn't raced in 2 years, probably knew this was coming at some point. Why the hell did it take this long?
  • 1 0
 You are only a cheat if you get caught, otherwise race on and get that sponsor bling money money money!
  • 1 0
 Little fish get caught: She will pay.

The British national road racing team was running a doping program: Proofs were lost.
  • 3 2
 2017? How long does it take to analyse piss?
  • 2 0
 Was a long piss
  • 9 9
 yet trans women can race in the "female" category. Makes a mockery of the system.
  • 1 1
 I'm genuinely surprised no one's photoshopped a joint into this photo of Helen.
  • 2 1
 Any DH racers doping? So far Enduro, CX, XC, and Road Racing
  • 2 2
 Bathe her and bring her to my chambers. With all that T I bet she shags like a minx. not that I condone bending the rules.
  • 1 0
 I honestly almost forgot about XC entirely until this lol.
  • 1 0
 Don’t swallow and you won’t get testosterone!
  • 1 1
 So she took testosterone yet her best result is a 4th...
  • 2 0
 She's the scapegoat for the team...
  • 1 0
 yikes....
  • 4 4
 second chance. Everybody screws up.
  • 5 2
 No, I can understand food contamination, I could even stretch to understand supplements contamination, but exogenous testosterone does not deserve a second chance. Somebody like that has obviously been cheating for a long time and deserves their cycling career to end.
Being a pro cyclist is a privilege, there's many other people out there who dedicate 120% to achieve it and reach that level and deserve that spot more than a freaking cheater!
  • 2 0
 She get's a second chance after the ban is over. It isn't a lifetime ban.
  • 2 2
 @P-Munari: I get your point and your passion. Its hard but I dont think anyone deserves to be "finished" because of a lack of judgement. On the other hand, plenty of other athletes didnt cheat so...... If we are too harsh because people make mistakes and bad calls, what does that make us? Doing it again though....Thats too far gone.
  • 1 0
 @dfiler: Good point.
  • 2 2
 I know what you mean. Like anyone here's never made a mistake in their life
  • 1 0
 @P-Munari: Food contamination? Like Alberto Contador’s bullshit claim about clenbuterol in his beef? Meanwhile in the two years leading up to eating his clen filled beef there was exactly one beef that tested positive in Europe for clenbuterol (over 80000 total tests). The chance of getting contaminated food is even lower than the contaminated supplements but at the end of the day both of them are absolute bullshit excuses deployed by cheaters.
  • 1 0
 @SpecializedFTW: C'mon, nobody is naive enough to believe the Contador story, but food contamination is something that could happen especially for people traveling to continents were food regulations are quite poor compared to EU....Asia for example.
As I said, I can comprehend such cases, nonetheless, results of the competitions should be stripped even in these circumstances, when a prohibited substance is taken without will. There is a chance of things like this happening and I believe that deserves a second chance, exogenous testosterone in an out of competition test is intentional, and for me the intention is what should make the difference between a light sentence and lifetime ban.
Latest case of Andrea Iannone is an example, were it has been proven and accepted by FIM that it was unintentional intake of a prohibited substance through food contamination with an absurd sentence which I hope gets overruled by CAS, which most probably will.
I couldn't care less if an amateur dopes to smash Strava KOM's, but as I said, being a professional is a privilege, and as such you should behave.
  • 1 3
 This is weird, because I always hear the German press and Government accusing others of being cheaters. From the stand point of their higher "moral" vwalues.
  • 1 2
 Euro cyclist doing performance enhancing drugs, say it ain't so!
  • 1 4
 SHE GOT BALLZ NOW ! She went full on ! Balls deep !
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