FasterSkier

Tag: Mika Myllylä

  • World Champion, Olympic Hero, “Nice Guy” and Doper: Mika Myllyla Is Dead at 41

    Finnish Olympic gold medalist and three-time world champion Mika Myllyla was found dead in his home in Kokkola, Finland, on Tuesday morning.

    For about 5 years in the late 1990’s, Myllyla was one of the best skiers in the world. He won the 30 k classic race in the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, Japan, as well as two other medals there and a bronze in Lillehammer in 1994. In World Championship racing, Myllyla won three races and was second in another in Ramsau in 1999; he also stood on the podium three times in Trondheim in 1997 and once in Thunder Bay in 1995. The Finn had an incredible 25 World Cup podiums to his name between 1994 and 2000.

    In 2001, however, he was enveloped in a doping scandal which took out the entire Finnish ski federation at the World Championships in Lahti. A bag of medical supplies was left in a gas station outside of Helsinki and later traced to the team; the skiers were tested and found to be using hydroxyethyl starch, a masking agent for EPO. Myllyla himself later admitted to using EPO in the 1990’s when he was dominating at the highest levels of competition, and said that his coach, Kari-Pekka Kyrö, had told him to take the drugs.

    “Myllyla appears to have been a victim of deliberately organized doping within a national team,” said Norwegian hero and longtim rival Bjorn Daehli.

    The skier wrote a “testament” of apology, which revealed that he deeply regretted his actions.

    “I have been faced with a deep sadness,” Myllylla wrote. “My heart is broken, and I can’t find the words to describe the amount of pain that I feel… I’ve always tried in my life to be personally responsible for my deeds, and so now I will be. As a top-level athlete, I should have taken it upon myself to be aware that what I was taking which would lead to a positive doping result. Now I… pay a high price… I believe that God wanted for me as fair. From the bottom of my heart I want to ask forgiveness of the Finnish people.”

    Despite being banned from competition, Myllylla remained fairly popular. Unlike many dopers, his competitors continued to say kind words about him.

    In 2008, Myllylla visited Vegard Ulvang, a former rival, in Norway. While both men were nervous for the meeting, it went well.

    “It was very special,” Ulvang told NRK News at the time. “Mika was very open and regretted what had happened- he said that he had been very bad.”

    Erling Jevne, a member of Norway’s 1998 gold-medal Olympic relay team, also liked Myllylla despite his problems.

    “He was very popular in Norway throughout the 90’s and one of the Finnish athletes that we had the most contact with,” Jevne told NRK. “He was a great athlete in my eyes. He was a nice guy who was put in an environment where he was offered illegal drugs. I think he would have been a top athlete even without that kind of help.”

    Even Swede Per Elofsson, who understandably didn’t have the nicest things to say about Myllylla regarding the Lahti doping scandal, was sad to hear the news, telling Aftonbladet that Myllylla “was a nice person outside of the ski trail.”

    But despite keeping more friends than your average convicted doper, Myllylla’s troubles only got worse. He tried to work as a real estate developer, but lost his job due to drinking problems. He was also arrested for drunk driving twice and assault three times. His wife left him. Those around him blamed his staggering sense of guilt and remorse.

    “It was a turbulent time, and he struggled to find his mission in life after his cross-country career,” said Torgeir Bjorn, a former member of the Norwegian national team who also works as a sportscaster. “He struggled at home with alcohol and other things. I thought maybe he had resolved his problems and was… making a meaningful life. But unfortunately it wasn’t so.”

    1976 Olympic gold medalist and Finnish sports hero Juha Mieto saw Myllylla’s death as an extension of his problems with alcohol and his unhealthy mental state.

    “Oh, oh, oh, is it really true?” he asked the Finnish newspaper Iltalehti. “This news comes as a shock. I wasn’t expecting it to get so bad.”

    While Myllylla’s police called the cause of death unclear and an autopsy has not been released, officials did not suspect foul play. They released a statement saying that they were investigating the death.

    Myllylla would have turned 42 in December.

  • New Trial Indicates Extensive Finnish Doping

    A decade after the devastating 2001 doping scandal that surfaced during the World Championships in Lahti, Finland, new evidence are still surfacing.

    The landmark doping case from the 2001 World Championships involved six Finnish racers (Jari Isometsä, Janne Immonen, Harri Kirvesniemi, Mika Myllälä, Milla Jauho and Virpi Kuitunen) as well as former head coach Kari-Pekka Kyrö and three officials in the Finnish ski association administration. During the 2001 World Championships doping tests of the above-mentioned racers revealed traces of the substance Hemohes. This substance can be used to mask other doping substances.

    Mika Myllylä has already admitted to using EPO. He explained that he received EPO as injections, but will not reveal who gave him the injections or if other racers were using the same program.  Myllylä won an Olympic gold medal in 1998, and four World Championship gold medals (1997 and 1999). He had an amazing ability to nail his peaking leading up to the major championships.

    Organized blood doping

    Now, a new trial, which started in the Finnish courts on March 29, 2011, revolves around the details published by the Finnish news agency FNB in 1998. Four Finns are accused of lying during a trial that followed those FNB reports in 1998. The FNB material indicates that the Finnish ski team was involved in organized blood doping even prior to the 1997 World Championships in Trondheim.

    Kyrö says that Myllylä, Kirvesniemi, Isometsä and Immonen received EPO injections during a training camp in Oslo in 1999.

    In the new trial, Kyrö also says that former ski racer Räsänen had blood drawn during the 1997 World Championships in Trondheim. According to Kyrö, they did this to reduce the hemoglobin levels, which had spiked due to the EPO.

    Räsänen and three former team directors from the Finnish Ski Association are being tried for perjury and lying under oath in the case against the news agency FNB. Räsänen claims it is all some sort of revenge by Kyrö.

    Kyrö argues that all of the three national team directors were aware of the organized doping in the team. The former national team coach also claims that he received a bag full of EPO and growth hormones from the cross-country team director Pekka Vähäsöyrinki.

    The bag is said to have been brought to a training camp in Oslo in 1999, where the EPO injections were administered to the racers on the Finnish relay team, consisting of Mika Myllylä, Harri Kirvesniemi, Jari Isometsä and Janne Immonen.

    The team physician Pirkka Mäkelä claims he had no part of the cheating, but did register soaring blood values in some of the racers starting the fall of 1997.

    The prosecutors are asking for prison terms for the four involved: Jari Räsänen and the most prominent officials in the Finnish Ski Association – Pekka Vähäsöyrinki, Antti Leppävuori and Jari Piirainen.

    Räsänen is the one facing the harshest punishment if he is found guilty: prison for 20 months.

    All of the four accused deny any knowledge of doping in Finnish skiing. They claim they are being setup as scapegoats.

    Paid to take the blame for Finnish cheating

    Former ski racer Jari Isometsä was offerend 1 million Finnish marks, or more than 260,000 US dollars, if he took the fall for the Finnish doping scandal in 2001.

    Isometsä was the skier first caught for doping during those World Championships in Lahti, Finland. Shortly after that, five additional Finnish racers were caught: Janne Immonen, Harri Kirvesniemi, Mika Myllylä, Milla Jauho and Virpi Kuitunen.

    Isometsä won the silver medal in the 20K pursuit during those Championships, but was later disqualified. The new winner was Johann Mühlegg, who was caught doping during the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City.

    The new trial is expected to last until the end of April, 2011.

    From Langrenn.com, March 30 and 31, 2011. Translation by Inge Scheve