European Champion swimmer and Russian swimming coach Evgenia Ermkova has been suspended for four years for a violation of Russian Anti-Doping Rules, the Russian Anti-Doping organization has announced.
The suspension officially began on June 1, 2023.
Ermakova was sanctioned under section 4.8 of the All-Russia Anti-Doping Rules, which prohibit the administration or attempted administration of a banned substance or prohibited method by a coach to an athlete.
RUSADA found Ermakova to have administered the banned substance Octodrine to an athlete. The substance, not approved for human use in most countries, was shown in animal studies in mid-20th century to increase blood pressure and cardiac output in animals.
A 2017 study found that Octodrine was found in sports supplements sold in the United States.
RUSADA has not named the athlete involved and currently lists no swimmers suspended for the use of Octodrine in its public records.
Ermakova was previously the coach at a school in the far eastern part of Russia in Vladivostok, where she coached at least one swimmer to a medal at the Russian Age Group Championships.
This is not Ermakova’s first run-in with anti-doping authorities. Born in 1976 in what was then the USSR, but what is now Kazakhstan, she anchored the USSR’s European Championship gold medal-winning 400 medley relay. A year later, she represented the unified team at the Olympics, and in 1996 she represented Kazakhstan.
On September 13, 2000, she was suspended for 2 years for testing positive for the banned diuretic Furosemide. The test came at the Mare Nostrum Series in Monaco in May of that year. She was disqualified from the Olympics that year.
She attempted a comeback four years later and qualified for the Games, but ultimately did not compete after the country chose younger athletes.
In August 2020, Ermakova spoke out against the head coach of Kazakhstan’s powerful synchronized swimming team Aliya Karimova. Ermakova’s children were part of the national team pipeline in synchronized swimming.
Part of a line of Soviet sports elites, Ermakova’s father Viktor Mikhailovich Ermakov coached 1976 Olympic champion wrestler Anatoly Bykov.
Ermakova is recognized as a Master of Sport of the USSR.
Was she teaching classes on how to dope athletes? She got nailed in Russia. In. Russia.
It’s comical.
must have annoyed some people to get popped for this.
Better 4 year ban than “eliminated” by FSB
Imagine violating RUSSIAN anti-doping rules 🤡 Must be doped af to get a ban
I can’t get away from the unseemly idea that RUSADA is merely throwing someone to the dogs on the international level in the hope that Western agencies accept the notion that their OTHER athletes are ‘clean’ swimmers. Knowing the gullibility of the West, I assume all/most Russian athletes will be @ Paris 2024. War or no war.
Mike, I don’t see anything in the performance of Russian swimmers over the past decade or so that suggests doping – at least, not any more so than in other countries (including the US). Let’s not let xenophobia rule our thinking.
Agree 100 percent.I don,t understand why they are allowed around international events.Didn,t understand why they were allowed before the war and understand even less now.Competing but using a different name is a timid and meaningless farce.
Conor Dwyer says hi
That is a hypothesis, but it’s one without evidence.
The problem with this kind of hypothesis is that people like “bob” are quick to accept it as fact without any evidence.
The last time I checked the Sochi Olympics exposed the top-to-bottom cheating in all winter sports and the manner of infecting other sports. Oh, and Efimova is always hanging around to remind us of the glories of past regimes. Hypothesis, indeed! If there were MORE evidence we’d need a Mac truck to move it. WADA, in conjunction with Dick Pound and his commission found mountain ranges of doping with a scope unparalleled in history — yet you claim no evidence. Are you looking for an iOC or World Aquatics job?
There’s plenty of evidence of Russian state-sponsored doping.
But your hypothesis was very specific – that they’re making ‘sacrificial lambs’ to cover for the others.
FWIW – The Russian athletes are about the most-scrutinized in the world right now. It’s like that thing that a crime scene is a super safe place to be, even if it doesn’t feel like it, because there’s cops everywhere.
Both US and Canadian bobsledders have been banned for PED use – does that mean we should assume that US and Canadian swimmers are also doping? I don’t; I’m happy to assume Conor Dwyer – US Olympian swimmer in 2012 and 2016 who failed multiple doping tests and was ultimately found to have inserted testosterone pellets into his body – is a one-off. Again, what about the performance of Russian swimmers leads you to believe that they are doping? I’m a huge fan of US swimming but refuse the demonize athletes based on their nationality.