Omar Khudiyev broke the rules knowingly.
Illustration image. PASI LEISMA
Russian Omar Khudiyev was caught cheating in a marathon cross-country race in Switzerland.
Khudijev skied to a clear victory in the amateur series of the La Diagonela competition, but failed the test for fluoridation.
Russian told to the Championat website that he knew very well that his skis contained fluoride. He was also aware that fluoride creams are completely banned in Europe.
Khudiyev ended up cheating because he didn’t want to invest in new equipment. There is no fluoride ban in Russia yet.
– Buying new skis for one trip and keeping them in a ski bag for a year is quite expensive. I skied with fluoride last year and I thought the same way this year, the man referred to his trip to Italy a year ago.
Khudijev says that he was not actually discus, but the last place was the punishment.
Khudijev had thought in advance that he would break into ten chess at best, so he concluded that it was unlikely that a test checker would click in an amateur match.
– I would never have thought that I would be this high (on the results list), not to mention that I would win La Diagonela by two minutes and 40 seconds, the enthusiast who lives in Moscow and works as a personal trainer is amazed.
Khudiyev estimates that the banned creams helped him.
– But not so much that such a difference would arise in the second place. It was a pretty freezing race day, when we started it was -13 degrees. At lower temperatures, fluorine slip is less.
Easy to join
Top Russian athletes have been banned from international competitions for almost three years due to the sanctions imposed due to the war in Ukraine.
However, amateurs can compete. Khudijev says he noticed it last year when he and his wife were on vacation in Livigno, from where they headed to the Pustertaler ski marathon.
– They don’t send an invitation, but if you come and apply for a competition permit, there are no obstacles. However, there is one condition: you must not have active Fisin or Russian IDs. You also must not have connections with authorities. You come, pay the participation fee and compete, he instructs.