Doping in Sports Headlines

American Lance Armstrong has been cleared of any wrongdoing by the French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD) over a random test conducted last month, the AFLD said in a statement.
"The AFLD has decided to take into account the athlete's written explanations and, consequently, not to open a disciplinary action against him," the statement read.

German cyclists Andreas Kloeden and Matthias Kessler have been implicated in illegal blood transfusions, according to a report in Der Spiegel news magazine, which cites the findings of an independent commission investigating doping.
The commission spent two years looking into doping allegations against two doctors, who allegedly put into place at Freiburg University Clinic a systematic doping system between 1995 and 2006 for the former Team Telekom, later known as T-Mobile.
Hans Joachim Schaefer, a lawyer who heads the commission, declined to comment Sunday.
"I have sworn to myself that I won't say a word," he said.
Kloeden now rides for Astana and has always denied doping. Kessler is serving a doping ban.

Australian swimmers have welcomed the decision to allow D'Arcy to return to competitive swimming after the world championships in Rome in July.
"I am pleased that I can now focus on my swimming training without any further uncertainty and am looking forward to making my return to competitive swimming at the Australian short course championships," D'Arcy said.

A new study has found that people with conduct disorder, body image disorder, or both are more prone to become dependent on anabolic steroids, according to Harrison G. Pope ’69, a Harvard Medical School professor of psychiatry and lead author of the study. Conduct disorder is the juvenile version of antisocial disorder, and body image disorder is an unhealthy obsession with the size and appearance of one’s body. These two factors were found by interviewing and examining the medical histories of 134 weight lifters, who were categorized into three groups—non-steroid users, steroid users with no dependence, and steroid users that had developed dependence.

Marion Jones talks of her fall and 'new beginning'
Jones, 33, and pregnant with her third child, was relaxed and upbeat throughout the session, part of the center's Race and Sports Lecture Series. As difficult as her prison experience was, she said, it also was, in an odd way, liberating.
"People realize I messed up," she said. "I stood up to it. I took what came because of it and now I'm certainly not hiding in a case somewhere. I'm not a hermit. But I certainly don't plan to do a tell-all that's going to rip people up like you see some athletes do. That's not the message I want to share. That's not the message I want to be remembered by.
"My message is positive. Yes, mistakes were made. But how can those mistakes help you?"