Mika Vähämäki, a fitness athlete who suffered from testosterone in out-of-competition tests, is also at the forefront of digital track racing in Finland.
Finnish Championship finalist in e-sports, track motorist and fitness athlete Mika Vähämäki has been caught doping, says the Finnish Sports Ethics Center Suek.
Suek announced on Friday that a three-year ban on operations has been imposed on Vähämäki. The doping samples given by Vähämäki on 5 October and 29 October 2021 outside the competition contained testosterone, which is classified as an anabolic substance.
According to Suek, the anti-doping violation would result in a four-year ban on sports, but after Vähämäki’s violation, his ban was shortened by one year. Vähämäki was notified of the positive test result on February 25 and has been temporarily banned since then. The ban will therefore end on 24 February 2025.
In addition to fitness sports, Vähämäki has also competed at the Finnish Championships in electronic sports. Vähämäki finished ninth in the Finnish Finals Championship final on October 2, just three days before the first positive doping test.
The results of the Finnish Finals Championship final will not be affected by the doping cart, as a positive doping test will only be given after the competition. There is therefore no evidence of the use of banned substances in sport in competition.
E-sports federations did not receive information about the scourge
Suek has kept the Finnish Fitness Association up to date on the progress of Vähämäki’s doping violation suspicion after giving a positive test result. The doping sample was given outside the competition, and Vähämäki was not tested in connection with the Finnish Championship finals in digital track racing.
The Fitness Association has been involved in the case of Vähämäki, as suspicion of a doping offense has occurred in the association’s operations. Other sports federations have not been informed of the doping suspicion until it has been made public by Suek.
Suek’s General Counsel Petteri Lindblom tells that anti – doping operators do not currently have the opportunity to review all potential competition licenses of test athletes after detecting a possible doping violation. On the other hand, multi-sport athletes like Vähämäki are rare.
– In my five-year Suek career, this has been the first time that an athlete has competed in another sport at this level.
Lindblom says it would theoretically be possible for Suek to obtain information about the athlete’s competitive licenses, for example through the Olympic Committee’s Suomomisport service. However, not all anti-doping control associations use the service, so they would be in an unequal position.
At present, this is not even possible.
– According to the Anti-Doping Code, we cannot report the process to anyone other than the association under whose jurisdiction the violation took place, Lindblom states.
If the Finnish Championship final for digital rail racing had been run a week later, it would be possible that the results would be rewritten at the AKK and SEUL offices as a result of the announcement of Vähämäki käry. This is not the case now, as non-competitive testing has only been carried out after the competition and there is no evidence of the use of prohibited substances in e-sports competitions.
SEUL and AKK would not have been informed until Suek had been informed, as the associations had not been involved. Still, Suek Lindblom does not see this as problematic, as the end result would be the same even if the federations only heard about it now: a positive doping sample would have automatically reversed any performance made after the sample was given.
In sports federations, the situation was still confusing today.
– Information about the doping cart came to us today from Suek’s press release. We will investigate and the possible sanctioning process will proceed in accordance with the ACP Anti-Doping Program, ACP Head of Species Henri Karjalainen stated to .
Also SEUL Ville Qvist only received information about Vähämäki’s doping cart from ‘s journalist.
– I understand that Suek may not have information about all the competition licenses of athletes, but we would be happy to know about such things other than the media, Qvist says.
However, Qvist states that Vähämäki has duly complied with its ban by not participating in this year’s Finnish Championship in Digital Motorsport. The three-year ban is valid in all Finnish and international anti-doping control competitions, including those organized by SEUL.