Postimees Digest, Wednesday, March 27
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CAS overturns Veerpalu's disqualification.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has acquitted cross-country Olympic medalist Andrus Veerpalu and abrogated his three year disqualification as the court found technical aspects of the doping report to be inconclusive. The court concluded that while WADA's growth hormone test is trustworthy, more accurate marginal values need to be set in order for it to be used.
The athlete's appeal was based on the work of three Estonian scientists who managed to prove that the test's margins make it impossible to say conclusively where the body's own growth hormone ends and where its artificial counterpart begins.
CAS found that despite some signs of use of human growth hormone, inconclusive margins make it impossible to convict the athlete of doping. Veerpalu's team of scientists maintains that they see no evidence of use of human growth hormone. The ruling forces FIS to compensate Veerpalu in the amount of 8,200 euros. Secretary General of CAS Matthieu Reeb does not rule out that Veerpalu's case will be revisited should the margins of the test be specified in the course of further research but says the test should not be used to measure human growth hormone levels until such time.
Steve Jurvetson: we live in the best of times
Today, international start-up-converence, yearly hosted by Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a world renowned tehnological university, winds up in Tallinn. Among a few absolute world tops offering their bits of advice, the event also featured one of Silicon Valley’s most successful venture capitalists Steve Jurvetson (46), who, due to being extremely busy, performed via Skype and was interviewed by Postimees over e-mail.
What are the three most important technological innovations that are going to change our everyday lives in the next ten years?
The broad application of machine learning across industries, from self-driving cars to better education systems (from primary education to vocational training and retraining).
Synthetic Biology will usher a new era in industrial biotech, with early applications in nutrition, vaccines, chemicals and fuels.
In the next 10 years, three billion people will come online for the first time (via inexpensive smart phones and tablets) and contribute to the global pool of innovation and ideas. They will be customers, entrepreneurs and crowd-sourced labor pools – interconnected within the global economy to an extent this world has never seen.
Editorial: truth and justice of our Andrus Veerpalu
Few issues have stirred Estonians, of late, like the suspected doping by Andrus Veerpalu. Facebook page We Believe Andrus Veerpalu gained over 60,000 supporters. No doubt at all: doubting our sports hero cut deep into the Estonian soul.
Here, it is important to underline the Postimees stand: we are wholeheartedly for clean sports. The sports arbitrage judgement means that, in standing for clean sports, trustworthy methods must be used. Let’s hope that, in times to come, WADA will be better at pursuing reliability and usefulness of measuring systems.
Sure: in this case, the undeniable truth is still unknown. However, yesterday definitely brought about justice.