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Mats Larsson has stated from the outset that the doping lab did not follow the protocols correctly when Jenny Fransson’s test came back positive for methyltestosterone, a synthetically produced anabolic steroid.
The doping board gave the fighter a four-year suspension, the highest possible penalty.
Before the appeal to the National Sports Board (RIN), the Olympic bronze medalist and former world champion ordered the laboratory report of test b. There was more information, which Mats Larsson, a physicist at Stockholm University, believes shows that what is called chemical noise may have affected the analysis.
– It was something new, but it fully coincided with what I suspected after analyzing test a. There was no contradiction there, but rather it convinced me more that we had already argued correctly in the doping committee, he says.
You have to distinguish between an indication and a confirmation in an analysis of a sample, says Mats Larsson, and thinks that the concentration demonstrated in the case of Jenny Fransson is very low.
– The lower the concentration you have in a sample, the weaker the signal and the greater the effect that the background will have, this is what I call chemical noise. Therefore, other substances have been developed by microbial degradation of the sample.
He points out that the sample has been transported from Fransson’s house to the sampler’s house through the post office to the laboratory, and no one knows, for example, what temperatures it has been exposed to.
Chemical noise is Substances very similar to the substance being tested to confirm its existence.
– They have an effect that distorts their curves and makes the measurement unreliable, says Mats Larsson.
After negotiations in the doping committee, Mats Larsson said the sentencing members had not become sufficiently familiar with the complicated issues.
At the National Sports Board, Mats Larsson has also referred to an expert who agrees with his conclusions about the laboratory analyzes.
– I thought the process was better at the Swedish Sports Board. I understood that the critical questions from the members were directed at the doping commission (the prosecuting party in the case) and not at me as a representative, he says.
However, you don’t know if you have managed to convince the panel.
– I hope you take this seriously, says Mats Larsson.
The head of the laboratory, Anton Prohanka, writes in an email to Expressen that the laboratory cannot comment on an ongoing case, “but in general it can be said: the doping laboratory is accredited by Wada and meets the requirements of Wada according to the International Standards for Laboratories and technical documents “.
