Kaisa Varis

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Medal record
Competitor for Finland
Women's cross country skiing
World Championships
Bronze	2001 Lahti	15 km
Disqualified	2003 Val di Fiemme	4×5 km
Disqualified	2001 Lahti	4×5 km

Kaisa Varis (born September 21, 1975, in Ilomantsi) is a retired Finnish cross country skier and biathlete. Her career has been deeply influenced by doping affairs: in 2001 she was involved but not suspended in a doping scandal, but in 2003 she was suspended two years for doping use. After she came back for a Biathlon career in 2007, she received a lifetime ban from all International Biathlon Union competitions after another doping case in January 2008.

1 Career
- 1.1 Cross country skiing
- 1.2 Biathlon
2 References
3 See also

[edit] Career

[edit] Cross country skiing

In cross country skiing, Varis competed from 1995 to 2006. Her biggest success was the win of the bronze medal in the 15 km at the 2001 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships, but she is better known for her doping controversies at those championships: Varis was part of the 4×5 km relay that was disqualified when fellow skiers Virpi Kuitunen and Milla Jauho were disqualified for taking hydroxyethyl starch, a banned blood plasma expander. Varis was originally implicated, but later was cleared in this scandal.^{[citation needed]}

Varis's best individual finish at the Winter Olympics was fourth in the 15 km at Salt Lake City in 2002. She also has ten individual career victories at various distances from 1998 to 2002.

Two years after the first doping incident, at the 2003 World Championships in Val di Fiemme, she was suspended for five days before the event's start due to a high hemoglobin count, though was allowed to compete when a second test came back five days later with a lower count. Varis attended the 30 km event, but was later disqualified for taking EPO, an endurance-enhancing drug, and served a two-year suspension as a result.^[1]^[2]

Though she qualified, she did not compete in the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, because she was excluded by Finland's Olympic committee.^[3]

[edit] Biathlon

Varis switched from cross country skiing to biathlon and made her debut in the Biathlon World Cup on March 2, 2007, in Lahti, Finland, by finishing 70th in the 7.5 km sprint race. On November 30, 2007, she finished fifth in the 7.5 km sprint event in Kontiolahti. On January 11, 2008, Varis scored her first victory in a biathlon World Cup race in the 7.5 km sprint event in Ruhpolding, Germany,^[3] but it was later voided because of her positive doping test.

On January 24, 2008, it was made public, that at least the A sample from a test for prohibited substances on January 6 was, again, tested positive for EPO. Varis denied any doping.^[4] However, on January 31, 2008, the IBU announced, that the B sample confirmed the results; due to this case, the Finnish Biathlon Association did not register Varis for the 2008 World Championships.^[5] Despite her first ban was given while she was a cross-country skier, she was banned for life as a repeated offender by the IBU Executive Board on February 11, 2008.^[6]^[7] In March 2008 she announced her intentional to appeal to overturn the ban. ^[8]