| Salt Lake City |
 |
 |
| GER |
12 |
16 |
7 |
35 |
 |
| USA |
10 |
13 |
11 |
34 |
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| NOR |
11 |
7 |
6 |
24 |
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| CAN |
6 |
3 |
8 |
17 |
|
| RUS |
6 |
6 |
4 |
16 |
|
| AUT |
2 |
4 |
10 |
16 |
|
| ITA |
4 |
4 |
4 |
12 |
|
| FRA |
4 |
5 |
2 |
11 |
|
| SUI |
3 |
2 |
6 |
11 |
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| NED |
3 |
5 |
0 |
8 |
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Anti-doping system being fine-tuned
By Lois M. Collins
Deseret News staff writer
Elite sports and cheating have often joined hands for the sake of money and prestige. It's a partnership lurking in shadows.
Increasingly, though, the spotlight has been turned on in hopes white-light treatment will change not only the face but the very character of athletics.
For years, said Frank Shorter, gold medal marathoner and chairman of the board of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, "the drug problem was viewed as a PR problem," and sports federations and national Olympic committees "were not making their best efforts or testing in good faith." It simply wasn't to their advantage to have their athletes exposed as cheaters.
That's changing. Independent anti-doping agencies like the World Anti-Doping Agency and USADA are conducting testing for the federations, making it a more "transparent" and independent process, he said.
They've instituted not only doping control testing as part of competition but out-of-competition testing where a urine sample could be demanded at any time, in any place.
And they're pushing for "harmonization" of standards, so that each sports federation doesn't operate under a different set of rules. They want standard doping penalties and requirements.
"Loopholes are being closed, and we have deterrence that never existed before," said Shorter. "Clean athletes are coming back to sports they'd nearly abandoned."
WADA president Richard Pound was hailing the Salt Lake Games for inroads made into doping control. He cited increased athlete support for a level playing field, unannounced testing and a "new anti-doping culture with strong International Olympic Committee support" as evidence things are getting better.
That doesn't mean the doping-control system is perfect. Or that it won't continue to change.
"Athletes and doctors are extraordinarily sophisticated," said Dr. Jim Stray-Gundersen, a member of the Norwegian medical team. "But there are a lot of traditions to overcome" to end doping in sports.
Until Sept. 11, he said, not much political will existed to go after terrorists. The same may be true of sports doping. "If it's perceived to be a big enough problem, one that will ruin sport, something will be done."
Dr. Don Catlin knows how much the drug-screening system has improved — and how many substances and methods still can't be detected. Catlin oversees the lab from UCLA, the only IOC-approved lab in the hemisphere and the one charged with analyzing the blood and urine taken from Olympic athletes during the 2002 Winter Games.
"We are catching up," he told reporters during a pre-Games tour of the temporary lab, located in Research Park. He noted that recent infusions of money for doping research and development of new tests will make a big difference. "I think there's an enormous amount of deterrence. Is is enough? Probably not. But it's more than there was."
Athletes used to avoid doping detection, he said, by coming down on the day of competition and then going home. Out-of-competition testing took away that edge. Tests have been developed for some types of doping that were hard to prove, such as EPO. Erythropoietin is popular with endurance athletes for its ability to carry more oxygen in the blood. Still, researchers know there are variations they don't have perfect tests for.
Athletes who are so inclined will keep looking for an "edge." Human growth hormone is a challenge for drug testers. WADA said it would spend $5 million a year on such research, from finding substances that help the blood carry more oxygen to stopping use of testosterone to cheat. USADA has a research budget. Since most of the substances being used to cheat have bona fide medical uses and even origins, anti-doping advocates hope to draft the pharmaceutical companies to help with anti-doping efforts.
Researchers also worry that better testing will herald a return to old-fashioned cheating methods, like blood packing, where an athlete freezes his own blood and injects it before competition to boost oxygen-carrying capacity. But even that's detectable now, said Stray-Gundersen, since freezing alters the makeup of the red cells.
When an athlete is popped for doping, he or she is apt to claim a tainted dietary supplement. It might or might not be true. Dr. Patrick Schamasch, head of the IOC Medical Commission, noted that when the IOC had 636 dietary supplements from around the world tested for purity, about 20 percent contained something not listed on the label — and sometimes something on the banned list, like nandrolone.
"We want more strict regulation" of supplements, Schamasch said, adding that the U.S. government "has to take action."
Blaming supplements has simply become too easy, said Dr. Tim Wood, speaking on behalf of supplement maker USANA during a news conference two weeks ago. "Are all supplements created equal? Emphatically no," he said. "But if you're going to blame supplements, name names. Give the public more than a dose of fear."
USANA and other supplement makers have called on the IOC to release the names of the products it says were tainted, so that manufacturers who are not guilty of creating adulterated products aren't hurt by innuendo.
Meanwhile, the IOC has issued its own warning to athletes: It doesn't matter if you took something that wasn't on the label in a dietary supplement. If it's in your body, you're guilty of doping.
E-MAIL: lois@desnews.com
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February 25, 2002
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