DRUG N OLYMPICS

Drug testing did not get serious until the formation of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in the late 1999. Until then, it was suspected that sports associations that didn’t really want to catch their own cheats could always avoid it. WADA orchestrated a worldwide out-of-competition testing programme and standardized every aspect of the business in 2003 with the World Anti-Doping Code (China was one of the first signatories). Still, new advances in hard-to-detect drugs could allow cheats to slip through WADA’s net. But today the drug testers are just as quick to develop foolproof tests.

Stimulants: Immediately increase alertness. Easily detected in urine.

Muscle-building Steroids: Easily detected in the urine, but can be stopped weeks before an event and still be effective, meaning out-of-competition testing remains crucial. Currently used only by those poorer athletes who don’t have access to (previously undetectable) EPO or hGH.

Beta-Blockers: Slow heart rate and reduce tremor. Easily detected in urine.

Erythropoietin (EPO): Raises the oxygen-carrying capacity of blood. Undetectable until a combined urine/blood test was introduced at the Sydney Games, but the “window” for a legally binding bust was then only 72 hrs. No one was dumb enough to get caught. Now that window has widened enormously, and testers aren’t disclosing by how much.

Human Growth Hormone (hGH): Until Athens, the muscle building drug of choice in the western world. Blood tests were carried out for the first time in Athens, with no warning of the effective “window”. As with EPO, effectiveness of the test is improving.

Designer steroids: Muscle builders that have been chemically manipulated to avoid detection. Still a worry as a huge pre-Athens scandal in the U.S involving a new steroid called THG showed. More than a dozen top class athletes were busted on documentary rather than direct evidence. However, an Australian research team is using WADA grant to experiment with the molecular structure of steroids- the aim being to get one step in front of designer drug cheats, which researchers say is a relatively easy window to close.

Reformist International Olympics Committee President Jacques Rogge authorized freezing athletes’ samples in Athens for upto eight years while testing technologies are improved. Which by any guess none of the athletes want to wait for ill gotten Olympic booty to rest safely under their pillows? Pessimists say there is still some way to go.

Insulin and Insulin like growth factor, proven performance enhancers, are still undetectable. Still some of the athletes are willing to take risks doing drugs even now, but then the options are getting a wee-bit limited, thanks to the latest breakthroughs in the medical field. Guess this makes the next Olympics as clean and competitive as in the earlier Greek times!