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The greatest threat to the modern world is terrorism; to sport it is doping especially with athletes now using designer steroids .World leaders like those who govern sport are battling these dangers with a totally different approach to the methods known a decade or so ago. Whether these new methods are effective or otherwise is another kettle of fish.
It is known that top class athletes and those who feature in elite sport know all about drugs, their effects, benefits and how easy or difficult they could be detected. They are also aware of the fact that stimulants, narcotic analgesics (the strongest form of painkillers), anabolic agents, which increase muscle size, strength and power, diuretics which help to eliminate fluids from the body, are all illicit substances and obviously banned. They also know that the emergence of new designer steroids are harder to detect in standard urine tests.
Athens 2004 offered new anti-doping standards, which included a new list of banned substances and the deployment of international observers appointed by World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) who supervised tests in independent laboratories.
A total of twenty-five athletes were ousted for drug related violations.
Among these there were seven winners - three gold, one silver and three bronze, who were stripped of their medals. Six others who participated were found positive and were eventually banned. Twelve other athletes failed pre-competition tests and were obviously barred from taking part either by their International Federation or the International Olympic Committee.
These figures raise a few questions and comments.
The fact that the list includes eleven weight-lifters surprises no one. The gold winners who were stripped of their medals were all involved in throwing events. Russian shot-putter Irina Korzhanenko was tested positive for steroids, Hungary’s discus thrower Robert Fazekas, allegedly tampered with a doping test and fellow compatriot hammer-thrower, Adrian Annus failed to take a follow-up drug test.
A Hungarian weight-lifter who won a silver, Ferenc Gyurkovics, was kicked out for using the steroid oxandolone while three other bronze winners, namely Greek weight-lifter, Leonidas Sampanis, Ukrainian rower Olena Olefirenko and Columbian cyclist lost their medals because they were found positive.
To complete the list one has to add the names of the US American sprinter Torri Edwards, who had her two-year drug suspension upheld by an arbitration panel during the games because she had tested positive for a stimulant at an April meet, and those of the two Greeks, namely Kostas Kanteris and Katerina Thanou, who pulled out of the games while the IOC was investigating their missed doping tests.
Alarming and shocking
Like the IOC President Jacques Rogge and George W Bush, who used his annual State of the Union address to urge athletics and sports leagues to tackle the use of performance enhancing drugs, we all want clean sports and support all positive measures to control the serious problem. Like recreational drugs, ‘sporting’ ones are a social problem; the numbers can be reduced but never eradicated. Educating youngsters from a very early age helps, while random tests are a must. WADA needs to tell the world of its activities.
Mystery
The IOC started its official tests late in the sixties. The Swede pentathlete Gunnar Liljenwall was found positive and became the first athlete to be banned, though he claims he only took three tots of tequila!
Following Mexico, the number of positive cases increased to four in Munich (1972) and six in Montreal (1976). No one was found positive in Moscow Olympics (1980) because of a ‘strange gentlemen’s agreement between the federations and the organisers’ which forced a KGB colonel to admit during an interview that he had destroyed the results of a number of tests.
In Los Angeles (1984) the figure of positive dope tests was 5, or 10 or even 12. The actual number and who were the culprits remain a mystery. The story goes that the Belgian Prince Alexander de Merode left a coded list of names of athletes who were tested and found positive, on his table inside his lavish suite in the luxurious Biltmore hotel but a careless maid, threw the document in the bin!! Later de Mereode, declared to the media that his colleagues might have taken the list and disposed of it as they could not decipher the details.
Ten years later the BBC investigated the matter with the attendants who were responsible at the Los Angeles lab at the time and found there were at least nine positive cases. But who were they? Prince Alexander de Merode, who for many years headed the IOC medical commission, had passed away two years earlier.
After Los Angeles (1984) came Seoul and the Ben Johnson’s great night of September 24 when he established a great record in the 100m in 9’79secs only to become the 43 athlete to be disqualified.. Johnson, who is now 42, was recently interviewed by a Canadian TV station and stated “They all took dope in Seoul. They picked me simply because Canada did not protect me!”
The doping farce continues.
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