The New Straits Times, September 17, 2000
By Prof Dzulkifli Abdul Razak
WHEN the XXVII Olympiad opened in Sydney on Friday, about four billion people tuned in to the Games. It is the first Games of the new millennium, showcasing not only the best in sports, but also the worst — those who resort to doping, the use of performance-enhancing substances.
Doping has been a source of concern in competitive sports for a long time. The Olympics is no exception. The more intense the competition, the greater the temptation to use these drugs.
Perhaps the most infamous example during the Olympics was in Seoul in 1988, when Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson was tested positive for steroids and stripped of his gold medal.
In 1996, Olympic shot-put champion Randy Barnes was banned for life for a similar offence. There have been many more cases.
The International Olympic Committee has banned six classes of substances and other ways of enhancing performance.
In 1967, it banned doping and started routinely testing athletes a year later (1968) at the Mexico Games.
Despite this, the range of substances used to enhance performance continues to grow. World records and outstanding achievements in sports continue to be tainted by accusations or assumptions of performance-enhancing drug use.
Unfortunately, some of the substances cannot be readily detected and this poses a dilemma for sports organisers.
Furthermore, those cheating are careful to choose what substance they use or stop its use well in advance of the anticipated tests. In a book entitled Positive, Werner Reiterer, who was a finalist at the 1992 Olympics, claims that authorities timed doping tests so that the drugs would not be detected. He himself used steroids worth US12,000 (about RM45,000) from 1995 to 1999 and never once tested positive.
There are also some newer drugs, such plasma expanders, synthetic blood and artificial oxygen carriers like perfluorocarbons, that deliver more oxygen to muscles and so improve performance. There are still no tests for these.
One substance that has come under focus of late is the drug erythropoietin (EPO). Those who use EPO have so far evaded detection, again because of the lack of credible techniques.
According to the director of the Australian Institute of Sport, John Boultbee, EPO is the worst of the undetectable drugs prevalent in sports. But the Sydney Games is expected to change this. Even before it started, athletes have been tested for the substance.
Some Olympic officials were quoted as saying that if an EPO test were in place, athletes would withdraw from the Games in large numbers.
EPO first came to international attention in 1998 after vials of it were found in the official vehicle of a team riding in the Tour de France cycling competition. It almost ruined one of the world’s most fabled sporting events.
As a drug, like the naturally-occurring hormone of the same name, synthetic EPO acts on the bone marrow to boost the number of red blood cells (RBC). In so doing, more oxygen gets carried to the muscles and this can increase endurance.
But this is not all. Like all drugs, its abuse has a number of health risks. One of the main dangers is that when injected too much with EPO, where 60 per cent or more of the blood is made up of RBC, the blood becomes so thick that it is difficult for the heart to pump. This can result in cardiovascular problems and can be fatal.
Unfortunately, because EPO occurs naturally, it is difficult to distinguish between the drug and the naturally-occurring hormone which is made of a combination of amino acids.
Moreover, the drug rapidly metabolises after it is injected. This makes the levels too low to be readily detected although the endurance benefit can last weeks. In short, athletes can easily remain undetected until a rigorous test is made available. For this purpose, months before the Games, the IOC approved a pair of new tests to detect EPO using urine and blood samples.
Athletes will be considered as tested positive only if both urine and blood tests are positive. The results used in combination are reliable enough by IOC standards. The IOC is randomly carrying out the test on some of the 10,200 athletes.
Some have recently voiced concern that athletes will continue to cheat and get away with if the testing regime are only confine to distance and endurance events. They urge the testing be widened to include sprinters as well, saying that this group of athletes are also using EPO to boost performance.
On the other hand, some doubt the newly-devised EPO test, saying it is just not scientifically and legally ready. Still others label the test as just another public relation exercise for the benefit of the problem plagued IOC.
Whatever the merits of the situation, over 10,000 athletes will compete for glory in Sydney.
Our hope is that we, the fans will not be cheated since we know that no anti-doping system is foolproof. As stated by Reiterer, "Who wants to watch cheats?". Sports, after all, is not just about winning.
Recommended Olympic web-site: http://www.sydney2000.com
