All the indications are that this year’s toll of positive tests is set to exceed the 1993 total
ATHLETICS: John Rodda
DESPITE denials from the International Amateur Athletic Federation, the Weekly Mail & Guardian has learned that up to 20 more international athletes have tested positive for drugs in a batch of results which will send shock waves throughout the sport worldwide.
The athletes’ first, “A”, samples all tested positive and they were this week awaiting confirmation from the second, “B”, sample.
This latest batch shows that the number of positives throughout the world is likely to exceed the 41 men and 21 women who tested positive in 1993.
“This is a harvest we are not happy to gather but it is the result of increased testing in competition,” said an IAAF official involved in the drug-testing operations.
“There are a lot of people out there working on random sampling this summer, and these are the unhappy results. It shows we do not want cheats in our sport.”
The news followed the earlier revelation that five Britons had tested positive — two internationals and three club athletes — which prompted Peter Radford, chief executive of British Athletic Federation, to say: “What we have is a very exceptional circumstance indeed, which we have never had before in such numbers and in such intensity in British athletics.
“We are involved in a vigorous, year-round testing programme and there’s always the possibility that every time I open my mail I will have news of another athlete who has transgressed the rules.”
By the end of the Commonwealth Games in Victoria, British Columbia, last Sunday, four competitors had tested positive during the games, and another three – – Britain’s Paul Edwards and Diane Modahl among them — were sent home for failing earlier tests.
Canadian weightlifter Jim Dan Corbett was the last person to be tested positive in Victoria. He was stripped of his bronze medal 24 hours after the Commonwealth Games’ closing ceremony when stimulants ephedrine and pseudo ephedrine were found in his samples. Another Canadian, Yvan Darsigny, was promoted in his place.
The biggest shock at the games, however, was provided by Horace Dove-Edwin of Sierra Leone, a hero who surprised everyone by winning the silver medal behind Britain’s Linford Christie in the 100m. He tested positive for the anabolic steroid stanozolol, the drug which led to the downfall of the Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
Like Johnson, Dove-Edwin will be banned from the sport for four years.
On Saturday, the Jamaican hurdler Robert Foster was sent home for using the stimulant ephedrine and the Ghanaian boxer Godson Sawah was stripped of his bantamweight medal for taking the diuretic furosemide.
The British government is meanwhile considering making possession or supplying of anabolic steroids a criminal offence punishable by fines or up to three months in prison.
The Home Office minister Michael Forsyth confirmed that the drugs could be included under the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act.
‘BE SURE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TAKING’
ATHLETICS: Chris Mihill
THE failure of dope tests by five British athletes has prompted fresh claims that the testing regime has become so strict that athletes taking genuine medications are being penalised.
But David Cowan, Britain’s leading expert on drug testing in sport, last week insisted that few athletes unwittingly used banned substances and that most who innocently used medications knew they had to declare them.
Cowan, head of the International Olympic Committee Drug Testing Laboratory, London, admitted there were problems if athletes took “pick-me-ups” without knowing what was in them, but said the onus was on competitors to make sure they were not using proscribed substances.
Much recent concern, including the banning of Diego Maradona in soccer’s World Cup, has centred around the stimulant ephedrine, a common ingredient in cough mixtures, nasal decongestants and some asthma preparations.
“The analytical capabililties for stimulants can be very sensitive, that is the reason why laboratories are asked not to report ephedrine, for example, until it exceeds a certain threshold,” said Cowan. “You could exceed the threshold by taking an over-the- counter cold remedy, but one would not expect to pick this up three days later. On the other hand, with anabolic steroids you would hope to pick it up three days later.
“If athletes say they are taking medication, this is taken into account. As far as I know, no one has ever been disqualified for taking a mild analgesic.
“There are many medications permitted for asthma. People can take inhaled salbutamol and inhaled cortico-steroids — what more does one want? The advice has to be, ‘Make sure you know what you are taking’.”
Cowan pointed out that the asthma drug clenbuterol, the use of which resulted in the banning of weightlifters Andrew Saxton and Andrew Davies from the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, was not licensed in this country and there was no reason for athletes to use it.
Attempts by athletes to mask banned drugs by taking other substances were usually unsuccessful because of detection techniques. The masking agents were themselves banned.
Cowan said the analogy of detecting a grain of sugar in a bucket of sand probably reflected the accuracy of analytic techniques. It was hoped it would soon be possible to search for two currently undetectable means of improving performance — the use of growth hormones and the chemical EPO, which boosts the oxygen content of blood.
The most commonly abused drugs are:
* Stimulants: These increase movement, mental activity and enhance mood.
* Betablockers: These slow the heart rate, helping prevent movement to disturb the aim of shooters, archers and even snooker players.
* Pain killers: Drugs derived from morphine and the more common ones such as codeine can raise mood and decrease sensitivity to pain and fatigue.
* Anaboloic steroids: These increase muscle bulk, improving strength and enabling harder training.
* Diuretics: These cause water loss and can mask other banned substances.
* Growth hormone: This can promote muscle growth, and is presently undetectable.
* Blood doping: Various methods are used to raise oxygen uptake.