Of all the forms of doping in sports, perhaps none is more vampirish than athletes siphoning, storing and transfusing their own blood.
A pint here, a pint there. Packed with red blood cells that carry oxygen to tired muscles, a back-alley transfusion can add a spring to the step of a World Cup soccer player or help a Tour de France cyclist ascend steep mountain passes.
And, best of all for crooked athletes, the chances of being caught are minimal.
Recent scientific tests have made other forms of blood doping detectable and thus risky. But for now, the only way to catch a self-transfusing athlete is with a needle in his arm or his name on a bag of blood.
Which is what police in Spain say they uncovered last month. The seizure of 100 bags of frozen blood at a Madrid clinic frequented by athletes was both a victory and a wake-up call in the fight against doping. It suggested that tests in place since 2000 against the blood-boosting hormone erythropoietin, or EPO, and since 2004 against transfusions from one person to another have succeeded in cornering cheats into transfusions.
But it also highlighted the urgent need for a test or tests to close this door, too, a goal that the World Anti-Doping Agency and scientists are working toward but which may still be years away.
Exactly when is their secret. They want to catch cheats by springing any new test unannounced.
”There will be a test within the next six years. … I’m just not saying how much sooner it may be,” said Michael Ashenden, coordinator of the research consortium Science and Industry Against Blood doping.
Among other potential avenues, researchers are examining whether freezing blood causes detectable changes to cells, he said. A body awash with blood after a transfusion will also suppress its production of fresh red cells. That, too, might offer pointers toward an eventual test.
Called autologous transfusion in medical-speak, the practice is relatively quick and easy, given the right knowledge and equipment.
Ideally, blood is drawn weeks or months before competition ‒ to allow the athlete’s body time to replenish its stock — and passed through a centrifuge to separate out the oxygen-transporting red cells. The red cell-rich blood is then bagged and refrigerated or, for longer storage, frozen until needed.
For former cyclist Jesus Manzano, that need came at the 2003 Tour de France, the showcase for his sport which has repeatedly been sullied by doping scandals and suspicions that some of its stars may not have been all that they seemed.
In a telephone interview with The Associated Press (AP), Manzano said his blood — which he had banked in his native Spain — was hidden in wine cartons when smuggled across the border into France, for which he paid a courier nearly $3 800.
Among the doctors Manzano says he worked with were Jose Merino Batres and Eufemiano Fuentes, who were arrested and provisionally charged in the ongoing Spanish investigation. Manzano says he banked two litres in all and got re-injections during the tours of France and Spain in 2003, grinding road races over several weeks, both of which he failed to finish.
Manzano says he received injections of EPO to boost his red cell count before banking his blood.
”It didn’t take long, not more than half an hour to extract the blood. Injecting it back into my body took longer, an hour or an hour and 15 minutes,” he told the AP. ”They put my initials — JM — on the bags of blood.
”I saw many famous cyclists during my medical visits, but I can’t give names. They are elite cyclists, Olympic cyclists,” he added. ”Everybody knows who takes drugs, but nobody wants to talk about it.”
Self-transfusions are not without health risks. Badly conserved blood can cause poisoning. If the concentration of red cells climbs too high, fatal clots can form, especially at night when the blood thickens as body temperature drops, in the same way oil in an engine gets gooier when the ignition is off.
Ashenden says he has heard that some athletes counter that risk by withdrawing blood at night, and then keeping it in the fridge for reinjection the next morning.
”All you need is a needle and bag,” he said. ”Once you’ve got it as a fresh blood product you can put it in and out as often as you like and as often as you are willing to play what is essentially Russian roulette.”
Spanish police said their investigation began in February. They set up a secret camera at the door of a Madrid apartment building where athletes showed up for treatment. Authorities said that as well as frozen blood, steroids and hormones, police also seized lists naming more than 100 top-level athletes who allegedly used the doctors’ services. Spanish authorities have not released those names.
At the Tour, logic would suggest that cheating riders are most likely to receive a transfusion just before they most need it ‒- on the exhausting mountain climbs of the Alps and Pyrenees that often determine the outcome of the three-week trek around France. This year’s race begins on July 1 in the eastern city of Strasbourg and will take the nearly 200 riders 3 651km counterclockwise across the country.
Although not an exact science, blood doping can provide a 7&-8% improvement in an athlete’s ability to absorb oxygen, Ashenden said. That compares to a far more modest 1% improvement that they might expect from an entire season’s
training, he added.
”It puts them in a very difficult scenario, especially when they know they are not going to be caught using autologous blood transfusion,” he said by telephone from Australia, where he is based.
”Eight percent — it’s the difference between not finishing a mountain stage and finishing five minutes ahead of everyone else.
”It’s an enormous improvement. It’s probably the most effective doping you could do. Steroids. Growth hormone. Whatever. Nothing gives you that magnitude of improvement.” ‒ Sapa-AP