To most people, “doping” sounds like ’70s slang for smoking pot. But in the world of sports, it means using performance-enhancing drugs–anything from too much caffeine to steroids–to gain an edge in competition. The World Anti-Doping Agency, the oversight body for sports-doping control, announced it had conducted drug tests on 3,639 summer and winter athletes over the past year and that only 27 had tested positive. “Ninety-nine-point-five percent of the athletes are playing fair,” declared Dick Pound, the optimistic president of WADA, whose motto is “Think positive, test negative.”
Only one Winter Olympic athlete–a Russian skier–has been sent home so far from Salt Lake. Latvian bobsledder Sandis Prusis, who’d tested positive for the steroid nandrolone, planned to compete despite WADA’s objections. (Ultimately, each respective sport has the final decision on whether to ban an athlete and the international bobsled federation has given Prusis the green light.) Even though not every athlete had been tested, Pound said, the testing dragnet was broad enough and random enough that it would catch any scofflaws. “Every one of these athletes knew that he or she could have been tested at any time, any place,” Pound insisted.
Maybe so. And that could be exactly the problem. Historically, determined cheaters have stayed one step ahead of the testers, finding new drugs or new ways around the tests. Officials may not even know about the latest performance enhancers, says Dr. Charles Yesalis, a Penn State epidemiologist and doping expert. “We find out about the passe stuff,” he says. “Athletes are using it, the testers don’t know about it and you can’t test for that which you don’t know exists.”
One gaping hole officials do know about: human growth hormone. Though its effects are still largely unproven–some researchers question whether it improves performance at all–many athletes believe that the hormone lets the body recover more quickly during training. It’s believed to be widely used among dopers, but officials still don’t have a good test for it. “I just cannot be optimistic about this,” says Yesalis. Despite WADA’s optimistic projections, Yesalis thinks doping is so prevalent among winter athletes that there might be just one clean sport in Salt Lake: curling.
Officials have made certain strides in cracking down on cheaters. The Salt Lake Organizing Committee says it has checked more than 95 percent of the Olympic athletes in precompetition tests since October–a move designed to detect any illegal substances used in training. SLOC began a second round of precompetition testing on Jan. 29, screening a small random selection of athletes as close to a day or even a few hours before they were to compete–testing that would pick up last-minute doping. The top four finishers and one or two other athletes are also screened immediately after each event. Some 570 athletes will be tested during the games.
For the first time ever, all endurance athletes are also being screened for erythropoietin (EPO), a synthetic hormone that improves performance by boosting the number of red blood cells. Athletes in biathlon, cross-country, Nordic combined and long and short-track speed skating must all undergo the two-part test. If a blood test shows a positive result, the athletes take a follow-up urine test. “We are not naive enough to think we’re perfect, but we’re doing a great job and making progress,” said Doug Rollins, SLOC director of doping control. Of the 900 EPO tests performed as of Feb. 12, none were positive. None of the medallists have flunked their doping tests either–even the snowboarders showed no signs of marijuana.
Critics say the lack of positive results doesn’t mean no one’s doping, just that no one’s getting caught. Dr. Don Catlin, director of the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory, questions how useful even the new EPO test really is. Unlike steroids, EPO does not linger in the body. But its benefits can be long lasting. Checking the athletes at the Games wouldn’t do much good. “It’s not ideal,” Catlin says of the new testing effort.
Athletes aren’t happy with the system either. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency detected the steroid norandrostenedione in the blood of bobsled brakeman Pavle Jovanovic on Dec. 29. Jovanovic claimed he must’ve inadvertently consumed the banned substance in a nutritional supplement. Officials initially suspended him for nine months, but on Feb. 7, after he lost an appeal, his ban was upped to two years. WADA’s Pound was unsympathetic. Though he admitted it was tough to know what ingredients supplements contain–their manufacturers are not required to disclose what’s in them–Pound insisted it was still an athlete’s responsibility to stay clean. “If you have an IQ of room temperature or above, you should know to be careful,” Pound said.
But bobsled driver Todd Hayes, Jovanovic’s former partner, was incensed. He complained that officials have been unclear about what’s legal and what’s not and said that athletes have become so paranoid that they’re afraid to eat anything at all. “We have to stop taking everything because we are so scared that something we eat will get us banned and then our Olympic dream is over,” Hayes lamented. “I drink water, I eat chicken breast and salad with no dressing. That’s all I can eat or I can’t sleep at night. Athletes can’t go to Starbucks because too much caffeine will get you banned.” So even if, as WADA insists, the Salt Lake Games really are the cleanest ever, the Olympic antidoping effort is a long way from perfect.
