Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Characteristics of doping
Not all athletes dope - fortunately most do not - but those who do have a pro-
found influence on sport. Ben Johnson set a world record in the 100-meter
sprint at the 1988 Games of Seoul, but he was doped with stanozolol, an ana-
bolic steroid. Until this Games-stopping event, the hope had been that doping
was confined to strength sports. The Johnson affair led to vociferous cries from
clean athletes for more testing and stricter penalties, and spurred sport to devote
more resources to solving the problem. In retrospect, the resources were inade-
quate but served to heighten awareness and to begin to solve the problem.
An axiom of drugs and sport is that some athletes will try any new drug that
has the potential to enhance performance. The trials are conducted secretly and
are, of course, never published or presented. Sometimes information may be
shared with close partners, but generally not. Often members of the athletes'
entourage are deeply involved in doping.
Doping has occurred in nearly all sports, but certain ones have predilections
[5, 6]. Endurance events, such as long-distance running,cycling, swimming,
and skiing events, often have participants who have tried various types of
blood doping including the use of erythropoietic proteins. Short-distance
speed events are known for abuse of stimulants; and weightlifting, throwing
events, and several other sports have been plagued with anabolic androgenic
steroid doping. Participants in shooting events used beta-blockers to improve
shooting scores [7].
Development of testing
By the mid-1960s, international sport officials were very concerned about
drugs and were actively exploring several approaches to deal with the problem.
Until the mid-1960s, sport had used education as its main approach, but elite
athletes were now beginning to receive substantial financial rewards for suc-
cess and education alone was not effective. In 1967, Prince de Merode pre-
sented a survey of the problem to the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
Soon thereafter,he became chairman of the IOC Medical Commission and
plans were made to implement urine testing to detect doping [8]. After exper-
imenting with urine testing at the Winter Olympics of Grenoble in 1968, the
IOC implemented widespread testing at the Summer Olympic Games of
Munich in 1972. In 1984, only five IOC-accredited laboratories existed; now
25 laboratories operate in 23 countries. In the early years of the program, test-
ing was confined to the Olympic Games. It has been adopted by other compe-
titions, and now athletes may be tested at any time during the year. Out-of-
competition testing was implemented when it became clear that the ergogenic
effects of drugs, such as anabolic steroids and erythropoietic proteins, persist-
ed for many days after administration was discontinued. Without random, out-
of-competition testing, athletes could discontinue doping before announced in-
