Dangsina, Indonesia's first female dope tester<\/p>\n
By Arif Suryobuwono<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): Only a privileged few have the authority to
\nwatch champion athletes urinate and, when necessary, examine
\ntheir genitals.<\/p>\n
One of the few is Dangsina Moeloek, the first Indonesian woman
\never to specialize in testing athletes for doping.<\/p>\n
\"Sometimes I have to squat in order to observe carefully
\nwhether the urine is coming out as it should,\" said Dangsina, who
\nbegan her study of doping at the first Asian course on sports
\nmedicine in India in 1979.<\/p>\n
Before their urine is taken, athletes must be totally naked in
\nthe doping control room. They are not allowed to bring anything
\ninto the room and must not touch their genitals while urinating.<\/p>\n
This ruling was announced at a medical symposium in Olympia,
\nGreece, in 1993.<\/p>\n
\"Back home from Greece, I applied the ruling to the 1993
\nNational Games,\" she added.<\/p>\n
\"So far none of the athletes whose urine I have tested has
\nacted suspicious though I personally dislike the behavior of some
\nfemale Russian athletes who, while waiting to urinate, rubbed
\ntheir menses over their thighs,\" she said.<\/p>\n
The chance to see the private parts of champions was, of
\ncourse, not what motivated the 50-year-old Dangsina to specialize
\nin the control of doping.<\/p>\n
\"I am a doctor,\" said Dangsina, a 1971 medical graduate of the
\nUniversity of Indonesia, \"so, seeing a male or female organ is
\nsomething very common to me. Sometimes it is even boring, but
\nit's part of my job.\"<\/p>\n
Catch a thief<\/p>\n
Her motivation is the excitement of \"assuming the role of a
\npoliceman who is trying to catch a thief,\" she said.<\/p>\n
Dangsina was the first Indonesian to realize that top West
\nJavanese swimmer Catherine Surya, who scooped seven gold and two
\nsilver medals at the 1993 National Games, had flunked her drug
\ntest sent to the Beijing doping control center.<\/p>\n
\"I saw on the console how the curve made a very sharp rise
\n(leptocurvic). Had Catherine tested negative, the curve would
\nhave been a normal one (platycurvic),\" said the secretary of the
\nUniversity of Indonesia's sports medicine program.<\/p>\n
Minister of Investment Sanyoto Sastrowardoyo, who is also the
\nchairman of the Indonesian Swimming Association, found the result
\nhard to believe.<\/p>\n
\"He asked me to conduct a test of Catherine's B sample. I told
\nhim I was afraid it wouldn't be necessary because all five A
\nsamples I took from her (in five different events) tested
\npositive,\" she said.<\/p>\n
An urine sample is split into two, the A and B samples, and a
\npositive result is only announced after the B test confirms the
\nfinding of the A sample.<\/p>\n
Catherine's urine was sampled more than once as she took part
\nin more than one swimming event. Catherine was later suspended
\nfor two years.<\/p>\n
\"Regrettably, this case was only partially investigated. We
\nnever knew who was really behind it,\" Dangsina revealed.<\/p>\n
The drug laboratory in Beijing is one of the two laboratories
\nin Asia accredited by the International Olympic Committee. The
\nother is in Tokyo.<\/p>\n
\"We use the Beijing laboratory because the testing fee is
\ncheaper. In 1993 it charged US$150 per sample. Normally the fee
\nis 300 Swiss francs (US$200) a sample,\" said Dangsina.<\/p>\n
Dangsina must commute to Beijing almost every year with bags
\nof urine in her luggage. She must personally bring the urine
\nsamples to Beijing because courier companies do not accept
\nbiological matters.<\/p>\n
The 1993 National Games were the first games in which all
\nsports were tested. Before, only athletes from drug-prone sports,
\nlike cycling and weight lifting, had samples taken.<\/p>\n
At the 1993 Games, however, the Indonesian Target Shooting and
\nHunting Association, chaired by Minister of Defense and Security
\nEdi Sudrajat, succeeded in excluding its athletes from the doping
\ntest.<\/p>\n
\"They said they were not ready. Isn't that strange? I reported
\ntheir refusal to the games director and secretary-general, but
\ntheir reason was accepted,\" said the woman who presented a paper
\non doping in Indonesia at the 1994 world congress of sports
\nmedicine in Athens.<\/p>\n
The minister's refusal was confirmed by Hario Tilarso who,
\nwith Dangsina, made up the games' doping control committee. The
\nIndonesian Shooting Association was unavailable for comment.<\/p>\n
Authority<\/p>\n
\"It was upsetting,\" said Dangsina, who had her way of
\narresting the possible thief blocked. The unmarried lady then
\nrealized where her authority stopped. She is supposed to demand
\nathletes, not their sports bodies, to get totally naked in front
\nof her.<\/p>\n
The increasing use of performance-enhancing drugs among
\nathletes implies that doping-control specialists would be in
\ndemand.<\/p>\n
Dangsinga anticipated this and has worked at many sporting
\nevents in Indonesia, including the 38th World Archery
\nChampionships last August. She took 70 urine samples at the meet.<\/p>\n
\"During the 1993 Thomas and Uber Cup championships, I had to
\nwait for hours until Hariyanto Arbi urinated at 3 a.m. It was the
\nlongest wait I have ever had,\" she said.<\/p>\n
Dangsina was one of the nine sports medicine specialists
\nrecognized by the Indonesian Medical Association in 1990. Of the
\nnine, only she and Hario Tilarso were employed at Indonesian
\nchampionships.<\/p>\n
Despite the limited number of specialists, Dangsina's salary
\nexpectations are seldom met.<\/p>\n
\"I am often underpaid. I often have to work long hours. But
\nthey never take that into account,\" she said.<\/p>\n
\"Perhaps they think the job is only taking athletes' urine.
\nMenial. But that's it. As a doping control specialist in
\nIndonesia you cannot, and perhaps shouldn't, expect more,\"
\nDangsinga concluded.<\/p>",
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