Athletes hard-pressed to hide drug usage

Athletes hard-pressed to hide drug usage

JAKARTA (JP): "He tested negative for drugs but was three- months pregnant" is an old joke of dope testers. But it still made Dangsina Moeloek, the first Indonesian woman specializing in dope testing, laugh when she told it to The Jakarta Post recently.

Years ago it was quite easy for athletes to fool dope testers. That joke, for instance, originated from an incident in which a male athlete, in an attempt to fool testers, handed in a sample of his girlfriend's urine instead of his own. Female athletes also smuggled in condoms filled with clean urine to cheat testers.

The most gruesome report came from Soviet gymnast Olga Kovalenko who won an Olympic gold medal in Mexico in 1968.

Now 45 years old, Kovalenko broke down during a German television interview last year and revealed how she was pressured into becoming pregnant and then having an abortion.

The body of a pregnant woman produces chorionic gonadotrophin which stimulates the production of male hormones and therefore can make the woman stronger.

"I was told that if I refused I would not have been sent to the Games," said Kovalenko.

Capitalizing on a body's mechanism by forcing hormonal changes such as in the Kovalenko case is very difficult, if not impossible, to detect. The same holds true when one increases the oxygen supply in one's blood by undergoing a transfusion of one's own blood or a donor's blood. Having more oxygen in the blood enhances aerobics.

When the doping does not follow the body's natural system, detection is easier," Dangsina said.

The dope testing equipment of the Beijing drug control laboratory, Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry, detects drugs substances down to the level of ions. So, even if substances have been well diluted or masked, they are still traceable, the sports medical doctor said.

Doping control was initiated at the 1968 Olympic Games and involved testing largely for central nervous system stimulants and narcotics.

Seven years later, in 1972, the Munich Olympic Games was the first to undertake full-scale testing (more than 2,000 tests) resulting in seven athletes, including four medalists, being banned.

Anabolic steroids, of which stanozolol is a derivative, cost Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson his 100-meter Seoul Olympic gold medal. The drug was added to the list of banned substances in 1976.

In 1983, caffeine and testosterone were also added to the list.

Since testosterone is normally produced by the body, it would be presumed that an athlete had taken the hormone for doping purposes if the amount of testosterone compared to the amount of epitestorone in his urine exceeded the normal ratio of six to one.

The same also applies to caffeine. An athlete who drinks coffee every day will not be accused of doping if the amount of caffeine in the urine is no more than 12 mg per liter, which is equal to drinking eight American-sized cups of coffee within one day.

"But we must also check how the athlete's kidneys function. An athlete may be accused of doping while his teammate isn't, even though they drink the same excessive amount of coffee because their kidney secretionary systems differ considerably," she added.

How long performance-enhancing substances linger in an athlete's body depends on the type of substances and the doses given. Hence, athletes and their coaches may try to measure the time a certain drug takes to completely disappear from an athlete's urine against a given competition schedule. If successful, the doping effect works as expected while the athlete's urine test remains negative.

"But human bodies are not machines," Dangsina said. "However accurate the measurements may be, lapses can happen. As in the Ben Johnson case, for instance. Many believe that doping is common even among world-class athletes and that Johnson was caught perhaps due to such a miscalculation," she added.

Placebo

Performance-enhancing drugs do not really enhance performance, Dangsina said.

Beta-blockers, for instance, are used by sharpshooters to slow their heart rate. As a result, the interval between pulses is prolonged. "They shoot within the stretched interval because that is the calmest moment. If they hit a bull's-eye, it's not because their shooting techniques are enhanced by the drugs, but because the drugs make them more relaxed."

The same is true for anabolic steroids. Hario Tilarso, the country's other expert in doping control, said that steroids are of no use to an athlete who takes them but does not train.

Steroids build muscle. And muscle power (strength) is enhanced by training.

"There is no proof that drugs really enhance performance," Dangsina said. Hario added that the effect of drugs can be said to be the same as that of placebos. "Experts are still in conflict as to whether drugs really enhance performance," said Hario.

Up to now, there is no proof that drugs enhance performance, but athletes are strictly prohibited from taking them because they are harmful and can lead to death.

Welterweight Billy Bello died in 1963 from a heroine overdose and so did Dick Howard, who finished third in the men's 400m hurdles at the 1960 Olympic Games.

Hence, athletes should think ten thousand times before opting for doping. As the Bible so aptly puts it, "for what profiteth a man, if he shall gain the whole world but lose his own soul?" (arf)