Dangsina, Indonesia's first female dope tester

Dangsina, Indonesia's first female dope tester

By Arif Suryobuwono

JAKARTA (JP): Only a privileged few have the authority to watch champion athletes urinate and, when necessary, examine their genitals.

One of the few is Dangsina Moeloek, the first Indonesian woman ever to specialize in testing athletes for doping.

"Sometimes I have to squat in order to observe carefully whether the urine is coming out as it should," said Dangsina, who began her study of doping at the first Asian course on sports medicine in India in 1979.

Before their urine is taken, athletes must be totally naked in the doping control room. They are not allowed to bring anything into the room and must not touch their genitals while urinating.

This ruling was announced at a medical symposium in Olympia, Greece, in 1993.

"Back home from Greece, I applied the ruling to the 1993 National Games," she added.

"So far none of the athletes whose urine I have tested has acted suspicious though I personally dislike the behavior of some female Russian athletes who, while waiting to urinate, rubbed their menses over their thighs," she said.

The chance to see the private parts of champions was, of course, not what motivated the 50-year-old Dangsina to specialize in the control of doping.

"I am a doctor," said Dangsina, a 1971 medical graduate of the University of Indonesia, "so, seeing a male or female organ is something very common to me. Sometimes it is even boring, but it's part of my job."

Catch a thief

Her motivation is the excitement of "assuming the role of a policeman who is trying to catch a thief," she said.

Dangsina was the first Indonesian to realize that top West Javanese swimmer Catherine Surya, who scooped seven gold and two silver medals at the 1993 National Games, had flunked her drug test sent to the Beijing doping control center.

"I saw on the console how the curve made a very sharp rise (leptocurvic). Had Catherine tested negative, the curve would have been a normal one (platycurvic)," said the secretary of the University of Indonesia's sports medicine program.

Minister of Investment Sanyoto Sastrowardoyo, who is also the chairman of the Indonesian Swimming Association, found the result hard to believe.

"He asked me to conduct a test of Catherine's B sample. I told him I was afraid it wouldn't be necessary because all five A samples I took from her (in five different events) tested positive," she said.

An urine sample is split into two, the A and B samples, and a positive result is only announced after the B test confirms the finding of the A sample.

Catherine's urine was sampled more than once as she took part in more than one swimming event. Catherine was later suspended for two years.

"Regrettably, this case was only partially investigated. We never knew who was really behind it," Dangsina revealed.

The drug laboratory in Beijing is one of the two laboratories in Asia accredited by the International Olympic Committee. The other is in Tokyo.

"We use the Beijing laboratory because the testing fee is cheaper. In 1993 it charged US$150 per sample. Normally the fee is 300 Swiss francs (US$200) a sample," said Dangsina.

Dangsina must commute to Beijing almost every year with bags of urine in her luggage. She must personally bring the urine samples to Beijing because courier companies do not accept biological matters.

The 1993 National Games were the first games in which all sports were tested. Before, only athletes from drug-prone sports, like cycling and weight lifting, had samples taken.

At the 1993 Games, however, the Indonesian Target Shooting and Hunting Association, chaired by Minister of Defense and Security Edi Sudrajat, succeeded in excluding its athletes from the doping test.

"They said they were not ready. Isn't that strange? I reported their refusal to the games director and secretary-general, but their reason was accepted," said the woman who presented a paper on doping in Indonesia at the 1994 world congress of sports medicine in Athens.

The minister's refusal was confirmed by Hario Tilarso who, with Dangsina, made up the games' doping control committee. The Indonesian Shooting Association was unavailable for comment.

Authority

"It was upsetting," said Dangsina, who had her way of arresting the possible thief blocked. The unmarried lady then realized where her authority stopped. She is supposed to demand athletes, not their sports bodies, to get totally naked in front of her.

The increasing use of performance-enhancing drugs among athletes implies that doping-control specialists would be in demand.

Dangsinga anticipated this and has worked at many sporting events in Indonesia, including the 38th World Archery Championships last August. She took 70 urine samples at the meet.

"During the 1993 Thomas and Uber Cup championships, I had to wait for hours until Hariyanto Arbi urinated at 3 a.m. It was the longest wait I have ever had," she said.

Dangsina was one of the nine sports medicine specialists recognized by the Indonesian Medical Association in 1990. Of the nine, only she and Hario Tilarso were employed at Indonesian championships.

Despite the limited number of specialists, Dangsina's salary expectations are seldom met.

"I am often underpaid. I often have to work long hours. But they never take that into account," she said.

"Perhaps they think the job is only taking athletes' urine. Menial. But that's it. As a doping control specialist in Indonesia you cannot, and perhaps shouldn't, expect more," Dangsinga concluded.