Doping in the Olympics

Many sport organizations and governing bodies are being forced to look into steroid controversies and the use of steroids in sports. Major League Baseball, National Football League, and National Hockey League are some of the leagues inside the United States that are looking into the use of steroids by players. International sports have been at the forefront of steroid news for a very long time. The Olympic Games are a big source for steroid controversies and news stories because nothing screams "steroid use" quite like the combination of the world's best athletes and the pressure to perform well on the world platform at the Olympics.

Steroid use is such a controversial topic because many people think that it should be allowed and all athletes can do it. Others feel that it is necessary to keep steroids out of sports, especially the Olympics, to maintain pure athleticism and the heart of sports. As of now, steroids are not allowed in many sports and certainly not the Olympics. This paper will take a look at the history of steroids in the Olympics, the testing for steroids by the IOC, and where the steroid debate might end up in the future.

Steroids have been in and around sports for a long time. Baseball players in the 1920's and 1930's used steroids also called "greenies", which are amphetamines, to gain an edge over other players. The first recorded use of performance enhancing drugs in the Olympics was Thomas J. Hicks in 1904 with the use of strychnine mixed with brandy according to "A Brief History of Anti-Doping" written by the World Anti-Doping Agency. There were no anti-doping or steroid rules in place at that time so Hicks was not disqualified.

Athletes tried many different enhancements to gain an edge over competitors but as the Olympics continued over the next decades, the performance enhancing drugs became more extreme as athletes pushed to be better. Thomas J. Hicks had taken two doses of the strychnine and brandy mix and it is speculated that he was close to death when he crossed the finish line. One more dose of the mix and it certainly would have been fatal. It stands to reason that if the first recorded use of an enhancement at the Olympics, almost lead to a fatality, that many more athletes after that would walk the line between life and death for a competitive edge.

The first and only performance enhancing drug death recorded during the Olympics was the Danish cyclist Knud Enemark Jensen. Knud fell from his bike during the 1960 Games in Rome and died later on. The coroner's inquiry found that Knud had been on amphetamines at the time of the race. According to David Maraniss and his book "Rome 1960", this incident opened the eyes of the world to the fact that athletes were using drugs to get bigger, faster, and stronger. By the mid-1960's sports federations were starting to prohibit the use of performance enhancing drugs and started testing athletes. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) started the drug testing segment of the Olympic Games in 1967 and tested all athletes who participated in the 1968 Games in Mexico City ("The Drug Charade" by Sharon Begley and Tony Clifton).

The first athlete disqualified by drug testing in the Olympics was Swedish Hans-Gunnar Liljenwall during the 1968 Summer Games. Liljenwall lost his bronze medal in the pentathalon. Liljenwall was disqualified for alcohol use which is a banned substance in select sports of the Olympics. The amount of athletes caught using drugs was continually on the rise as drug testing improved.

There have been cases of systematic drug use by teams in the Olympics. The East German Women's Swim team in the 1970's and 1980's is a prime example. Some swimmers speculated as early as the 1976 Summer Games that the East German team was using steroids. Shirley Babashoff had been an Olympic swimmer for the women's team. She won silver medal after silver medal behind the East German team. She would have been the Michael Phelps of her time and many still think the East Germans should be stripped of their gold medals. Babashoff spoke out about the fact that the East Germans were probably on steroids before the Berlin Wall had fallen. The press had a field day with her though and painted her as the villain. ("Babashoff", USA Today). The East German team was not found out until documentation was made available after the fall of the Berlin Wall. There had been a state-sponsored drug program in East Germany to increase the likelihood of gold medals. This is the most brazen case of systematic drug use that we currently have knowledge of.

The IOC started its drug segment in 1967 and began testing athletes in 1968 during the Mexico City Games. The drug testing that the IOC uses has changed significantly over the

decades. These changes have almost been forced because of the availability of better performance enhancing steroids. The drugs are getting harder to detect within the urine and sometimes even the blood, this has caused the IOC to evolve its drug testing program to continue to ensure fair competition during the Olympic Games.

The IOC has very strict drug testing standards and strict protocol. Once an athlete is selected for the national team, each athlete must give two urine samples (A and B) and these are each sealed and given specific identification number. The samples are kept separate and the name of the athlete is never seen with the identification number so that the samples cannot be tampered with before reaching the lab. The athlete must also initial a form that states the doctor sealed the container and held it upside to show that it was sealed and given its identification number. Then sample A is sent to an IOC approved drug testing lab. The lab then tests sample A for all banned substances according to the current IOC standards. If a banned substance is found in sample A then the sample B is sent to the lab and also tested. If both samples contain the banned substance then the athlete is disqualified from competition. Athletes can also be called upon to give urine or blood samples at any time during the Olympics for testing.

The IOC and the World Anti-Doping Agency must approve any lab that is going to be used for Olympic drug testing. The lab must meet certain criteria to be eligible. The lab must be able to handle a large amount of urine and blood samples at the same time and at a quick rate. The lab must have qualified technicians who all pass a background check. The IOC sent out a 22 page letter/report in 2004 on the anti-doping procedures which were to be used at the 2004 Athens Games. This letter/report gives an in-depth look at what testing athletes must go through before, during, and after the Olympics take place.

The athletes must give samples whenever called upon. Athletes can even be called during the Olympic Games right before their competition or right after. The athletes will be asked to give a blood sample or a urine sample and they must give whichever the IOC asks for. In most cases the IOC asks for urine but occasionally there are requests for blood samples. In past Olympics much of the drug testing during the Games was randomized. Any athlete's name could come up during the randomized testing in addition to the testing that all athletes had to do prior to arriving and prior to the Games. Now the testing is not only randomized but if there are suggestions, evidence, rumors, or other hints that an athlete has been using steroids, that athlete is tested. Blood testing is on the rise as performance enhancing drugs are getting harder to detect in urine alone. By February 10, 2010, before the Vancouver Winter Games, there had been 554 doping tests conducted prior to the Games, 407 had been urine and 147 had been blood. Although there are still many more urine tests being done, the blood tests are becoming more effective and more relevant to finding the drugs in the athlete's system.

Many Olympic athletes have expressed dislike of being tested at such a high rate. Some athletes claim that it interrupts their workout schedules or pre-game warm-ups. Although that might be the case, the high volume of testing must continue to ensure that the purest level of competition can be maintained. Without testing before, during, and after competitions, there would certainly be athletes who push the limits with performance enhancing drugs. Even with testing, there are athletes who use drugs, some are caught with testing, some confess, some are caught later, but there might be some who have not been caught and might not ever be caught.

There are, of course, athletes who were disqualified because of having a banned substance in their urine but it was not from performance enhancing drugs. Zach Lund is an American skeleton racer who was disqualified for having finasteride in his system. Finasteride is often used to mask the use of steroids but that is not what Lund was using it for. Lund has a receding hairline and had been using a hair restoration called Propecia, which had finasteride in it. Lund had been using it for seven years and had not been banned before because finasteride had not been on the banned substance list until 2005. Lund was disqualified from the 2006 Winter Olympic Games because of the finasteride and could not compete for a year in skeleton. Although many athletes will claim they are not using steroids or they have excuses as to why they had them in their system, there are cases similar to Zach Lund's. Some athletes have been disqualified with what would seem legitimate reasons for having the banned substance in their system but the IOC cannot bend the rules for a single person. It may not seem fair to athletes who have been disqualified even though they had a legitimate reason but this system is the only way that the IOC can be most fair. If the banned substances are not allowed for anyone, no matter what their excuses are, then that is the fairest way to handle the findings of banned substances in an athlete.

In the late 1990's the IOC decided to step up its anti-doping efforts and that is when the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) was formed. WADA has been on the forefront of creating new testing methods and ways to find the drugs in the athletes system. Since that time, there has been a stricter standard called the "Olympic Standard" for drug testing. Many sporting federations attempt to emulate the "Olympic Standard" because it is such a rigid standard and is proven to be effective. Many athletes have been disqualified from Olympic competition and from competing in their respective sports for a year due to the "Olympic Standard" of drug testing.

The most recent doping case in the Olympics was Kornelia Marek. Marek is a cross-country skier for the Polish national team and she competed in many competitions at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Although she admits she was getting intravenous injections but she did not know that they contained banned substances. Both samples Marek provided tested positive for EPO. It was the only doping controversy from the Vancouver Games. There were only two other instances of positive doping tests at the Vancouver Games, both were hockey players and were reprimanded for their choice of cold medicine (Associated Press).

Does the fact there was only one doping case at the Vancouver Games mean that the better drug testing has scared athletes into not doping or does it mean that the drug creators have been better at masking them? It is probably a combination of both cases. It is important that the IOC and WADA continue the efforts to create a fair competitive environment at the Olympics. The problem is that as long as there is the desire to win, there will be the desire to use any means possible to achieve success. Athletes are constantly willing to run the risk of injury and sometimes death, and doping is no different. WADA has created the strictest drug testing protocol ever and it has certainly deterred many athletes from taking performance enhancing drugs but it will never stop all.

Since such strict drug testing has not deterred all Olympic athletes from taking banned substances, what is left to do? Where will the steroid debate and controversy lead to? As stated in the beginning of this paper, many people have said that athletes should be allowed to take performance enhancing drugs. These people like to point out that it would create "super athletes" and that the competitions will be fiercer and better to watch. The athletes could take whichever performance enhancing drugs they want and continue training and reach a whole new caliber of athleticism. This could theoretically work if there were an organization or federation who would support sports with enhanced athletes. There could even be a separate type of Olympics but it would be with drug enhanced athletes. There could be separate records kept for these athletes who use performance enhancing drugs and the "Enhanced Olympics" could run on the same schedule as the original Olympic Games. Although this may sound extreme to some, it might be on the horizon soon. Why fight the fact that the athletes are going to dope up? These athletes could be given a specific outlet to push themselves further with performance enhancing drugs. It is then a question of who would pay for the steroids. There could be government funded doping programs, state funded, private funded, or the athlete could fund their own steroids use. Perhaps even drug sponsorships would arise and pay to have athletes use the company's special steroids. It would be interesting to see how the "Enhanced Olympics" would evolve.

Traditionalists and people who love sport not only for its competition but for the heart and passion that athletes put into their game, may not like the idea of the "Enhanced Olympics". That is why the IOC and WADA will always continue efforts to keep doping out of the Olympics. The Olympic Games were originally about amateurism and the Olympic Movement, not only about competition. The focus has shifted slightly from what the Olympics were originally created to mean but they certainly have not shifted enough for the IOC or WADA to allow performance into the Olympic Games. The heart of amateurism is that it is one person's "true" strength against another person's "true" strength. The "true" strength is the muscle, will, heart, and passion that can push an athlete past what they thought they were capable of without the use of outside forces. Outside forces include performance enhancing drugs. It is this position that will not allow for the IOC or WADA to release their grip on the doping standards at the Olympics, so it might be possible in the future to see an "Enhanced Olympics" full of "super athletes".

As for now, WADA will continue to create new testing methods for steroids. The IOC will continue their efforts towards a drug free Olympic dream. All Olympic athletes will continue to strive to achieve their best performance of a lifetime on the world stage. Steroids will always be around sports the only difference will be how much they are allowed influence and relevance in different sports competitions. There might not ever be an "Enhanced Olympics" but something similar might come around soon. WADA and the IOC stand certain that drug testing methods will continue to produce positive results of disqualifying athletes who use steroids. Sources Cited

World Anti-Doping Agency . (2008, October). Brief history of anti-doping. Retrieved from http://www.wada-ama.org/en/About-WADA/History/A-Brief-History-of-Anti-Doping/.

Maraniss, D. (2008). Rome 1960. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Begley, S, & Clifton, T. (2000, Setember 11). The Drug Charade. Newsweek, September 2000.

Brennan, C. (2004, July 14). Babashoff had mettle to speak out about steroids. USA Today, Retrieved fromhttp://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/brennan/2004-07-15-brennan_x.htm.

International Olympic Committee. (2004, June 4). Anti-Doping Procedure. Letter was sent to all IOC Members, Anti-Doping Agencies, Wada Accredited Laboratories, IOC Medical Commission Members, IOC Honorary Members, National Olympic Committees, and can be found at: http://multimedia.olympic.org/pdf/en_report_817.pdf.

Lund, Z. (2009). TeamUSA.org. http://bobsled.teamusa.org/athletes/zach-lund.

Associated Press. (2010, March 17). Marek's Second Test Positive For EPO.

Wilson, Wayne. (2000). Doping in Elite Sport: The Politics of Drugs and the Olympic Movement. United Kingdom: Human Kinetics.

David, Paul. (2008, November 10). A Guide to the World Anti-Doping Code: A Fight for the Spirit of Sport. Cambridge University Press.