E-Paper
Unsporting tales
A can of worms may soon open. For one of world sports' biggest secrets is also its worst kept: that doping is quite common.
World and Olympic 100m champion Justin Gatlin faces a lifetime ban after testing positive for unusual levels of testosterone. Gatlin’s allegation that a vengeful masseuse massaged testosterone cream into his legs is clearly too weak to counter anti-doping rules that hold athletes accountable for any substance found in their bodies, regardless of how it got there. Coming close on the heels of a positive test by the US cycling star and Tour de France winner Floyd Landis, the episode suggests a can of worms may soon open. For one of world sports’ biggest secrets is also its worst kept: that doping is quite common.
All athletes are banned from taking thousands of chemical substances that experts believe will give them an unfair advantage. Yet everything from anabolic steroids (drugs that mimic the effects of testosterone and help convert protein into muscle) and peptide hormones to strong analgesic painkillers have often been used to cheat in professional sport for years all over the world. It’s not unusual for even coaches to give their protégés muscle-boosting steroids after masking them as ‘vitamins’. The trouble is labs can’t always spot the artificial increase of a certain body chemical, especially since human biochemistry has such a vast range. So the fear of being ‘caught out’ for no fault of theirs may even be legitimate for world-class athletes like Gatlin who happen to fall in the extremes of this range.
On the other hand, time is running out to clean up sport as undetectable non-steroidal anabolic agents are emerging. Even this pales in comparison to gene doping which, rather than injecting human growth factor, goes straight to the source by giving athletes extra genes so they make more of the growth factor themselves. It will be a sad day when the glorious element of uncertainty in competitive sport is lost with the onslaught of ‘super athletes’ for whom no bar is too high.
