Special report: Agencies roll up their sleeves for next round in the anti-doping battle

Special report: Agencies roll up their sleeves for next round in the anti-doping battleAfter two scandal-ridden seasons of nordic ski racing, there’s new hope on the horizon for doping control. A series of recent meetings among the major agencies, plus the FIS, has established new parameters in the quest to quell cheaters, which streamline testing and improve education — but also raise some serious concerns (see Gene Blues, below).

Though the hype has been fairly recent (at least in the world of ski racing) performance-altering drugs have been around as long as people have been competing against each other. Before battle, Zulu warriors are believed to have ingested an alcoholic beverage made from grape skins, called dop. Ancient Greeks used special potions before sporting events while in the 1800s, some athletes took strychnine, caffeine and even cocaine for an edge.

By the late 1920s, the International Amateur Athletic Foundation (IAAF) and other agencies had banned the use of stimulants, but cheating — through synthetic hormones and other substances — continued. Alarmed by the practice, the IOC set up its Medical Commission in 1966 and began drug testing that year, in Grenoble and Mexico City. Steroid use became popular in the 1970s and 80s and was soon joined by blood doping — the removal and replacement of an athlete’s blood to boost oxygen-carrying hemoglobin — which was banned by the IOC in 1986. Soon, athletes were turning to artificial substances, including erythropoietin (EPO), to artificially increase hemoglobin levels. Anti-doping controls were complicated by a lack of reliable testing, and it wasn’t until the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games that EPO was reliably tested.

Or so we thought. The “Lahti six” caught in 2001 were busted for a using a plasma expander, HES, that boosted their blood volume while keeping their hemoglobin levels below the legal limit. According to some reports, they were caught because they were informed that HES wouldn’t show up in urine samples. But drug testers, who have long been playing a game of catch-up with cheating athletes, had the edge this time: a new detection method that would — and did — reveal HES usage in urine.

This new method was developed by scientists in collaboration with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), established in 1999 to “promote and coordinate, internationally, the fight against doping in sport” and headed up by the IOC’s Richard Pound. Around the same time, national independent agencies began sprouting up, determined to combat doping on their own turf and produce clean athletes. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) began operations in October 2000, as a result of recommendations from the USOC, and focuses primarily on conducting out-of-competition (OOC) tests.

A united front

In theory, this system should operate like clockwork: national agencies conduct OOC tests, WADA tests at events, and nobody gets away with cheating. But it’s hardly that simple, of course. Countries have disparate resources, and different levels of cooperation from their athletes. And even WADA has been beset by a lack of funding. Though the agency works closely with — and received its initial two-year budget of $25 million from — the IOC, money issues have since been complicated. WADA is supposed to receive contributions from governments in addition to the Olympic Movement, but pledges don’t always pan out. At an Oct. 1 meeting, WADA’s executive committee revealed that the agency had received only 50 percent of its forecasted budget for 2002.

Another challenge for WADA is staying up to speed with sport-specific issues. In disciplines requiring strength, steroid-like substances are the drug of choice whereas in cross-country skiing and other endurance sports, it’s all about blood manipulation. If WADA doesn’t stay one step ahead of the science particular to each and every sport, well, everyone loses. So when the FIS turned drug controls over to WADA last season, the decision raised more than a few eyebrows. How could adequate testing, with appropriate equipment, be insured? And would an independent organization really control the testing and results?

This month, at the FIS medical committee meeting in Zurich, these questions were discussed with promising progress in addressing the issue of blood manipulations in cross-country and nordic combined. First, FIS plans to invest the hefty sum of $1 million on anti-doping measures over the next 18 months.

Second, FIS has contracted two WADA agencies International Doping Tests and Management (IDTM) and the Drug-Free Sports Consortium (DFSC) to conduct doping tests for FIS disciplines. DFSC will handle alpine, snowboard and freestyle while IDTM will handle nordic sports. Utilizing these independent agencies will streamline anti-doping efforts, bolster WADA, and, it is hoped, establish more credibility. For cross-country and nordic combined, IDTM will now perform pre and post-competition blood and urine controls. All results will be simultaneously sent to WADA and the FIS to better direct the OOC follow-up testing in questionable cases. “These are very promising changes for the sport and the athletes,” says USSA medical director Melinda Roalstad.

There are still many challenges ahead for all agencies. WADA has been developing the World Anti-Doping Code to standardize doping rules for all countries, all sports. Getting everyone to agree on the document is an enormous task, and one which will likely result in a ban from Olympic competition should an international federation, national governing body or government refuse to sign the code. The first batch of comments on the draft was released last month, and several parties, including FIS, raised the concern that WADA must become more of a clearinghouse for all stakeholders in doping control, maintaining up-to-date information on athletes’ whereabouts. On a related note, USADA’s CEO, Terry Madden, has stressed the importance of conducting “real” OOC tests in which an athlete is tested with no notice, away from any kind of training camp or pre-competition setting.

As a new FIS council member, USSA president and CEO Bill Marolt considers doping control a priority. He is joined by the new FIS medical secretary, Roalstad, who will be working with new FIS medical chairman Bengt Saltin. And at this month’s meeting, says Roalstad, “our focus was to be positive on the issue of education — for coaches, for staff, for athletes — to focus on preventing doping in the long run.” Through more targeted testing and advanced methods of detecting, she believes, athletes will become more nervous. And the most positive signs will be ones the public won’t see. “When we see the average hemoglobin drop,” says Roalstad, “then we’ll know we are making headway.”

GENE BLUES

While erythropoetin (EPO) and darbepoetin (NESP) are still the buzzwords when it comes to ski racing and doping, a new — and much scarier — method of cheating is emerging. It’s called genetic doping, and it involves altering one’s genes to improve performance. One simple injection, transmitting a new gene via a harmless virus, could mimic the effects of EPO or NESP, with one major difference: it can’t be detected, at least not through traditional methods. Some scientists speculate that right now, only a slice of muscle would reveal evidence — not exactly the most convenient of tests.

In the past few years, scientists have been experimenting with gene therapy to treat diseases, producing results that have been promising and controversial at the same time. For the sporting world, the practice’s implications are deeply troubling. The IOC has just banned gene doping from Jan. 1, 2003, forward, and WADA has added it to the current draft of the World Anti-Doping Code. Though the official language is murky, anti-doping agents are clear in their intent to beat the cheaters in the latest frontier of doping
.

“By introducing the notion of genetic doping into the list at this time, we at WADA and the IOC are taking into account the important changes occurring in doping techniques,” said WADA’s chairman, Richard Pound. “New medical technologies may pose new challenges in the fight against doping, but we, together with the scientific and medical communities, are ready to meet those challenges.”