Is it wiser to allow use of drugs under supervision?

While the ancients might have looked to the heavens to forgive their various sins, competitors in today’s sport have no such equivalent of a confession box. If the modern gods and goddesses of sport err and are found guilty, they face not only exile from their chosen careers, but the humiliation of being called (or thought) a cheat, whatever their acts of wizardry in the past.

Ben Johnson being stripped of his medal andbanned after testing positive for the anabolic steroid stanazolol in the 1988 Seoul Olympics is a case in point. And nothing is more pathetic than Johnson’s appeals for reentering the arena being rejected.

Despite the enormity of the Johnson affair, 11 years on, no lessons seem to have been learnt. The list of athletes with feet of clay reads like a Who’s Who of the sporting world: Petr Korda, Dennis Mitchell, Javier Sotomayor, Lindford Christie and Merlene Ottey to name just a few.

Dr PMS Chandran of Sports Authority of India is of the opinion that though drugs have always been in use by sportspersons, the only reason there is a sudden rash of cases being detected is a technological advance in anti-doping equipment in the last few of years.

“Labs have updated technology,” says Dr Chandran. “For instance, the high resolution GCMS (gas chrometrograph mass spectometer) detects certain drugs that could not be found a couple of years ago.”

Dr Chandran states that in the domestic circuit, “dopinghappens and everyone knows it happens and nothing happens thereafter.” He adds that the problem, in its present avatar, would remain, “as no one really wants to do anything about it.”

There is a belief that the reason that Indian athletes often perform below their national marks in international competitions is because they do not use steroids at these events, because of the very stringent testing that happens. In India, Dr Chandran says, testing is rare at the federation level (except the weightlifting federation which has become more particular at selections). He says it is done at a couple events, or generally, before a contingent leaves for a meet abroad. In any case, he adds, it is generally announced beforehand that there will be testing which gives an athlete enough time to lay off whatever performance-enhancer he/she is using. Or find a suitable “mask” (a masking agent is another chemical which may hide or reduce the evidence of the steroid in use). Random sampling or testing at training campsis practically unheard of.

Sources even say a few who were to go to Seville this time from India did not go because they tested positive. If Dr Chandran and many others are to be believed and drugs are used by practically everyone in certain sports, then does the answer really lie in allowing the use of steroids, under medical regulation ?

Another debate that will come up is that of blood tests, as will be done in the 2000 Sydney Olympics and which people believe could have legal ramifications; blood testing being an invasive procedure, unlike urine sampling. (From 1968 to 1992, only urine samples were taken and analysed. It was only at the XVII Winter Games in Lillehammer (1994), that a few blood tests were performed under the aegis of the International Ski Federation and the approval of the IOC, in the Nordic skiing events). With blood testing, the fear of disease may spread. For now, urine testing continues and the skeletons keep tumbling out of the doping closets.