Chris Froome, who took his second Tour de France title in July this year, had to endure questions related to doping almost throughout the three-week Tour. The Briton took it in his stride as he survived a crash and rode the mountains.
“Too strong to be clean?” tweeted Lance Armstrong as Froome won a mountain stage. Armstrong, stripped of his record seven Tour de France titles and banned for life in 2012 for his well-planned doping practices, should know.
Cycling, especially Tour de France had been in the doping forefront for several years. It looks like athletics has taken over the mantle.
A sensational expose by the
Coming as it did close to the World Athletics Championships in Beijing the impact was crushing for the sport. The allegations eventually drew a sardonic comment from the president-elect of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), former Olympic champion Sebastian Coe: “We’re more than a discussion about test tubes, blood and urine.”
The revelations and the IAAF’s subsequent disclosure about 28 athletes having been suspended following retests of 2005 and 2007 World Championships samples have hit the sport’s credibility. Athletes who could possibly have been robbed of their moment of glory between 2001 and 2011 justifiably feel let down.
The recent comment of World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) Director General David Howman that one out of ten athletes could be doping underlines the task of the testers. The Testing statistics for 2014 show 261 adverse analytical findings in athletics from 25,830 samples (1 %), 57 from 12,120 in aquatics (0.5 %), 221 from 22471 in cycling (1 %) and 169 from 8806 in weightlifting (1.9 %).
Dopers are getting smarter these days. Recent studies have shown that micro-dosing especially of erythropoietin (EPO) and testosterone not only provides excellent performance-enhancement but also escapes scrutiny of the testers. The efficacy of the Athlete Biological Passport introduced in 2009 to monitor variations in blood values over a period of time, is being doubted today.
EPO, used by athletes to boost red blood cell production to help increase endurance, and other prescription drugs were shown to be freely available in Kenya in the German TV documentary. Several drugs including steroids are available without prescription in India also.
The health risks associated with doping should continue to worry governments and sports administrators. The Australian scientists who studied the ‘leaked data’ about 5000 blood samples concluded that there were at least 21 athletes who had blood values so extreme that they risked clots, heart attack or stroke.
WADA had signed a MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) in June 2010 with the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA) to share information on new drugs during clinical trials stage so that it could minimize the misuse of such drugs.
In March 2013, WADA issued a warning against the use of a new endurance-boosting drug GW1516 which was still in the pipeline. Six cyclists belonging to different countries had tested positive for the drug by then!
In July this year, the New York Times reported that two cyclists had tested positive for the hitherto unknown drug FG-4592 that was yet to hit production line. It was available on the internet purely for clinical trials but somehow it seemed to have found its way to the athletes.
Like EPO, used by doctors to treat anaemia, FG-4592 is also a red blood cell booster. Unlike EPO which is injectable, FG-4592 comes in the form of a pill, better known nowadays as ‘Oxygen in a pill’!
The writer is former Deputy Editor (Sports), The Hindu. The views expressed are personal.