Olympics committee cracks down on athlete drug use

The Olympics ended Sunday, but for some athletes, it ended on a note of humiliation and disappointment.\nEight athletes tested positive for drug use in the Sydney Games, and 50 tested positive for drug use before the games. It's part of an Olympic crackdown on doping athletes.\nOver the years, the number of Olympians caught with drugs has fluctuated. Two tested positive in Atlanta, 10 tested positive in Seoul in 1988 and five tested positive in Barcelona in 1992. This time, erythropoietin (EPO) was the drug of choice for endurance athletes.\nDr. John Bancroft, director of the Kinsey Institute said athletes take drugs to build up their muscles, but long-term effects are are unclear. "The main effect is to build up muscles in response to training. You develop more muscle and strength. The other effects are not so clear. \n"EPO... that is a drug that would stimulate the formation of red blood corpuscles. By taking it, you would have a higher blood count. You would get that by living in high altitude as well. You would have a higher oxygen transport capacity and, therefore, an increased exercise tolerance. There are risks associated with it because if you have too many red blood corpuscles, it causes problems." \nJohn Findling, a professor at IU-Southeast who has been studying Olympic history, said drug use is down because of unyielding drug tests.\n"The IOC (International Olympic Committee) has implemented strict drug programs," he said. "They caught a bunch of people and took their medals away from them. More people did not use drugs because they would have gotten caught."\nFindling said drug use was prevalent during the Cold War era, when communist and Democratic countries vied for the most gold medals. After the fall of East Germany, records detailing efforts to drug female athletes were made public, he said.\n"Drug use has been fairly common since the 1960s and 1970s," Findling said. "It just carries in terms of how many people they have caught. East Germany … after the end of the Cold War … systematically doped athletes. That was basic East German Olympic Committee policy."\nThe United States has also had a history of Olympians abusing drugs. Reports revealed that athletes took drugs to improve their performance years ago leaked out, according to reports.\nA credible anti-doping reform did not begin until 1998, years after the International Olympic Committee instituted drug testing in 1968. Since then, committee drug testing fielded 52 positive tests in more than 54,000 athletes, according to the Toronto Sun.\nThe major innovation of the Sydney Games was the test for EPO, the blood-boosting synthetic hormone that many endurance athletes abused. The limitation of the test is that while the blood test can detect EPO use over the previous four weeks, the urine test can detect use only over the previous three days.\nThough the International Olympic Committee uses tests to determine who abuses drugs, some Olympians fell through the cracks. Romanian gymnast Andreea Raducan, widely considered the successor to Romanian legendary gymnast Nadia Comaneci, was stripped of her gold medal because she tested positive for pseudoephedrine, a drug the committee banned. The drug was found in her cold medicine. The committee upheld the ruling. \nThe situations of the gymnast and the runner are indicative of a larger problem facing the Olympics, Findling said.\n"It didn't enhance her performance," he said referring to Raducan. "It's an absolutely no-win situation for her and the IOC. (One of the chemicals they banned) happened to be in her cold medicine. Her team doctor should have known that. If the IOC had relented, then that opens them to being inconsistent in their ruling.\n"They had to do what they did. As cruel and unfortunate as it was. What it points out, is that there isn't real consistent drug policy in the Olympics. Other athletes are going to get away with it. Maybe it's never going to be completely solved." \nFindling doesn't see an end to drug use in the Olympics. \n"Athletes can already circumvent the EPO test," he said. "There will always be people who will do anything (to win), human nature being what it is."\nBancroft said future drug tests should help eliminate drug abuse. "It's becoming more of an use as drugs become more sophisticated. It's a way of establishing balance and there need to be controls there. \n"I think there's a lot of concern about the abuse of anabolic steroids. They just get motivated to develop huge muscles, but it's not a good idea"