Devlin Brown
5 November 2009
Johannesburg — IN A FEW generations people will look back and laugh at the efforts made over the past 40 years in the fight against drugs in sport - not only will drugs be accepted but also encouraged.
This is not an excerpt from a sci-fi novel, this is the view of leading sports scientist Prof Tim Noakes. When asked whether it is realistic to expect a drug-free sporting world, Noakes is unambiguous in his answer.
"No. People will laugh in 100 years at the efforts made in the past 40 years. The culture will be pro-drugs in everything so they will not understand why once we tried to save athletes from themselves and retain at least some ethics in sport."
It is no surprise Noakes has come to this conclusion. One only has to take note of the daily bombardment of information about a new wonder herb or drug that will cure just about anything. So why fight against the inevitable?
Director-general of the World Anti Doping Agency (Wada) David Howman says: "Speeding on the roads is inevitable. There are always those who will want to break the rules. Does that mean you just allow it to happen, or do you try and make the roads as safe as possible? It is our job to reduce doping in sport as much as we can, and we are taking steps in the right direction."
There has been an increase in the number of doping cases reported over the past few years. Gymnast Daiane dos Santos tested positive for a performance enhancer in July. At the Chinese National Games sprinter Wang Jing failed a doping test. One could set one's watch to doping claims in cycling.
Even sports that until now have been "clean" have succumbed to doping: American golfer Doug Barron was banned this week for using an unnamed performance enhancer.
Howman believes this increase in media attention is not necessarily due to more doping, rather that there is more transparency in testing.
"We are getting better assistance from governments, and there is also more attention to doping cases because of the transparency in the way we operate. We don't brush things under the carpet," he says.
Khalid Galant, CEO of the South African Institute for Drug Free Sport, is under no illusions about the task his organisation faces. "One has to be optimistic (that drugs can be eradicated)," he says. "Unfortunately our ethics and morals in sport are not emblematic of an environment that necessarily facilitates a dope- free sporting world.
"A win-at-all-costs philosophy and lucrative commercial benefits attributed to medals and victories make the goal of drug-free sport a lofty ideal. Ethically, I am very uncomfortable with legalising drugs in sport."
It is one thing talking the talk, but in practice anti-doping agencies are always a step behind the drug users. At any given moment there are drugs that are simply not detectable. "We do not know how to detect undetectable drugs," says Noakes.
"All the best athletes with unlimited budgets have access to the undetectables and the 'scientists' who provide them. The market appears to be very large."
Galant agrees that anti-doping agencies are playing catch-up, and that testing is unable to keep up with rapidly evolving drugs. "Our resources allocated towards testing are not sufficient to really say we are winning the fight."
But agencies such as his organisation are using more sophisticated methods to catch cheats. "We are collaborating with pharmaceutical companies to include distinct markers that can be picked up in our testing analysis. The cyclists caught in the 2008 Tour de France for CERA (a drug to treat anaemia) were caught because of collaboration with Roche Pharmaceuticals."
In the brutal environment of professional sport, where careers are made or broken by the tiniest of margins, athletes are resorting to any means to get that edge .
It could be argued doping causes a snowball effect: the more athletes use performance-enhancing drugs, and get away with it, the more other athletes will use performance-enhancing drugs.
"If you cannot be competitive without doping, the choice is simple. Either dope or starve. Most athletes prefer to eat than starve," says Noakes.
Marion Jones, Barry Bonds, Tim Montgomery, Floyd Landis: one can easily rattle off a list of sporting stars who have been shamed by drug use, or association with drugs, whether they ever admit to it or not. And in an environment where doping is prevalent, it is unfair but also understandable that clean athletes are often suspected of using performance-enhancing drugs.
When asked about top athletes using undetectable performance enhancers in SA, Galant says: "I know it is happening but they have just not been caught by us. I dread the day I have to report a positive on a sporting hero of the nation.
"One only has to draw lessons from the Caster Semenya case to imagine what the political fallout may be or the pressure not to report. Fortunately, we are an independent agency with enough stop-gap measures and policies in place to ensure no cover-up or lying ever occurs."
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