Drug cheating rears ugly head

MELBOURNE - As Melbourne prepared to celebrate the opening of the Commonwealth Games on Wednesday night, Federal Sports Minister Senator Rod Kemp gave Games chairman Ron Walker some bad news.

The previous day cleaners at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra had found substances in rooms used by members of the national weightlifting team. Further checks had uncovered vials, tablets and syringes and the new Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority had been called in to investigate.

This was not the first drugs tremor to run through the Games, although officials were careful to emphasise tests had not been completed. Until the results were in, no conclusions could be drawn.

But with a number of confirmed and suspected cases of use of illegal performance-enhancing drugs by athletes preparing for Melbourne despite widespread pre-Games testing and the promise of rigid tests throughout the competition, officials recognise it may not be the last.

"In all walks of life you will have bad apples," said World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) director-general David Howman.

But Howman confirmed a chilling trend: Leading genetic researchers have been approached for access to developments that could boost performance and lift the technology of cheating a notch above the present range of more conventional drugs.

Wada runs a research programme to identify and head off new drugs and treatments before they hit the sporting market. In the past 12 months it has found and blocked two new designer drugs. For the past four years it has focussed on gene therapy.

Gene therapy has potential to benefit general health through introducing new protein-producing genes that could block diseases and speed the healing of injuries. But they could also significantly improve sporting performance.

Research in the United States had shown that a genetically modified virus injected in rats could double muscle mass, strength and endurance. Wada has developed contacts with some of the world's top researchers who have told the agency they had been approached by athletes and coaches wanting the technology.

Howman said researchers generally regarded the potential use of their work in sports as totally unethical and were opposed to it. The approaches had been reported by Wada to national sporting bodies.

These Games have shown that even without genetic advances there are problems enough.

Last year the Australian Government launched the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority, to absorb the functions of the former Sports Drug Agency and the Sports Drug Medical Advisory Committee, and included new powers of investigation.

Canberra also kicked in another A$5 million to boost spending on the fight against drug cheats to A$48 million over four years, enabling what Games organisers claim is the event's toughest-ever testing regime.

And Kemp has confirmed that more Australian weightlifters were under suspicion following the discovery at the AIS on Tuesday.

"The investigation will be done in a speedy and efficient fashion," he said. "All of us, including members of the team, will be anxious for the results."

TOUGH, EXHAUSTIVE TESTING REGIME

Commonwealth Games organisers claim Melbourne has produced the event's toughest drugs testing regime.

Targets have included anabolic steroids, the oxygen-boosting synthetic hormone erythopoiten, strength-building human growth hormone, anabolic agents and other drugs that lift performance or offset side-effects or mask the presence of illegal substances.

Every Australian athlete was tested before the Games began, and urine and blood samples will be taken from another 1000 athletes - almost one in four - before the Closing Ceremony on March 26.

Australian cyclist Ben Kersten complained to ABC radio that he had been tested nine times in the lead-up to the Games.

The net caught Indian woman weightlifter and medal contender Shailaja Pujari, who was dropped from the national team after testing positive for the anabolic steroid stanozol. Another 12 Indian athletes were reportedly dropped from after they hid from testers.

In Australia, investigations are continuing into alleged trafficking in sports drugs by weightlifter Belinda Van Tienan.