Olympics: Drugs seized in first Games bust

By PETER JESSUP and REUTERS

SYDNEY - The Sydney Olympics had its first drugs bust yesterday when Australian Customs found one of the Uzbekistan team carrying an illegal growth hormone.

The substance was identified as the muscle-tuning human growth hormone (HGH).

"The Australian Customs Service has detained a small quantity of what appears to be human growth hormone after it was found in the baggage of an Olympic team official at Sydney airport today," Customs said.

Two years ago a Chinese swimmer was caught smuggling the same muscle-building hormone through Sydney airport on the way to the Perth world championships.

The International Olympics Committee has no way of testing for the substance. Its leading anti-doping official, Dick Pound, said he thought the Uzbekistani was reckless to try to repeat the smuggling.

"You have got to be nuts, with all the publicity given to trying to crack down on drug use in the Games and in Australia in general to come whistling through customs with whatever you carry HGH in," he said.

Jacques Rogge, of the IOC, said the committee would launch an immediate investigation.

The seizure came as testing for the endurance drug EPO starts. Officials of the Sydney organising committee, Socog, are beginning to roust athletes out of bed in random pre-Games raids.

The national chefs de mission were called to a lengthy explanation of the system yesterday, and they and the testers set down procedures for the drug hunt.

The tests cost $3000 each, and testers will focus on endurance athletes, including long-distance runners, cyclists and rowers.

EPO (erythropoietin) is a hormone which occurs naturally in the human body and assists in the production of red blood cells.

Injecting the hormone increases stamina in endurance events, such as the marathon and cycling.

Side-effects include a thickening of the blood which can lead to death.

New Zealand team leader Les Mills supported the drug testing.

"We want them to test. The more they test the better, because we've got to be one of the cleanest countries at the Games," he said.

Many of the New Zealanders camped around Australia for pre-Games competition, including the women basketballers in Canberra and track and field athletes on the Gold Coast, have been randomly tested by the Australian Sports Drug Testing Agency.

The first New Zealander selected at the village was a softballer.

The athletes have no privacy during the sample-taking, but the Kiwis approached so far have fully supported the programme.

So far only urine has been tested, but from today blood will also be taken in the search for EPO.

The needles would no doubt upset some people, Mills said, so he hoped athletes would not be approached on competition days until their events were over.

Team management had also been concerned that the programme did not interrupt athletes' preparation.

After some discussion with the chefs de mission, the testers agreed that competitors would not be removed during training sessions.

Although two urine samples will be taken and held separately in the usual A and B approach, the athlete will able to seek a second and independent test if the A returns a positive result.

There will be just one blood sample, and both urine and blood must be positive for EPO before an athlete will be punished.

EPO clears from urine faster than it does from blood. If the urine samples are clear but the blood is not, the case will be sent to the IOC doping panel for further investigation.

Probably the prime target for those with drug conspiracy theories is Dutch swimmer Inge de Bruin. Her Australian rival, Susie O'Neill, has called de Bruin's five world records, set at the age of 26, as "pretty suss."

De Bruin said in Sydney that she had been tested nine times since May.

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