Sport

Retrospective drug testing the way forward

The Irish Sports Council aiding the fight against athletes who are prepared to cheat

Derval O’Rourke with her silver medal from the 2006 European Championships in Gothenburg. O’Rourke is in line to claim another medal retrospectively from the 2013 Indoor European Championships, also in Gothenburg. She finished fourth in the final but race winner Nevin Yanit subsequently tested positive. Photograph: David Sleator

Johnny Watterson's face
Johnny Watterson
Thu Apr 10 2014 - 01:00

Scientists expect to expose many more athletes as drug cheats if the International Olympic Committee can agree a mechanism for retrospective testing of samples taken at previous Olympic Games.

Following research in Cologne Sports University conducted by Dr Hans Geyer (managing director of the centre for preventive doping research at the University of Cologne) and financially supported by the Irish Sports Council, methods have been found that can detect the waste products of anabolic steroids that remain in the system for a long period of time.

It means the samples of athletes who used anabolic steroids at the Beijing Games in 2008 and London 2012 can be retrospectively tested for the metabolites of the drugs.

The Olympic committee are considering Dr Geyer’s proposal. If accepted, Geyer expects many more positive results from athletes who believed they had flushed out the steroids so as not be detected.

READ MORE

With the new techniques pioneered in Cologne the metabolites can now be detected and scientists expect the sports in which anabolic steroids are beneficial will show 10 to 20 per cent positive results compared to the 1-2 per cent norm.

Athletes from the last two Olympics would also be stripped of their medals and others upgraded.


Upgraded
An example of a drug ban affecting medal winners involves Irish sprint hurdler Derval O'Rourke, who is in line to be upgraded to a bronze medal for the 2013 Indoor European Championships.

Turkish sprinter Nevin Yanit, who won the event, has tested positive and was banned for two years.

O’Rourke finished fourth in the final, missing out on a podium place by one-hundredth of a second.

“We would expect many, many positive tests. We have started with samples and have 10-20 per cent more positives, especially in power sports and track and field,” said Dr Geyer

“Yes, I would expect [to find] anabolic steroids in retrospective testing and I think the IOC is thinking about this and considering the selection mechanism.

“They have started with the re-analysis but maybe they should think about re-analysing many more samples with these new methods we have implemented.

“If they do it they could reveal the opponents of beaten Irish athletes as cheaters.

"I think we can go back to the Winter Olympic Games in Turin. Athens samples are thrown away. But Wada has now decided to prolong the time samples are kept in long-term storage and I think this is the right thing so that we can analyse for all substances that were prohibited at the time.

“We cannot re-analyse for substances that were prohibited later. But if we re-analyse, for example, samples from Beijing we will have many positive tests.”

Dr Geyer was in Dublin for the Irish Sports Council’s Anti-Doping Annual Review, whereby just three Irish athletes tested positive in 2013: in athletics, rugby and boxing.

The athlete took an anabolic agent, the rugby player cannabis and the boxer failed to show for testing.


Most tested
Rugby was the most tested team sport, with 85 tests carried out under the National Testing programme as well as further tests conducted under the User Pays Programme by the European Rugby Cup (28), IRB (41), IRFU (20) and Six Nations (16).

Overall, athletics was the most tested sport with 165 tests carried out under National Testing and 102 tests under the User Pays Programme.

“The Irish samples in Cologne are stored up to five years at this stage,” said Irish director of ethics and participation in sport, Una May.

“We are trying to build up a profile of more likely offenders and using intelligence to do that. Based on blood and steroid profiling too. Steroid profiling will be fully implemented at the end of this year. If they have a suspicion over an athlete they can just go to Hans and ask him to profile them. Every athlete is to get a full steroid profile test in the next month or two.”

The sports council gave about €20,000 to the Cologne programme, which has dramatically increased the number of positive tests for a variety of products, many of them dangerously consumed by athletes while still in clinical trials.

Drugs called Sarm and Aicar, which are so powerful they can, in some instances, improve muscle mass and increase endurance while an athlete is , according to Dr Geyer, “sitting on the sofa.”

There is also a slimming chocolate bar among an array of nutritional products which can be bought online and would cause athletes to test positive.