Are Drugs Killing Sports?

Drug-related sports scandals are at the fore these days. From pills, to injections, to powders, athletes are consuming performance-enhancing drugs at an alarming rate. Drug use has thrown into question recent victories and cast a shroud of doubt that threatens to sour the competitive sports arena. Just look at the headlines.

In early June, Italian super-climber Marco Pantani was eliminated from the ’99 Giro d’Italia cycling race while leading by several minutes. He failed a blood test that measures a rider’s hematocrit levels.

The hardest climbing stage, scheduled for the following day, was guaranteed to showcase his ascending skills even more vividly. His disqualification shocked the cycling world as well as Italian society, provoking comments from Italian Prime Minister Massimo d’Alema. As of early September, Pantani has not raced again and was reportedly training, with little enthusiasm, for the October World Cycling Championships.
Spaniard Julio Rey, a favorite for the men’s marathon world championship in Seville, Spain, in August tested positive for a prohibited drug. The drug was not named. Another Spanish runner, Abel Anton, won the World Championship.
In mid-summer, British 400-meter hurdler, Gary Codogan, tested positive for a prohibited steroid, Nandrolone.
At the World Track and Field Championships, two athletes tested positive: Nigerian sprinter Davidson Ezinwa for a banned hormone and Somalian 1500 meter runner Mohamed Ibrahaim Aden for a stimulant. Ibrahaim received a warning while Ezinwa was suspended for two years.
’99 Tour de France winner, American Lance Armstrong, was hounded by the French Press after drug testing during the race revealed traces of a corticoid, at levels about one-thirtieth of that needed to test positive. Armstrong, a survivor of testicular cancer, attributed the presence of corticoid to an over-the-counter saddle sore medicine he had applied to his skin.
In early September, Swiss banking group Credit Suisse announced that it would no longer sponsor cycling events because the doping scandals and perceived widespread use of drugs by racers wasn’t compatible with their corporate image. Credit Suisse sponsored the Tour de Suisse and the Tour of Romandy.

Why does nearly every major sporting event seem to be accompanied by revelations of doping? Why, as in Armstrong’s case, do some journalists look for doping stories where none exist? Why did one European cycling official talk about a generation of cyclists addicted to drugs? Why is cycling losing the sponsors that are its lifeblood? And more importantly, what can be done about drugs in sports? To examine this issue more closely, let’s look at why athletes take drugs, how such doping affects sports, and what can be done about it.

Why Athletes take drugs
Some drugs directly enhance an athlete’s performance, such as EPO (see below). Other drugs don’t directly affect performance but allow the athlete to train harder or recover faster, like steroids. And some drugs merely mask the pain of competition-like amphetamines. In each case, athletes are trying to push their performance higher and higher, both to score bragging rights and to raise their value in the marketplace. For cyclists who know they can’t win major stage races but are riding only to help a teammate win, drugs can help them endure the suffering of 20 days in the saddle.

The performance-enhancing drug, erythropoietin (EPO) demonstrates both the rewards and risks of drug use. EPO raises an athlete’s level of red blood cells. It has become the endurance athlete’s drug of choice in the nineties because it’s the first drug that actually aids performance directly. Why? Because red blood cells carry oxygen to muscle tissue, permitting faster riding.

Because no test has been devised to directly detect EPO use, the International Cycling Union (UCI) has established a maximum hematocrit (percentage of red blood cells) level of 50%. Levels in excess of 50% (Pantani’s hematocrit was reportedly 52%) aren’t necessarily indications of EPO use because other factors like dehydration and living at altitude can raise hematocrit.

However, it’s dangerous for the heart to pump the “thick,” more viscous blood characteristic of higher hematocrit levels, so the UCI justifies the arbitrary limit as a health measure for riders. The deaths of nearly 20 young Dutch cyclists in the early nineties are rumored to have been caused by high hematocrit levels resulting from EPO use although this has never been proven. And EPO isn’t just a cycling phenomenon—its use has surfaced in track and field, road running, triathlon and soccer among other sports.

Our View
Make no mistake; drug use is killing endurance sports. Why?

All victories are now suspect. Ever since the revelations during the 1998 Tour de France that many professional cyclists were using performance-boosting drugs, fans can’t know for sure what great victories are due to talent, training and skill and what wins are chemically enhanced. This cheapens sport and means that chemistry, not the will to win, is often the deciding factor.
The hematocrit test encourages cheating. Because the UCI can’t detect EPO use directly, they search for it indirectly by setting a maximum hematocrit level. But this prompts team personnel to look for young athletes who achieve top placings with a naturally low hematocrit. Then their red blood cell levels can be artificially boosted to near 50% for even greater endurance performance. Setting an arbitrary hematocrit level sidesteps the problem and tempts unethical riders and support people to cheat.
Many promising young athletes are discouraged from a career in endurance sport because of drug-use allegations. Elite-level cycling, running and triathlon are hard enough without requiring the athletes who want to remain legal and healthy from continually having to fight the temptation to dope. And because EPO use confers a competitive advantage variously estimated at 10 to 20%, the temptation is enormous. Couple the simple desire for victory with the financial rewards of winning a major cycling tour (estimated at over a million dollars in endorsements), and that temptation is often impossible to resist.
Road cycling events are free to the public—no admission is charged. As a result, sponsors are crucial to the financial success of any event or team. Because of all the negative publicity surrounding drug use in the sport, many sponsors are either dropping out or considering it, and potential sponsors are shifting their ad dollars elsewhere. Their reasoning is impeccable—why take a chance on having your brand associated with doping? But without sponsors, these sports can’t exist.

What can be done?

Testing. First, a reliable test to detect EPO use must be developed and implemented. Indirect methods of detection, like checking hematocrit levels, only tempt unscrupulous doctors and athletes to circumvent the system.
Stiff penalties for athletes. Anyone caught using illegal performance-enhancing drugs must be given a stiff penalty, perhaps even a lifetime ban from the sport. At present, there is no consistency in punishment. Individual sports-governing bodies hand out widely varying penalties.
Stiff penalties for team doctors and directors. The team physicians and directors who supply drugs should face severe civic penalties. Although athletes are often willing participants in drug use, ending the problem starts with the suppliers.
Education. Sports governing bodies must begin an intensive educational campaign designed to discourage drug use among young athletes. Some young people are driven away from a career in sports because they see it as a drug-users’ game. Others are caught in the drug-abuse web. Educating prospective athletes on the dangers of drugs is the best hope for a new millennium of clean sporting events.