New drugs test may force cheats to pull out of Games

New drugs test may force cheats to pull out of Games

SYDNEY, AUGUST 29: Tests for the banned performance enhancing drug EPO may force some cheats to pull out of the Sydney Games, Australian Olympic officials predicted on Wednesday.

``I can imagine if they feel they've been obtaining great advantage from these drugs they're going to be very, very distressed.

``They can only do two things -- run the risk of being caught or come off the drug. If they get caught, that's a far greater penalty than competing and not doing quite as well as they thought they might have.''

Gathercole said he was concerned the tests would be wasted on sprint events where EPO, which when injected in synthetic form enhances stamina in endurance athletes by increasing the number of red blood cells which carry oxygen to the muscles, was unlikely to boost performance.

``I hope they will be targeting the sport and the events which would benefit from it,'' he said.

``I believe anybody who breaks an Olympic or World record... in either a heat or a semi-final in those identifiable events should be automatically tested.''

IOC executive board member Jacques Rogge has said anyone who refused the test would be considered guilty of doping.

Gathercole also said he believed some athletes could pull out.

``I would not be surprised at all (if some athletes pulled out),'' he said. ``This is a very, very powerful deterrent to those who are cheating and about to defraud their fellow competitors.''

IOC announced on Monday that between 300 and 700 tests would be carried out between September 2, the day the athletes' village opens, and the closing ceremony on October 1.

`Drug war not won yet'

Laussane: The battle may be won but the war against athletes who cheat by using drugs to boost their performances is far from over warned a senior International Olympic Committee (IOC) member helping lead the fight.

The warning from IOC executive committee member Jacques Rogge came only hours after IOC confirmed they now had a fool-proof test for the performance enhancing drug EPO and that it would be used in next month's Olympic Games. EPO, which incre ases the amount of oxygen in blood, is used by athletes in endurance events. The second most popular drug amongst current athletes is human growth hormones (HgH) and at the moment there is no sure test to prove its presence.

But Rogge, who is also a senior member of the World Anti-Doping Agency is confident such a test will soon be in place.

``We are where we were with EPO a month ago. The problem is it is much harder to validate the test of HgH. More work has to be done. It is very difficult,'' said Rogge.

IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch suggested that a test that would be acceptable in a court of law could be available within months but Rogge stops short of such confidence.

Rogge, tipped as likely successor to Samaranch as IOC president next July at IOC session in Moscow, is already looking ahead of HgH and on how to stop the most threatening weapon to date to improve an athletes performance -- gene manipulation. Genetic engineering will make EPO obsolete and with it joint test developed by French and Australian scientists. The idea is instead of athletes injecting themselves many times a week with EPO they acquire a `super gene' with a single injection.

This has already been documented in two US experiments -- the mice and baboons, which were given EPO genes that nearly doubled their red blood cell count.

In another experiment conducted by British scientists, mice were injected with a gene controlling a protein called IGF-1, which beefs up muscle fibre in response to exercise. Within two weeks of the injection, the mice's muscles had grown by 20 per cent.

``If we start adding in growth factors it could be as high as 50 per cent,'' Lee Sweeney, a University of Pennsylvania physiologist who took part in the experiment, told the British weekly New Scientist.

``This could give you the ability to grow new muscle on demand. Because its effects are local, you could just inject the IGF-1 gene directly into the muscle you want to enlarge. You could potentially re-engineer your body.''

Rogge and IOC's medical commission have already begun looking at the threat posed by the `super gene'.

``That's the future,'' admitted Rogge. ``The only good news is that the experts tell us it is 10 to 15 years away.''

One senior IOC member admits privately that at least 30 per cent of the medal winners at Sydney will have used drugs.

``And very few of them will be caught. The drug cheats are always ahead of the testers,'' he added.

Rogge fully knows the problems.

``But we will never give up the fight. We simply can't,'' he stated.