. It’s Not Just Sports!
Athletes have been forbidden from using artificial stimulants since 1920s, since the 1970's they had to give urine samples to show they are not pumping up their muscles by injecting anabolic steroids- a class of synthetic drugs that promote tissue growth. But it now appears that runners and jumpers in several countries 44have been using a hitherto unknown steroid, tetrahydrogestrinone(THG), which is believed to have been designed specifically to evade the sporting authorities' doping tests. In October, America's
governing body for athletics, the USA Track and Field (USATF) confirmed reports that four American
athletes, as yet unnamed, had tested positive for the drug, Britain's fastest sprinter, Dwain Chambers, also admitted having tested positive for the drug, though he denied having taken it knowingly.
A firm from the San Francisco area BALCO, which supplies nutritional supplements to sports men (including Mr. Chambers), has denied allegations that it concocted and distributed the new drug. A federal grand jury is investigating the firm and had subpoenaed a number of America's best-known athletes, including two base ball stars, Jason Giambi and Barry Bonds, though no allegations of drug abuse have been made against them. Terry Madden, the head of the US Anti-Doping Agency said “I know of no other drug bust that is larger than this, looking at the number of athletes involved.”
The THG was unknown until a sports coach anonymously sent a syringe full of the substance to a testing
laboratory in the University of California, Los Angeles. A new test to detect the presence of the substance in body fluids was hurriedly developed. Then the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), a body set up after a drugs scandal at the 1998 Tour de France, said it had sent details of how to test for THG to all accredited dope-testing laboratories throughout the world.
Anti-doping laws and their enforcement vary widely in different countries and between different sports in the same countries. That is why, a conference of the United Nations body, UNESCO voted to create an
international convention against doping, whose aim is to harmonize anti-doping laws around the world. For as long as there have been competitive sports, athletes have taken performance, enhancing substances, going back to the stimulating potions taken by ancient Greek Sportsmen. In the 19 century, cyclists and other endurances athletes kept themselves going with caffeine, alcohol and even strychnine and cocaine. In 1928, the precursor of the International Association of Athletics Federations (AAF), became the first world sporting body to forbid stimulants. The invention of artificial hormones in the 1930s made the problem more severe.
In the 1960s, the world bodies for cycling and soccer became the first to introduce doping tests. However, there was no reliable test for steroids until the 1970s. Once it was introduced, there was a big rise in the number of athletes being disqualified, culminating in the scandal of Ben Jonson, who broke the world 100 meter sprint record at the 1988 Olympics, only to be stripped of his gold medal afterwards, when his urine sample showed the presence of steroids. Mr. Jonson insisted that he was far from alone in using banned substances and he seems to have been right: in the 1990s, as improved doping tests made it harder to get away with such cheating, the results achieved by top-level athletes in some sports showed a notable decline.
So far, it is unclear how long athletes have been taking THG, or how widespread is its abuse. The scandal
regarding the four American athletes promoted USATF to announce a “zero tolerance” policy on doping,
including plans to impose lifetime bans on athletes caught illegal substance, rather than the current two-year bans.
The side-effects of steroid abuse range from liver and kidney cancer to infertility, baldness and even
transmitting of HIV(if the syringes used to inject the drug are shared). But there seems no limit to the lengths that some athletes are driven to by their will to win. In the 1970s, some tried “blood-boosting” reinfusing themselves with their own blood to boost the level of oxygen, a practice banned by the International Olympic Committee in 1986. Some then turned to erythropoietin, a blood enhancing drug. Though this was banned in 1990, a reliable test was not available until the 2000 Olympics. Now, though a test for THG has been developed, there are worries that some athletes are taking human growth hormone. Teams of scientists in 45various countries are rushing to have reliable tests for this substance. Even if they do, the pace of medical discovery means that more new substances capable of boosting athletic performance without detection are bound to follow. The race to keep up with the drug cheats looks like going on forever.
Answers
Explanation:
Athletes have been forbidden from using artificial stimulants since 1920s, since the 1970's they had to give urine samples to show they are not pumping up their muscles by injecting anabolic steroids- a class of synthetic drugs that promote tissue growth. But it now appears that runners and jumpers in several countries 44have been using a hitherto unknown steroid, tetrahydrogestrinone(THG), which is believed to have been designed specifically to evade the sporting authorities' doping tests. In October, America's
governing body for athletics, the USA Track and Field (USATF) confirmed reports that four American
athletes, as yet unnamed, had tested positive for the drug, Britain's fastest sprinter, Dwain Chambers, also admitted having tested positive for the drug, though he denied having taken it knowingly.
A firm from the San Francisco area BALCO, which supplies nutritional supplements to sports men (including Mr. Chambers), has denied allegations that it concocted and distributed the new drug. A federal grand jury is investigating the firm and had subpoenaed a number of America's best-known athletes, including two base ball stars, Jason Giambi and Barry Bonds, though no allegations of drug abuse have been made against them. Terry Madden, the head of the US Anti-Doping Agency said “I know of no other drug bust that is larger than this, looking at the number of athletes involved.”
The THG was unknown until a sports coach anonymously sent a syringe full of the substance to a testing
laboratory in the University of California, Los Angeles. A new test to detect the presence of the substance in body fluids was hurriedly developed. Then the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), a body set up after a drugs scandal at the 1998 Tour de France, said it had sent details of how to test for THG to all accredited dope-testing laboratories throughout the world.
Anti-doping laws and their enforcement vary widely in different countries and between different sports in the same countries. That is why, a conference of the United Nations body, UNESCO voted to create an
international convention against doping, whose aim is to harmonize anti-doping laws around the world. For as long as there have been competitive sports, athletes have taken performance, enhancing substances, going back to the stimulating potions taken by ancient Greek Sportsmen. In the 19 century, cyclists and other endurances athletes kept themselves going with caffeine, alcohol and even strychnine and cocaine. In 1928, the precursor of the International Association of Athletics Federations (AAF), became the first world sporting body to forbid stimulants. The invention of artificial hormones in the 1930s made the problem more severe.
In the 1960s, the world bodies for cycling and soccer became the first to introduce doping tests. However, there was no reliable test for steroids until the 1970s. Once it was introduced, there was a big rise in the number of athletes being disqualified, culminating in the scandal of Ben Jonson, who broke the world 100 meter sprint record at the 1988 Olympics, only to be stripped of his gold medal afterwards, when his urine sample showed the presence of steroids. Mr. Jonson insisted that he was far from alone in using banned substances and he seems to have been right: in the 1990s, as improved doping tests made it harder to get away with such cheating, the results achieved by top-level athletes in some sports showed a notable decline.
So far, it is unclear how long athletes have been taking THG, or how widespread is its abuse. The scandal
regarding the four American athletes promoted USATF to announce a “zero tolerance” policy on doping,
including plans to impose lifetime bans on athletes caught illegal substance, rather than the current two-year bans.
The side-effects of steroid abuse range from liver and kidney cancer to infertility, baldness and even
transmitting of HIV(if the syringes used to inject the drug are shared). But there seems no limit to the lengths that some athletes are driven to by their will to win. In the 1970s, some tried “blood-boosting” reinfusing themselves with their own blood to boost the level of oxygen, a practice banned by the International Olympic Committee in 1986. Some then turned to erythropoietin, a blood enhancing drug. Though this was banned in 1990, a reliable test was not available until the 2000 Olympics. Now, though a test for THG has been developed, there are worries that some athletes are taking human growth hormone. Teams of scientists in 45various countries are rushing to have reliable tests for this substance. Even if they do, the pace of medical discovery means that more new substances capable of boosting athletic performance without detection are bound to follow. The race to keep up with the drug cheats looks like going on forever.
Answer:
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