Olympics Round-Up — And More

With the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games completed, and the torch passed (so to speak) to the 2014 host city, Sochi, Russia, it’s time to check in with what happened in the world of doping at the Winter Olympics. Short answer: Not much. Well, at least so far. Remember that it’s early days yet, and that a few months after the Beijing Games ended some athletes were popped for using CERA during the 2008 Summer Games. So far, though, the closest thing to a scandal at the Vancouver Games (doping-wise) is this item, recounted in Juliet Macur’s piece in Sunday’s The New York Times (published online on Saturday).

Though [sic] Saturday, there has been only one failed doping test since the athletes’ village opened in early February. The hockey player Svetlana Terenteva of Russia tested positive for a mild stimulant found in her cold medication before the Olympics began. She was reprimanded but not suspended.

“There is nothing sensational to report,” Arne Ljungqvist, head of the International Olympic Committee’s medical commission, said Thursday of the doping testing here. “We are finding not very much indeed.”

Ljungqvist credited the lack of doping scandals in Vancouver to the vigilance of the various anti-doping agencies throughout the sporting world.

“They are identifying drug takers at an earlier stage,” Ljungqvist said. “The cheats are out before they arrive.”

Well, one hopes so, anyway. Of course, there could be at least a few other explanations, as in:

1. The cheats managed to dodge a bullet and not be selected for testing
2. The tests, themselves, aren’t all that effective in catching cheats
3. Or, more ominously, the cheats have found newer and more effective ways of masking their behavior

Time will tell. It certainly makes a good story for the Olympic brand that there are fewer and fewer doping cases emerging from their quadrennial competitions. But there’s a part of me that wonders, will we be seeing a few stories about positive test results announced on a Friday afternoon some months hence, too late to make the evening news (thus ensuring that the stories will be pretty effectively buried)? The cynic in me wouldn’t at all be surprised.

And It Wouldn’t Be the Olympics Without …

Stories about the next great scourge to hit sports, gene doping. Two recent stories caught my eyes and ears, both quoting Dr. Theodore Friedmann, a pediatrician at the University of California – San Diego, who chairs the World Anti-Doping Agency’s “Gene Doping Expert Group.” The first, which my wife pointed me to, was an episode of Science Friday at the beginning of February, where host Ira Flatow interviewed Friedmann during an (approximately) 17-minute segment. The second story, from CNN (hat tip to eightzero for the link) quotes the good doctor and a number of others about the possibilities of whether gene doping is currently happening.

What intrigues me about the two stories is how Dr. Friedmann sings a slightly different tune regarding detection techniques. In the interview on Science Friday, he spoke of being able to use current testing techniques to detect gene doping. Supposing that anti-doping agencies are doing full genomes for each athlete, that might make sense. Get a before and after test, and if the two genomes don’t match perfectly, then something’s amiss. In theory, that could work, I suppose. It would be bloody expensive. But it depends on when the doping occurred. If a parent were to manipulate juniors genes at a young age, then this type of testing wouldn’t detect the change.

But CNN’s article gives a different take on what methods can be used to detect gene doping:

Friedmann is only aware of one way to test, which is wholly impractical — performing a biopsy to see if a genetic change has left a tissue signature.

“Do you know an athlete who would consent to having their muscles cut? I don’t,” said Friedmann.

Another testing obstacle: How could one tell a difference in gene make-up without an athlete’s genetic code already on file for comparison?

Well, there’s that method I speculated about above. But there’s also that small flaw I pointed out, too. The CNN article talks about insulin growth factor – 1 (IGF-1) and a drug called Aicar, and it also recounts the story of a German coach’s quest to get his hands on Repoxygen. All potential forms of gene doping, depending on how one defines gene doping. IGF-1, I’m not so sure it qualifies. Aicar is a pill, which may or may not change one’s real genetic structure. Repoxygen was a real gene therapy treatment, using a virus as the delivery system, which never made it to market due to safety concerns.

And that’s the thing. Gene therapy hasn’t quite made the leap to being both safe and effective on a wide scale just yet, so anyone who messes with it right now is literally gambling with their life.

Over at CNN.com, Dr. Friedmann says:

“I don’t know of any particular case where a person has gene doped but the technology is here. If there isn’t a case I can point to today, there will be soon,” the geneticist said from his lab at the University of California-San Diego.

I guess it depends on one’s perspective about how soon “soon” is. Before the next visit of [[Halley’s Comet?]] OK, I can see that. Before the next Olympics — either Summer or Winter? I’m a bit more skeptical. Could it happen in my lifetime? Maybe.

But the constant refrain about gene doping being right around the corner reminds me of the story of Chicken Little. Is the sky falling, yet?

Did He or Didn’t He?

That question can apply equally to whether Tom Zirbel did what he was accused of (taking DHEA) or whether Tom Zirbel actually retired. Judging by various tweets and comments late last week, it appeared that Zirbel had retired from the sport.

This CyclingNews.com article (hat tip to Whareagle for the link) leads off with a statement which makes it appear that Zirbel has officially retired.

Tom Zirbel decided to retire from professional cycling last week after receiving a two-year suspension from the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA). The time trial specialist tested positive for Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) from a urine sample taken by USADA following the USPro Championships on August 29, 2009.

The CyclingNews.com interview also has this exchange:

CN: Leaving the door open for a cycling career in the future means that you must continue to participate in the World Anti-Doping Agency’s Whereabouts program?

TZ: Yes, that makes sense to me. They don’t want someone doping up, getting strong and then coming back to win the Tour de France or something. I will have to sign some forms and follow up with it. I can’t just say that I want to start racing again in two years. I have to continue to fill out the forms and follow up. I don’t know if I will continue to fill out the whereabouts forms, so that they can test me at any time. But, that would give me the possibility to come back.

I’m pretty volatile right now and sour about the way USADA handled everything. I may just say, ‘f**k it’ on that too. That would make it so that I can’t come back, so that I have to move on. That might end up being easier for me. But everyone I talk to thinks I should leave that option open for later.

Unless the rules have changed dramatically, Zirbel actually could retire from pro cycling right now and decide to come back later on — just like a certain gentleman from Austin, Texas did. He would have to submit to 6 months of testing by WADA/USADA before competing again, but he would not have to continue with WADA’s Whereabouts program ad infinitum, just on the off chance he wants to return to competition.

Zirbel’s own blog, gives me the impression that maybe he hasn’t officially retired from the sport just yet. Consider this:

I’m tired of having my destiny in someone else’s hands. But today is a different day. Today is the day I take back the reins. However, today is not yesterday…yesterday was the day I was to cut all ties completely. Today, I have a slightly cooler head but the idea is the same.

Zirbel then gives the text of a “resignation letter” which he almost sent out last Thursday, but didn’t. What he does make clear on his blog is that he’s not going to stage a long, drawn-out fight to clear his name. This may be the best strategy of all, even though it involves accepting punishment for something he says he didn’t intentionally do.  As Zirbel told CyclingNews.com:

[G]uilty or not guilty, the way that the system is set up, the money, time and energy spent, the emotional capital as well and the toll it takes on relationships sucks for everyone involved. That was why I wanted to cut my losses. I don’t want this to be dragged out to tens of thousands of dollars later. Every day was hard with no guarantee of a happy ending. I don’t really see any happy ending anyway. Cycling was never going to be the way that it was for me, no matter if I prove this or that, there was always going to be an asterisk next to my name. I found that to be unacceptable.

On his own blog, Zirbel closes by saying:

Now that I’ve made the determination that I really could and would walk away from the sport forever, it’s liberating. USADA, WADA, and the UCI no longer have power over me. But I will continue to jump through a few hoops (if not too high nor on fire) in order to leave the option open for a return in years to come (though I sort of hope I have the courage to begin a completely new career and never look back). I will continue to try and figure out how this happened so that I know for my own sanity and so it won’t happen to someone else, but that is a separate issue. I’m ready to turn the page and start living a better, more fulfilling life. Whether or not bicycle racing is in that future is too foggy to tell. I hope you all can understand why I’ve chosen this road. It feels so good to be out of the holding pattern.

Okay, I gotta go. I have some jobs to apply for!

I expect we haven’t heard the last of Tom Zirbel when it comes to bike racing, though it could be another year and a half or two before we see him in the thick of action again. In the meantime, good luck with those job applications, the job market right now is a beeoch.

And Then There’s the Curious Case of Terry Newton

… who has now gained his 15-minutes of infamy as the first athlete suspended for using human growth hormone (HGH). Don’t know who Terry Newton is? Me, neither, until about a week ago. He’s a professional rugby player on the Wakefield Trinity Wildcats, part of the Super League which plays a somewhat different (and supposedly more physical, if that’s possible) form of the sport than rugby union.

(Here’s a brief discussion of the differences between rugby league and rugby union. Brief note for those who follow the link: The author mentions “public schools” and “public school boys.” In the UK “public school” is the term for what Americans call “private school.” Confused? Don’t be. It’s just one of the differences between the English and American languages.)

Newton was nabbed by an out-of-competition test that UK Anti-Doping conducted last November, a few weeks before the Super League season began. It’s a dubious honor to be the first in this aspect of sporting records. Newton, who was cut by his team after the positive test result came back, has accepted his two-year sanction.

Victor Conte, one who should know the ins and outs of doping, spoke with the Los Angeles Times about Newton’s case:

“This guy [Newton] just said, ‘OK, you caught me,’ but a major league baseball player will never do that,” said Victor Conte, founder of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO) who was briefly imprisoned for distributing performance-enhancing drugs to world-class athletes, including sprinter Marion Jones, boxer Shane Mosley and the personal trainer of baseball slugger Barry Bonds.

“I know the anti-doping authorities are painting this as a big victory, but this doesn’t prove the test is reliable and valid,” Conte said. “That will only occur in a court of law, after the player, supported by a team of scientists and lawyers, takes his turn.”

Which brings me back to the Olympics. Truth is, Victor Conte is right. We don’t know how reliable the tests are. The arbitration system doesn’t work like the  courts. The science behind the tests is something that can’t be challenged under the anti-doping adjudication rules. And unless there’s a change in the way those rules are written, or unless an anti-doping case is actually tried in a court of law, the science never will be challenged.

The way the whole WADA-style “justice” system works, it’s virtually impossible for an accused athlete to prove his or her innocense. Which means that if money is an issue (which, for most people, it is), the practical approach when busted is just to accept the sanction and move on.

As followers of this blog know all too well, there’s a huge price to be paid for trying to prove one’s innocence. Based on the results of a certain celebrated case of the last few years, my advice to anyone accused of doping would be to take the sanction, no matter how hard it might be to accept, and move on with your life. Which is precisely what Tom Zirbel is doing, as it turns out — guilty or not.

Sport, like life, isn’t always fair.