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Winter sports tackle doping issues

Toronto didn’t win its bid to host the 2008 Summer Olympics, and Canadian International Olympic Committee executive Dick Pound – some say the IOC’s saviour – didn’t win his bid to become president.

Toronto didn’t win its bid to host the 2008 Summer Olympics, and Canadian International Olympic Committee executive Dick Pound – some say the IOC’s saviour – didn’t win his bid to become president.

Montreal did, however, win its bid to become the new home of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), an IOC/world sports federation body that monitors and tests athletes for performance enhancing substances – a rapidly growing list of over the counter medications, medical procedures, prescription drugs, street drugs, steroids, growth hormones and engineered food additives.

When you consider the number of and public attention given to past Canadian transgressions – such as sprinter Ben Johnson’s steroids, equestrian jumper Eric Lamaze’s cocaine addiction, and Ross Rebagliati’s secondhand smoke – Canada was an obvious choice for the agency.

When the Canadian team heads to Salt Lake City, Utah, in February to compete in the Winter Olympics, coaches want to be extra careful that the athletes aren’t going to test positive – or over the legal limit – for anything.

"Our snowboard athletes are now well aware of what they can and cannot take as medications, supplements, or other banned substances," says Adam Faithfull, the president of the Canadian Snowboard Federation (CSF).

"Athletes are kept up to date by coaches and other staff members of the CSF and are encouraged to check with CCES (Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport) about any questionable products. Athletes have been tested by the CCES and WADA at several events this past season, and it is the CCES’ intention to test one hundred per cent of Olympic athletes going to the Olympics before Salt Lake begins."

While Rebagliati’s story continues to attract attention, Faithfull believes the IOC made an error in questioning his gold medal in the first place.

"The reason for the controversy in 1998 was due to the fact that Marijuana was on the FIS banned substance list. Since the Olympics is government by IOC and not the FIS, or any other international federation, Ross’ gold was returned to him. In our eyes, Ross Testing positive for Marijuana should not have even been an issue," says Faithfull.

The Olympics has since expanded its list of prohibited substances to include Cannabinoids, where the test subject exceeds concentrations of THC greater than 15 nanograms per millilitre.

The snowboard athletes have been taking the initiative themselves to make sure they play by the rules – nobody wants to be suspended or cut from the team for a positive test.

According to Faithfull, the athletes have already been tested this year at Olympic training camps, and all tests have come up negative.

Staying clean is not as easy as it sounds. Even asthma medications have performance enhancing properties, and as a result athletes with asthma are being tested to verify their condition before inhalers are allowed.

According to Todd Allison, the general manager for the Telus Whistler Sports Centre – a high-performance sports centre created as part of the Vancouver-Whistler 2010 Bid Corporation’s LegaciesNow program – there are hoops to jump through.

"The IOC has come up with new testing protocols, so if you have a prescription for ventalin or an asthma spray, now you actually have to prove in a test that you have asthma. You have to prove that, if they put something in your lungs that irritates the lungs, you stop breathing or show that you have a reduced ability to breathe," says Allison.

Because inhalers open your airways, and allows your bloodstream to absorb more oxygen, "the speculation is that athletes were taking them for a competitive advantage."

Even insulin, a necessity for diabetics, is subject to WADA scrutiny.

One of Allison’s jobs is to give advice to athletes, and guide them towards the myriad of tests they have to undergo before they can compete at an Olympic, or high performance level, and to make sure they have all the paperwork in order, including signed medical releases from doctors.

Athletes do take courses, but the perception that athletes are carefully managed by coaches is wrong – when they get cold, they go to the drug store to buy cough syrup. Because the list of prohibited substances and methods is long, it can be confusing. Different brands of the same medication, whether it’s cough syrup or an over-the-counter pain killer, may contain different ingredients.

The latest list of prohibited substances and methods includes 16 classes of stimulants (about 50 substances in total), seven classes of narcotics (including pain killers), 14 classes of anabolics (steriods, hormones), 10 classes of diuretics, and seven classes of peptide hormones, mimetics and hormones.

Because you would almost need to be a pharmacist to make sense of the list, and to identify prohibited substances in the medications you purchase, Canadian athletes are given lists of approved medications and told to call coaches and CCES representatives when they are in doubt.

High performance athletes as young as 16 are being introduced to WADA regulations, and are regularly tested for banned substances.

According to Bretty Macfarlane, a coach for the Whistler Mountain Ski Club FIS program, athletes can expect an agent for WADA to show up at training and competitions on any given day and conduct tests.

"Historically, anti-doping measures have been a farce," wrote Macfarlane in the team’s FIS newsletter. "This will no longer be the case."

"WADA is now up and running and looking to prove its credibility. FIS is also taking doping very seriously. After the entire Finnish cross-country team was disqualified at last year’s World Championships (gold medals and all) they hold a zero tolerance attitude. They are serious about ensuring the purity of skiing."

There will be testing at Pontiac/GMC races at Mt. Norquay and Collingwood this season, and an agreement has been reached for randomized testing between the governments of Canada, U.S., Norway and Australia.

"These are no longer the so-called random tests where they contact you in advance and find a convenient time," says Macfarlane. "It is absolutely realistic to believe that a WADA officer will show up on day at our training site." WADA will perform up to 40,000 random out-of-competition tests this year.

With the Olympics less than three months away, you can be certain coaches will be watching athletes just as closely.

For more information on WADA, visit the Web site at www.wada-ama.org