Breaking the Olympic Habit

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That's shocking--I mean, that they were caught. For years I.O.C. czar Juan Antonio Samaranch has exhibited a pronounced ambivalence about drug use, and certainly his stance has allowed a number of golden boys and girls to keep their images shiny while doping. Careful athletes can easily beat the system that is in place to catch drug abusers. Unscrupulous sports federations can tailor testing schedules and tip off their constituents. Steroid creams can be flushed from the system in 24 to 48 hours. And for some of the most commonly used enhancers, such as erythropoietin (EPO), there are still no institutionalized tests. It is said that EPO, which increases stamina by boosting an athlete's red blood cell count, can improve an athlete's performance in a 20-min. run by 30 sec., but it is otherwise a nightmare of a drug. Overdose on EPO, and the blood becomes too thick for the heart to pump. EPO is believed to be the culprit in no fewer than 25 mysterious deaths among world-class cyclists since 1987.

But athletes will take EPO in Sydney because they can. And some of them will take too much of it. In 1995 Olympic-caliber U.S. athletes were asked in a poll, "Would you take a drug that made you a champion, knowing that it would kill you in five years?" More than half said yes. So even if we forget about fair play and credibility and Olympic ideals, we are left with this: the athletes must be protected from themselves and the pressure to win. How?

The I.O.C. needs to do two things immediately: develop a spine, and federalize. The only way to catch a cheat is with unannounced, out-of-competition testing, and that's where the focus should be in the next eight weeks. Historically the I.O.C. has delegated decision making to individual sports federations, but that policy is not working when it comes to drugs. A third of the 28 federations have yet to agree to out-of-competition tests in advance of the Sydney Games. The I.O.C. should call an emergency session and make a new rule applying to all sports, then send out its newly empowered testers.

As for that imperfect test for EPO--use it anyway. As gold medal marathoner Frank Shorter, now chairman of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, says, knowing a test is looming will knock cheaters off stride. Shorter says that if there is no EPO test at Sydney, then every endurance or strength performance is suspect. He's right. And when sport becomes suspect--when no one believes in it--it's no longer worth watching.