Chess grandmaster Vassily Ivanchuk refused to submit to a WADA-sanctioned steroid testing at the Chess Olympiad in Dresden earlier this year. (Yes, the World Chess Federation (FIDE) tests its players for anabolic steroids.). Ivanchuk went into a “rage” when asked to submit a urine sample (”The Great Chess Doping Scandal,” December 11).
Who knows what was going through Ivanchuk’s head when, on Nov. 25 in Dresden, the last day of the Chess Olympiad, he lost to Gata Kamsky? What we do know, however, is that when the game against the American ended, a judge asked Ivanchuk to submit to a drug test. Instead, he stormed out of the room in the conference center, kicked a concrete pillar in the lobby, pounded a countertop in the cafeteria with his fists and then vanished into the coatroom. Throughout this performance, he was followed by a handful of officials.
The World Chess Federation (FIDE) has aspirations of becoming an Olympic discipline. As such, it must adopt the anti-doping code created by the Worldn Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). WADA tests “athletes” in all “sports” for the same prohibited substances. The International Olympic Committe (IOC) requires adoption of the WADA code as a prerequisite to becoming part of the Olympics.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Executive Committee and Foundation Board is meeting in Montreal, Canada this weekend to evaluate the implementation of steroid and anti-doping regulations by national anti-doping agencies. Countries that have failed to full implement the anti-doping code espoused by WADA will be cited as non-compliant. Compliance to the WADA code by signatories is considered mandatory. The first WADA Code Compliance Report will be posted on the WADA website on November 25, 2008 (”Press Conference with WADA President on November 23 Following Foundation Board Meeting,” November ).
The World Anti-Doping Code—the document harmonizing regulations regarding anti-doping in all sport and all countries—assigns WADA the responsibility of monitoring and reporting on the implementation and enforcement of the Code by its signatories. The objective of this monitoring and reporting is to ensure efficiency of the harmonized fight against doping in sport and fairness to the athletes so that they benefit from strong and fair anti-doping policies and protection that are the same for all, no matter the sport, nationality or country where tested. Following a two-year review process, the Board will discuss the compliance report and determine which anti-doping organizations are not compliant. As required under the Code, the list of non-compliant organizations will be posted on WADA’s Web site on November 25.
The WADA board will also the achievement of milestone of over 100 countries who have ratified the UNESCO International Convention against Doping in Sport which seeks to “apply the force of international law to anti-doping.”
Gary Hall Jr., Olympic swimmer and outspoken anti-steroid crusader for the sport of swimming, has retired from competition. Hall has been quick to point fingers at his fellow competitors for suspected steroid use and has not hesitated to share his suspicions with the media.
“Do I think it (doping) is getting worse? Yes, I do. It’s here, it’s in the United States. I train with an international group of swimmers and all of them have stories and a few of them have had offers and I’m not at liberty to say (any more).
“To think that it doesn’t exist is foolish,” Hall said. “All doping scandals are not a direct result of positive tests. They’re usually somebody getting caught by some other means. I don’t think that we can rely on a doping agency to really catch the people that are so far ahead of where the testing is.”
Gary Hall suggests that the massive number of world records in swimming during 2008 were most likely the results of steroids and not necessarily the revolutionary swimsuit technology used by so many elite swimmers.
“Clearly we know now it wasn’t the suit that was causing all these world records to be broken, it was copious amounts of steroids,” Hall told the assembled reporters. “Can the suit technology distract from another issue? I think it’s pretty convenient for those that are indulging the other issue.”
The majority of the positive results involved the use of erythropoeitin-type blood boosting drugs used by endurance athletes.
For those specifically following anabolic steroid use in sports, only two samples out of over 5,000 samples tested positive for anabolic steroids; a third athlete was disqualified during the Olympics based on a sample given prior to the Games. Ukrainian heptathlete Lyudmila Blonska, Ukrainian weightlifter Igor Razoronov and Greek hurdler Fani Halkia tested positive for methyltestosterone, nandrolone and methyltrienolone, respectively.
International Olympic Committee President Dr. Jacques Rogge is running for re-election on an anti-steroid and anti-fat people campaign. Rogge has been the president of the IOC since 2001 when he succeeded Juan Antonio Samaranch (”Rogge targets doping and obesity,” October 31).
“My top priority will be the fight against doping. I will fight against doping as hard as I have ever done and you know my resolve in this matter which is the number one priority in the world of sport,” Rogge told Reuters in an interview.
“The second priority is to bring young people back into sport and I would like to launch an initiative with all the Olympic committees and international federations…to combat inactivity that is leading to a rise in obesity. We must combat obesity,” he said.
On Wednesday the International Olympic Committee said the new Cera blood test would be used to analyse almost 1,000 blood samples collected during the Beijing Games, and an IOC spokeswoman added last night that these samples could also be tested for autologous transfusions “if a method is fully validated by the scientific community [and] Wada.”
Speculation over a possible new test for autologous transfusions, which duplicate the effect of EPO in increasing the flow of oxygen-carrying red blood cells and so helping endurance, followed claims made by [Pierre] Bordry [of French Anti-Doping Agency] to German television. Bordry said his agency had “serious evidence about cases of autologous transfusions [during the Tour]“. “Soon,” added Bordry, “we will be able to prove autologous transfusions and we will then test [for] it.”
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