HISTORY OF PREVENTING DOPING ABUSE

In the field of sport, people often attempt to gain advantage over their opponent in order to achieve superiority and win the competition. Since ancient times, the use of doping substances was one of the ways to achieve such thing. Competitions and sports have long been plagued by doping problems. Early records of athletes using special diets to gain an advantage date back to the ancient Games, dating back to 668 BC. Some methods are legal and even desirable but when all legitimate methods have been implemented and the athlete reached their peak performance, there is a temptation to seek out pharmacological methods to improve performance yet further. While drugs can improve athletes performances, the use of such drugs is prohibited for several reasons. It can be harmful for the athlete and athletes often may not be in a position to give fully informed consent to receive the drugs. Furthermore, the use of performance enhancing drugs makes the competition inequitable. And finally athletes are role models within society and such behavior can influence young people which could in the future lead to a wider use of such drugs.
Even though it’s widely believed that doping is a modern phenomenon, there are numerous evidence of ancient people using drugs, including extracts form plants, animals or even humans. Testosterone was one of the first performance-enhancing drugs to be tried. One of the earliest records mentions Charmis, the Spartan who won the stade race (200 yards (183m)) at the Olympic Games in 668 BC, using a diet of dried figs to improve his performance. The Ancient Greeks were also the first to use stimulants in the for of potions of brandy and wine as part of their sport training routine. The Roman gladiators also used unspecified stimulants to overcome fatigue and injury. Most of these stimulants were derived from plants. 1 In the 1904 Olympics, marathon runner Thomas Hicks nearly dies after using a mixture of brandy and strychnine. Strychnine, heroin, cocaine, and caffeine were commonly used by athletes, and each coach or team developed their own unique recipe. This was a common practice until heroin and cocaine became available only by prescription in the 1920s. In the 1930s, it was amphetamines that replaces strychnine as the stimulant of choice for athletes. During the 1950s, the Soviet Olympic team first used male hormones to increase strength and power. When the Berlin Wall fell, the East German government’s program of performance enhancement by meticulous administration of steroids and other drugs to young athletes was exposed. This yielded a crop of gold medalists. 2 It has taken several decades for sport organizations to realize the seriousness of the doping menace and the dangers it poses to health and well-being of athletes, which has let to the establishment of the systematic fight against doping. They became aware of the extent and benefits of coping in sport when Ben Johnson’s gold medal was stripped in the 1988 Seoul Olympics for using the steroid stanazalol. In the 1967 the International Olympic Committee (IOC) created a Medical Commission to initiate the introduction of antidoping regulations, including the first official list of prohibited substances (listing exclusively stimulants). The first doping controls were carried out during the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, and systematic screening of urine samples was introduced at the 1983 Caracas Pan-American Games. Blood testing was first implemented at the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Olympics. WADA (The World Anti-Doping Agency) was created in 1999 in response to the World Conference on Doping in Sport, where both the IOC and governments agreed to create an independent agency to promote, coordinate and monitor the fight against doping in sports internationally. One of the main responsibilities of WADA is creation and implementation of the World Anti-Doping Code and the related International Standards. The Code is the cornerstone of harmonization of antidoping regulations in all sports and all countries. 3 In accordance with the WADA Code, doping is the presence of a prohibited substance or its metabolites or markers’ banned; the use or the attempted use of a prohibited substances or a prohibited method; the refusing or the failing, without compelling justification, to submit to sample collection; the violation of applicable requirements regarding athlete availability for out-of-competition testing; the tampering or the attempting to tamper with any part of doping control; the possession of prohibited substances and prohibited methods; the trafficking or the attempted trafficking in any prohibited substance or prohibited methods; the administration or the attempted administration to any athlete of any prohibited methods or prohibited substances, or the assisting, the encouraging, the aiding, the abetting, the covering up or any other type of complicity involving an anti-doping rule violation or any attempted anti-doping rule violation. 4 After WADA was created, there were years of aggressive anti-doping testing by international sport federations such as those for cycling, athletics and soccer. However, steroid abuse scandals involving high profile athletes continue to be front page news across the globe. Modern sports and the media’s misplaced fixation on fame, fortune and winning at all costs have unintentionally created a growing market for doping substances. These substances, one only used by elite athletes, are clearly spreading into schools and health clubs worldwide. In addition, these drugs are now being abused by male and female adolescents
for cosmetic purposes in an attempt to achieve the “cut” and sexy look promoted by the media. 5 Even though organizations have made significant steps in the last few years to fight off the stigma of doping, it is envisaged that the new doping threats will quickly emerge. Fast development of technology can lead to new doping substances and practices against which
appropriate doping control and detection methods must be developed.