The Economist - USA (2021-07-17)

The Economist July 17th 2021 Science&technology 69

Dr  Schumacher  reckons  improvements  of
the performances of top­flight athletes on
a bike or a running track are more likely to
be  in  the  single  digits.  But  if  that  sounds
modest, it should not. A 5% improvement
would  be  enough  to  knock  more  than  six
minutes off a top marathon­runner’s time.
History offers another lens. The “heroic
age” of doping, when testing was poor and
abuse  often  blatant,  lasted  from  the  1970s
to  the  early  2000s.  Sprinters  competed
with eyes yellowed from steroid abuse. Fe­
male athletes sported strikingly masculine
physiques. Cyclists made seemingly rock­
et­assisted climbs up steep Alpine passes.
Sport is littered with “fossil” records from
that  era.  Of  16  pertinent  women’s  track­
and­field events, for example, the world re­
cords in eight have stood since the 1980s. 
Eye­popping  performance  alone  does
not  prove  records  were  set  by  doped  ath­
letes. But it does cast doubt. Florence Grif­
fith Joyner’s 100­metre­sprint time of 10.49
seconds  was  set  in  1988.  In  three  decades
no  other  woman  has  matched  it—leading
some observers to think it may have been
helped  by  steroids.  The  current  fastest
woman  in  the  world,  Shelly­Ann  Fraser­
Pryce,  from  Jamaica,  has  managed  just
10.63  seconds—and  that  with  assistance
from special, high­tech shoes (see box). 
A  list  of  the  ten  fastest  climbs  up  Alpe
d’Huez, a mountain often part of the Tour
de  France  (see  chart  3),  includes  only  one
rider, Miguel Indurain, who has had a clean
career.  The  others  have  all,  at  some  stage,
been convicted of, or admitted to, doping.

The hundred-metre arms race

Better  technology  and  stricter  rules  have

made  egregious  doping  harder.  In  Tokyo,

samples will be analysed by sophisticated

chromatography to look for drugs or their

metabolites.  Biological  passports  will  be

scrutinised  for  indirect  evidence  of  blood

doping,  which  may  reveal  itself  as  suspi­

cious changes in any of a dozen variables,

including levels of haemoglobin (the oxy­

gen­carrying molecule that gives blood its

red  colour),  red­blood­cell  count,  and  the

proportion of those cells which are imma­

ture. Outside competitions, “whereabouts”

rules  mean  elite  athletes  must  keep  anti­

doping authorities apprised of their move­

ments, to permit unannounced tests.

But record performances are not neces­

sary  for  victory.  Simply  being  better  than

your opponents on the day is enough. For

that reason, subtler chemical assistance is

still  worth  pursuing.  One  option  is  to  ex­

periment  with  new  drugs.  Sometimes,

these are created deliberately to dodge the

tests. In 2003 a syringe was posted anony­

mously to American anti­doping officials.

It  contained  a  new  aasnicknamed  “The

Clear”, for which no test existed. This had

been developed by a chemist called Patrick

Arnold and supplied to athletes including

Marion Jones, an American sprinter with a

string of Olympic medals to her name, who

admitted using it.

Most new drugs, though, are created by

the pharmaceutical industry. Selective an­

drogen  receptor  modulators  (sarms)  are

experimental  drugs  intended  to  provide

similar  benefits  to  aas,  but  with  fewer

side­effects.  Researchers  hope  they  will

help  treat  muscle­wasting  diseases.  But

sarms have attracted sporting interest too.

Oliver  Catlin  runs  the  Banned  Substances

Control  Group,  an  American  firm  which

tests  sports  supplements  for  forbidden

drugs.  He  points  out  that  although  more

than  a  dozen  sarms  are  in  development,

tests exist for only a few of them, and only

at the most advanced laboratories.

The pipeline of new drugs is unlikely to

run dry, says Dr Cooper, for the human bo­

dy  contains  hundreds  of  processes  and

chemical targets that might be tweaked to

boost sporting performance. There is often

more than one biochemical way to achieve

the  desired  effect.  Rather  than  beefing  up

an athlete’s muscles, another new class of

drugs, myostatin inhibitors, slow the rou­

tine  breakdown  of  muscle  tissue,  offering

an  alternative  way  of  increasing  strength.

Cyclists, meanwhile, are rumoured to have

been experimenting with a drug called ai-

car,  hoping  it  will  help  them  lose  weight

while holding on to muscle mass. As with

epo, says Dr Tucker, the idea is to improve

the  all­important  power­to­weight  ratio—

but  by  tinkering  with  the  “weight”  side  of

the equation instead of the “power” side.

Those  who  prefer  to  stick  with  the  old

favourites  can  simply  try  using  less.  “Mi­

cro­dosing”—taking  regular  small  doses

instead  of  occasional  big  ones—ensures  a

drug will clear the body faster, making an

athlete less likely to fail a test. New ways of

administering old drugs help too. In a book

published last year Grigory Rodchenkov, a

chemist who ran the laboratory in Moscow

that was at the centre of the Russian dop­

ing  scandal,  recounts  how  he  developed

“Duchess”, a whisky­based cocktail that in­

cludedthesteroidstrenbolone,oxyandro­

loneandmethenolone.Theideawasthat

absorptiondirectlythroughthetissuesof

themouthwouldproduce fewertelltale

metabolitesthaninjectionsorpills,and

thuscuttheriskofdetection.

Lower­tech strategies can work, too.

Oneistogeta therapeuticuseexemption

(tue)—adoctor’snotesayingyouneeda

drug for medical reasons. wada insists

thattues aregrantedonlyafterrigorous

checks.Apaperfrom 2020 foundnoevi­

dencethatathleteswithtues weremore

likelytowinthanothers.Butdoubtsper­

sist.In 2018 Britain’sParliamentaccused

TeamSky,a cyclingteam,ofusingtues to

helpsupplypeds toriders.(Theydenyit.)

Livingathighaltitudeispopular,since

loweroxygenlevelsthereboostred­blood­

cell  counts  in  a  natural  way—which,  in

contradistinction  to  chemical  means,  is

permitted. It also makes it harder to inter­

pret abpresults, leaving room for chemical

enhancement  as  well.  Remote  places,

moreover,  are  harder  for  out­of­competi­

tion testers to reach. 

Another option is to get advanced warn­

ing  of  out­of­competition  testing  from

corrupt or sympathetic officials. Asbel Ki­

prop is a Kenyan runner banned in 2019 for

failing an epotest. He told the aiuhe had

often  been  warned  of  supposedly  unan­

nounced  tests.  Tip­offs  give  athletes  time

to dilute their blood, or to wait for micro­

dosed drugs to clear their bodies. If all else

fails,  they  can  simply  hide  in  a  cupboard

when  the  testers  come  knocking.  If  elite

athletes  go  awoltoo  often,  they  can  be

sanctioned.  But  as  a  fail­safe,  it  can  be  a

useful tactic. “The principle”, says Dr Tuck­

er, “is never take a test you won't pass.”

Team America: world police

wada's task, meanwhile, is made harder by

the fact that, unlike dopers, it must operate

in  the  open,  leaving  its  methods  vulner­

able to attack. One way to interpret official

limits for some substances, says an observ­

er, is as a sanctioned value up to which ath­

letes  can  push.  Natural  variation  between

people  means  the  allowable  limits  for

some substances must be reasonably gen­

erous,  leaving  room  for  athletes  to  boost

them artificially. 

Such variations, says Dr Tucker, are one

reason why the abp, which tracks changes

in an athlete’s physiology over time, is dif­

ficult  to  apply  to  steroid  doping.  Natural

levels of steroid hormones vary widely be­

tween  people.  Even  within  an  individual

they  can  fluctuate  sharply,  depending  on

stress, sleep deprivation and the like. And

because a doping ban can be fatal to an ath­

lete’s  career,  anti­dopers  must  err  on  the

side  of  caution.  wada’s  processes  are

tuned  to  minimise  the  number  of  false

positives,  in  which  innocent  athletes  are

wrongly  accused.  That  means  they  will

One good apple

Tour de France, ten fastest climbs

on the Alpe d’Huez, minutes

Sources:Rendell,2006;ÖzgürNevres;pressreports

3

*Time trial

RichardVirenque(1997)

BjarneRiis(1995)

AlexZülle(1995)

MiguelIndurain(199)

LanceArmstrong(2001)

JanUllrich(1997)

LanceArmstrong(200  )*

MarcoPantani(199    )

MarcoPantani(1997)

MarcoPantani(1995)

39383736

Faileddrugs test or admitted doping

Clean career