Sports

Athletes were tested for hGH in Athens

WADA chief confirms reports, but says no positive tests yet

updated 7:44 p.m. ET Sept. 23, 2004

LONDON - Athletes were tested for human growth hormone for the first time during the Athens Olympics, World Anti-Doping Agency chief Dick Pound said Friday.

While no positives have been reported so far, the samples will be re-tested to look for the muscle-building hormone and other previously undetectable drugs, Pound said.

“We’re going to try to surprise some people with tests for the so-called designer drugs that are out there,” Pound said. “We think there may be some people who thought they had something that was undetectable but now is.”

Olympic and anti-doping officials previously refused to say whether a test for human growth hormone, or hGH, would be implemented in Athens, preferring to keep cheaters guessing. But Pound, in a conference call with reporters, confirmed for the first time that hGH tests had been conducted at the Aug. 13-29 games.

“Yes, we do have a test for human growth hormone,” he said. “The tests were performed in Athens.”

Pound estimated that 300 samples — around 10 percent of the total number of tests in Athens — were screened for growth hormone.

HGH is considered one of the most widely used banned substances in sports. It works like an anabolic steroid, building muscle mass and helping athletes recover from training faster.

Although hGH has been around for decades, standard doping controls hadn’t been able to distinguish between the naturally produced hormone and the synthetic version used by cheaters.

A record 24 athletes were caught for doping offenses in Athens, including seven who were stripped of medals, but none of the cases involved hGH.

Pound said officials suspect athletes were using hGH and other drugs, and that further testing will expose them. All drug-test samples from Athens have been preserved for follow-up analysis.

Under WADA rules, samples can be tested and athletes punished for up to eight years after the games.

Pound said scientists had been working on a test that could detect use of hGH going back three months.

“As that gets more and more refined we can retest some of these samples and see what happens,” he said.

Pound said the further testing will look not only for hGH, but also for related substances, blood-manipulating drugs and designer steroids.

“Our methods are improving week by week,” he said. “We hope to be able to do even more sophisticated analysis in the months ahead. We have suspicions, that’s why we have to do more profound analysis.”

Pound said he was amazed that several athletes in Athens tested positive for decades-old drugs such as stanozolol, the steroid that cost Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson his 100-meter gold medal in 1988.

“It’s either a question of stupidity or arrogance,” he said. “To use this product now is incomprehensible.”

Pound also said WADA was willing to help Greek and Hungarian authorities deal with the doping problem in their countries.

Greece’s top two sprinters, Kostas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou, pulled out of the Athens Games after missing drug tests. Greek weightlifter Leonidas Sampanis was stripped of a bronze medal because of a doping offense.

Pound said WADA director general David Howman met with Greek officials in Athens on Friday.

Five Hungarian athletes were disqualified for doping violations in Athens. Hammer thrower Adrian Annus and discus thrower Robert Fazekas were stripped of gold medals for refusing drug tests and allegedly switching urine samples.

“We would like to work with them to solve this problem,” Pound said. “I’m sure its embarrassing for Hungary as a country to have had this rash of positive tests and possible manipulations of samples.”

Pound spoke ahead of a WADA executive committee meeting in Montreal next Tuesday. The panel will consider its budget for 2005 and approve an updated list of banned substances to go into effect next year.