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GETTING THE REAL DOPE (p. 2 of 3)

1 | 2 | 3 | AUG '04

Still, Ayotte admits to feeling "profound regret" over all the positives in the case files lining her office wall. "Because the true culprits weren’t necessarily punished. And I kept noticing it was always our labs detecting the positives. Why weren’t the Russian, Chinese or Korean labs ever turning up anything?"

Gradually, she began to realize that social classes rule international sport too and that banned substance use reflects that reality. This became all too clear to her on the eve of the Seoul Olympics, when she found herself alone with a group of Quebec weightlifters and heard a cri de cœur: "Why do you guys always catch us, while Ben Johnson gets to keep running?"

"I thought to myself, ‘If Johnson’s taking something, he’ll get caught eventually.’ But I soon saw the hypocrisy of the whole thing. The federations were priming their athletes, as part of their training, to beat the testing process. They were doping them and convincing them they would pass the tests thanks to other substances that were designed to mask the banned substance. Except the masking agents didn’t work, and the unfortunate athletes were caught."

In Seoul, 62 hours after shattering the 100-metre world record and exciting a nation, Ben Johnson was run down by… his pee. Ayotte remembers the event as a watershed moment for the anti-doping movement and a seminal moment in Canada: "It was a real slap in the face to everyone who thought they were invincible." Thrust into the public eye, she admits she was "terrified by the responsibility, but at the same time it appealed to my crusader instinct. I’m a bit of a rebel."

Ayotte admits to occasional weariness: "I seldom feel happy after a ‘catch.’ They’re always too much work, require too much energy and hurt too many people. What drives me is not catching an athlete in the wrong but seeing how the infrastructure will respond, what the reaction will be from the federations. You have to understand: I’m not the athletes’ enemy; I’m on their side in this."

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SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL
The modern athlete’s cheat sheet.

Growth hormones and anabolic steroids
(IGF-1, nandrolone)

Sports:
Track and field, boxing, cycling, weightlifting.
Effects:
Significant increase in muscle mass, improved pain resistance.
Risks:
Cancer, hypertension, diabetes, heart attack.

Beta blockers and stimulants
(propranolol, cocaine)

Sports:
Shooting, swimming, tennis, hockey, bobsledding, motor racing, skiing, golf.
Effects:
Enhanced emotional stability and concentration, elimination of the jitters, quicker reaction time.
Risks:
Respiratory distress, hypoglycemia, aggressivity.

Corticosteroids and other stimulants
(clenbuterol, ephedrine)

Sports:
Rowing, sprinting, gymnastics, shot put, discus, hammer throw, javelin.
Effects:
Improved respiratory function, muscle growth, delayed fatigue.
Risks:
Tachycardia, viral infections, slowing of cardiac function.

Blood doping
(self-transfusions, erythropoietin)

Sports:
Cycling, cross-country skiing, soccer.
Effects:
Increased respiratory capacity, greater muscular strength and endurance.
Risks:
Thromboses, severe pulmonary edema, heart failure.