Taking on the dopes who spoil sport

Doping is threatening the reputation and commercial viability of some of the EU’s most popular sports. Lucy Shackleton reports on efforts to wipe out drug use.

This year’s Tour de France was the most disastrous instance of a sporting contest being derailed by drugs. Michael Rasmussen, the overall leader at the 16th stage, was fired by his Rabobank team for violating internal rules - after failing to report his whereabouts and being unavailable for doping controls in the run-up to the tour - while two other cyclists, Cristian Moreni and Alexander Vinokourov, and their teams, were disqualified after failing drugs tests.

So bad was the damage that the Tour found its finances jeopardised. Sponsors such as Crédit Lyonnais and Fiat threatened to withdraw their support. CocaCola, has reduced its annual Tour contributions from €3.14 million to €600,000.

The German broad-casters ARD and ZDF, stopped coverage of the Tour de France, to draw attention to the doping problem after a German T-Mobile cyclist, Patrik Sinke-witz, failed a drugs test.

Drugs in cycling is not new, but it does appear to have become worse. As more money has flowed into sport, the incentives to cheat have increased.

The same is true of track athletics, where the amount of money at stake is vividly illustrated by a number of legal disputes. Athletes banned from competition have brought legal action suing for lost earnings and the money at stake is intimidating for the anti-drugs authorities, which have to be sure of their testing and their punishments. Kenyan-born Bernard Lagat, who has just won both the 1,500 metres and 5,000m at the world athletics championships, was suspended from competition in 2003 after failing a drugs test for EPO - a blood enhancing hormone. When his second sample proved negative, he escaped a ban and sued (unsuccessfully) for loss of earnings.

It is not just money that is at stake but also the integrity of sports. When Romano Prodi - a cycling enthusiast - was president-elect of the European Commission in July 1999 he cited tackling doping in sport as a way of making Europe more relevant to its citizens. Drugs in sport, he said, was "a question which may seem banal to some but which for many is a cause of deep concern". He advocated finding a solution to these problems at a European level.

Action to meet Prodi’s ambition has been slow, but there are signs of movement suggesting that the European Union is ready to apply its muscle to the campaign against drugs in sport. The Commission’s white paper on sport, adopted in July, attempts to promote co-operation between member states. It proposes a forum in which national anti-doping organisations (NADOs), law enforcement agencies (such as border police, customs, national and local police), laboratories authorised by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and Interpol may easily exchange information.

Germany, when it held the presidency of the EU’s Council of Ministers this year, promoted an initiative to set up an EU anti-doping network, which unites NADOs, national governments and laboratories, and aims to strengthen co-operation in the fields of doping controls and penalties, education and prevention, and pharmacological research. The Portuguese presidency is also giving high priority to tackling doping problems on a European level. Europe’s sports ministers are to meet on 25 October in an effort to co-ordinate further member states’ anti-doping action in the run-up to the World Conference on Doping in Sport, scheduled for 15-17 November in Madrid.

Sports authorities are desperately trying to keep ahead in the continual race between the efficiency of doping tests and the sophistication of performance-enhancing drugs. The World Weightlifting Federation (WWF) lists a total of 16 competitors suspended so far in 2007 and 53 in 2006.

There are those who argue that these drugs are so well developed that it would be more sensible to accept doping. Making the use of performance-enhancing drugs legal would allow doctors to protect athletes’ health. More widespread usage would, some argue, make competitions fairer by levelling the playing-field. But the majority of commentators maintain that, as well as going against the spirit of sport, performance-enhancing drugs will always be detrimental to the health of those who use them and should under no circumstances be encouraged by the sporting or medical community.

Far from giving up the fight against doping, the world’s governments and international sports organisations are supporting the development of new technologies designed to detect cheating. A urine test for synthetic insulin, which is taken by athletes in order to burn carbohydrates more efficiently and to prevent muscle breakdown, is being developed at the Sports University of Cologne and should be ready by the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

There is much pressure on the upcoming Olympic games to be drug-free. Organisations such as the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) are closely monitoring Chinese anti-doping precautions. There will be 4,500 doping control tests, a 90% increase from Sydney 2000, making Chinese controls the most stringent in Olympic history. WADA chief Dick Pound is travelling to China ­this month to push for further measures.

Doping is threatening the reputation and commercial viability of some of the EU’s most popular sports. Lucy Shackleton reports on efforts to wipe out drug use.