RIO 2016 OLYMPICS: Doping, the scourge of modern sport and its beginnings in Moscow 1980 and Los Angeles 1984

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by Gianni Merlo, AIPS President, La Gazzetta dello Sport

LAUSANNE, July 20, 2016 - History books tell us that doping has been sport’s companion from the very start. In the 19th century, it was already in use in men’s sprints where there was also betting. Then, at the beginning of the 20th century, some used strychnine in long distance races.

The system has evolved progressively. After the Second World War, with the world divided in two, sport became an important battlefield and, slowly but surely, doping also became a weapon of propaganda. In the 1960s, the Eastern bloc sublimated some practices which, in the West, were mainly used by small organisations or individuals and what is now known as State Doping started.

EAST AND WEST However, the results obtained by the East stimulated the West to adapt, to find countermeasures. Top scientists were hired on both fronts to find new solutions. Cures for truly ill people became perfect prescriptions for turning normal, healthy men and women into champions.

In the 1970s, the use of anabolic steroids was transformed from an almost innocent consequence of the fraternal cohabitation of bodybuilders and throwers in gyms into a scientific practice; auto-transfusion of blood also became a fashion. This was the secret of the success of the Finnish middle distance runners - Lasse Viren dominated two Olympics. It was immediately copied and ‘enriched blood’ was achieved. Applied science became a real jungle with neither laws nor morals.

BOYCOTTS Then the boycotts of the Olympic Games in Moscow in 1980 and Los Angeles in 1984 came and, in a certain sense, doping became ‘legal’. Don’t get me wrong, anti-doping laws were drafted but it was only a façade because, in effect, every federation turned one, if not two, blind eyes to the use of pharmaceuticals. Spying was in vogue to discover what the neighbouring country had found that was better. The East had its rigid state organisation, the West diligently copied and sometimes even succeeded in finding chemically more effective solutions.

PACT WITH THE DEVIL We mentioned Moscow 1980 and Los Angeles 1984; many senior executives made a pact with the devil, with the excuse of safeguarding the Olympic ideal. Their delegations would take part with a sort of secret safe-conduct to avoid the net of anti-doping. Yes, some athletes would be found positive but only provisions that were a ‘front’ would be taken, perhaps even agreed. Athletes who had tested positive in their home countries happily left for Los Angeles and weren’t discovered. A violent controversy broke out in the United States because many athletes, who hadn’t passed the domestic test, were put into the Olympic squad just the same.

PRINCE DE MERODE The news that the reports and proof of various positive cases had disappeared from the hotel room of Prince de Merode, head of the IOC medical commission at the time, caused a sensation. The political choice of not hitting those who had cheated effectively legitimised doping and we’re still paying the consequences.

BEN JOHNSON The high profile disqualification of Ben Johnson from the Seoul Games in 1988 was another ‘front’ operation. He paid while many were protected by the long shadow of his scandal. Certainly, programmes to try and stem this malignant cancer were subsequently drafted and put into practice but real sanitization work at senior executive level has never been done. Many senior executives involved in Moscow 1980 and Los Angeles 1984 kept their jobs and became liable to blackmail by those who preferred to choose the short-cuts offered by doping.

NOTHING CHANGES The East continued its State-sponsored policy while, in the West, the doping ‘multi-national organisations’ multiplied and were concealed up to a certain point. So much so that we reached the paradox of Victor Conte, the creator of the artificial paradises of Balco, who went to a press conference just before the Olympic Games of Sydney 2000 to defend C. J. Hunter, the shot putter, Marion Jones’s husband, from the accusation of doping. He’d been found positive a few days before. Conte thus showed his power to the world and prospered for some years until the agent Novitzsky raided his laboratory and thus unveiled all the deceit. However, what made an impression on us was that, before then, the sports authorities had never said anything and hadn’t even sketched out a plan to stop him. The transversal organisation started with Conte because it involved more sports and also started to tip its hat at illegal betting.

THE LAST STAGE Now we’ve reached the last stage -- that of criminal organisations that aren’t satisfied with selling steroids or other drugs but also blackmail athletes to hide their sins once they’ve won titles and money. What is really too much is that Rodchenkov, head of Russian anti-doping, who is now blabbing all the Russian secrets to the FBI, was also head of the blackmail organisation, a maestro… Lamine Diack, chairman of the IAAF, gave a free hand to his son Papa Massata to do business in blackmailing. First they were drugged and then robbed, a sure system with no risks.

THE MILESTONE July 18, 2016 will remain an important date in the fight against doping. The publication of the McLaren report, the head of the independent commission created by WADA to investigate what happened at the Winter Games in Sochi 2014, has highlighted an old habit of the former Soviet Union - state doping. Time has passed, but nothing, as we said, has changed. This time we have gone from simple cover ups or alterations of analytical reports to the manipulation of anti-doping samples! The discovery are major flaws in the control system. The question that comes naturally is: Is it really impossible to imagine a system without these flaws, or is the system leaving them there deliberately to continue to allow fraudulent practices, keeping them logically hidden? Russia has been properly investigated and must now pay for its sins, but in how many other countries would a thorough investigation bring an emergence of serious sins? We fear in many.

MORE INVESTIGATIONS Recently, there have been round-ups in Spain with the arrest of Jama Aden, coach-handyman but he, too, is only a pawn in a larger game. Who covered up for him in the past if he really is involved in sports dishonesty? Many managers and coaches were rounded up for questioning by the police in Kenya and anti-doping officials conducted a dawn raid on the Kenyan athletics Olympic camp in Eldoret on July 12, where athletes were required to give both blood and urine samples.

ETHICS Nowadays athletes are subjected to rigorous testing and the constant reporting and observation is reminiscent of living in a goldfish bowl. But who oversees those who are the so-called observers? Ethical commissions are fashionable but who knows why they never examine things in-depth and are never stimulated to check the DNA of the senior executives. If there isn’t a cultural revolution at the senior executive level, the desire to fight the crime effectively will only be an illusion.