Athletics takes another huge blow

Leaked blood test data leads to sensational doping allegations

One of the oft-repeated arguments in India whenever someone raises the topic of doping in sports is: “Oh, everyone in the world dopes. What is so different about Indians doping?” This argument could of course be true of a whole lot of countries around the world.

In Indian athletics this has been the norm rather than the exception since the late 1990s. Administrators, coaches, and athletes would always try to hide behind this plea, while vehemently denying that there is any doping going on around them.

Today, after a series of exposes by the media since last winter, beginning with the ‘Russian doping’ report by ARD, the official German broadcaster, and the latest report by the same channel in association with the Sunday Times , London, the credibility of international athletics has hit rock-bottom. In between had come the BBC Panorama programme in which Alberto Salazar was accused of  adopting doubtful, unethical methods, leading to a lot of embarrassment for his star trainee, Olympic champion Mo Farah of Britain. That debate is still on.

One used to say that the plea of “world-wide phenomenon” in doping was just an excuse that countries employed to defend their own athletes when they were caught and that the refrain “everyone dopes” was more an exaggeration rather than truth.

One cannot be sure of such an argument today.

How many times have we heard officials telling us that only a “small percentage” of athletes doped in international athletics?

The previous ARD documentary alleged that up to 99 per cent of Russian Olympic team use doping as a means to enhance performance.

 Dopers regain lost ground 

If we used to hear in the past that the dopers were a step ahead of the ‘cheats’, that philosophy had started changing during the past decade or so. We started believing that the testers were almost catching up if not getting ahead. Gradually, the same philosophy of the ‘cheats’ being a step ahead _even several steps ahead_of the testers is gaining ground.

Today, the whole testing regimen is in doubt, especially testing for erythropoietin (EPO), the favourite of distance runners, cyclists and other endurance athletes. Now, also in grave danger of being viewed suspiciously is the biological passport programme that has taken a huge hit following the Sunday Times/ARD revelations.

Though there were doping suspicions and allegations in the 1990s, Kenyan athletics by and large had escaped scrutiny with almost everyone marveling at the feats of its distance runners. The Nandi hills,  Rift Valley and Eldoret all became synonyms with distance running the world over.

Since 2012, however, the number of prominent Kenyan athletes caught for doping had mounted. Last year, one of the most decorated marathon runners of Kenya, Rita Jeptoo was caught for EPO use and suspended for two years. It shook Kenyan athletics.

The allegations of widespread doping in Kenyan athletics, first made by distance runner Mathew Kisorio after he was charged with a doping offence, and then by an undercover German journalist Hajo Seppelt in 2012, only gained further ground during 2013 and 2014. Both the IAAF and WADA started taking more serious note of the allegations.

In the latest German TV/Sunday Times expose which has alleged that a third of the medalists (146 with 55 gold medals) in endurance events between 2001 and 2012 have recorded suspicious blood tests, Kenya ranks second with 25 such doubtful blood values. The list is topped by Russia with a whopping 58 suspect cases, according to a report published in The Telegraph, U. K.

Russian doping tale

Russia, it may be recalled, has had to suspend almost all its elite racewalkers, most of them Olympic and World champions in recent times. Eventually it announced that it was withdrawing all its walkers from the World Championships beginning in Beijing  from 22 August.

Jamaica, another country that had been relatively off the radar of anti-doping agencies through several years and which had been hit by accusations of lackadaisical testing regimen, is rather low in the latest figures with three. Greece and Spain have 12 each according to the Telegraph while Romania and Ukraine 11 each. A surprise 10 is fixed against Ethiopia. Surprise because that country, the land of Haile Gebrselassie has not been heard of much in the realm of doping.

According to the Sunday Times report, two Australian experts had examined the “leaked” blood test reports and came to the conclusion that results of around 800 of the 5000 athletes in the list containing 12,000 blood tests were highly suggestive of doping or at the least ‘abnormal’. They said ten athletes who won medals in the London Olympics in 2012 had suspicious blood values.

Interpretation of blood values usually have remained a contentious area and may be debated further in the days to come.

Expectedly, both WADA and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have reacted cautiously to these allegations which do not necessarily mean an athlete was found to have doped.

WADA’s independent commission, headed by its founder president Dick Pound, already looking into the previous charges levelled against Russia by German TV network would probe this latest allegation also, it has been reported.

Star British athlete implicated

British publications have given prominent coverage to the news of one of Britain’s “biggest stars” being in the suspect list. According to a report the athlete has threatened to sue Sunday Times if it published the name.

The Lance Armstrong doping story following the sensational, painstaking efforts of the USADA had shocked the sporting world.

The aftermath of the Armstrong doping saga has been such that almost after every stage of the recent Tour de France, doping suspicions were raised _and continue to be raised_about the leader then and eventual winner Chris Froome or anyone else who won a stage or performed beyond expectations. Froome accepted it philosophically.

"Athletics in the same position as cycling"

One of the doctors who examined the blood values in the latest expose, Michael Ashenden was quoted as saying that the files showed the same “diabolical position” as cycling during the Armstrong era. He was critical of the IAAF and so were many others.

The IAAF, which reports said had dropped a planned injunction against the story, was guarded in its immediate response, stating that it would give a detailed reply in due course.

Drastic action needed

Many commentators opined that this was coming all along and athletics was already headed cycling’s way. Cycling seemed to have improved though from last year’s testing statistics, with 220 adverse analytical findings compared to athletics’ 261. In terms of percentages both were the same at one per cent since athletics had more number of samples tested.

Apart from the predictable response from all concerned, athletics fans would be looking forward to some drastic action should even one per cent of the suspect results turn out to be what they have been alleged to be.

Sebastian Coe and Sergey Bubka, presidential candidates in the IAAF elections scheduled  for Aug 19 have both talked tough about doping scandals that threaten to plunge the sport into an all-time ‘low’ in the coming weeks.

 Coe has said he would set up an independent anti-doping agency for athletics. That would be good not only for the top-level athletes but also for lower rung ones like those in India. More out-of-competition testing by the IAAF under its own agency in future would result in better control all over the world, especially in areas notorious for drug abuse.

Doping has been rampant in Indian athletics with the sport once again topping the charts last year with 36 cases reported and sanctioned by the NADA. Two of them were for eight years, one for six years and another for four years. Most others went for two years.

The AFI has repeatedly claimed that most of these dope offenders were “lower rung” athletes or those who were caught in departmental meets. This could be partially true. Also true is NADA has not been able to put together a “whereabouts” list until May this year and even by July it was yet to fully implement the programme.

WADA may need to step in

This is a serious matter and the sooner NADA starts cracking with its registered testing pool (RTP) based testing the better it would be for Indian athletics. The WADA may have to issue warnings to all concerned that ‘whereabouts’ information when sought by an authority that has the right to seek such information should be made available quickly and without fuss. There should be no room for leniency.

The ‘whereabouts’ information is not about where the athletes are training or what is their residential address, as seems to have been mistakenly interpreted by some quarters. It is about an athlete being available for at least one hour a day at a pre-designated place 365 days a year. The information could be filed on a quarterly basis and updated from time to time.

“Whereabouts”-based testing is crucial to any anti-doping exercise, especially in India, since there have been reports about athletes being unavailable in training camps when testers go looking for them.

With reports of some top female 400m runners evading testers from the IAAF at a camp in Thiruvananthapuram last April, there is a need for the IAAF to turn its attention towards lesser-rated countries like India even as it grapples with the escalating number of scandals in international athletics.

The financial constraints regarding EPO testing, as mentioned in a previous piece here, also is of relevance in the wake of the latest expose. The negligible numbers of samples tested for EPO world-wide in 2014 do suggest that endurance athletes are getting away more easily than could have been imagined.

More EPO testing need of the hour

In India there has not been a single case brought forward by NADA on abnormal biological passport values. Mercifully there is no mention of India in the latest figures. ***This may also mean that data related only to top-level middle distance and long distance runners were scrutinised. Last year NADA conducted just 59 tests for EPO and other related substances. More EPO tests are obviously required to catch the middle distance and 'distance cheats' as the latest revelations have confirmed. Can WADA and the rest of the anti-doping authorities afford to test all samples for EPO in future, at least all samples in endurance events?

A feeling has long been gaining ground among commentators, officials and experts, and would get further intensified following the latest revelations, that anti-doping exercise is a waste of time and money.  Millions of dollars are sunk into this task every year by several agencies but invariably some scandal or the other erupts and the feeling persists that the 'big fish' quite often eludes the net.

For those athletes who might yet be believing in competing ‘clean’ and expecting the authorities to catch the dopers, anti-doping measures remain the only hope in what had long been an "unequal contest". A few more revelations like this and even they might just give up, accepting the futility. That will be a tragedy.

Post-script
The IAAF today (Aug 4, 2015) rejected the allegations made by the Sunday Times/ARD report. The full statement can be accessed here.

***PTI reported on Aug 4 that five per cent of 12,000 samples belonged to Indian athletes. The figures looked highly misleading.
On Aug 5, the two Australian scientists, Michael Ashenden and Robin Parisotto, who analysed the blood samples data for Sunday Times and ARD, rebutted the IAAF claims and charges in a detailed response.