Doping question (Read 1858 times)

I may be showing my ignorance here but it occurred to me that  any form of HGH, or hormone based doping strategy,(epitestosterone?), or even blood doping, would either prevent pregnancy or be extremely dangerous to the unborn child.

Since several elite female athletes, such as Kara Goucher, Canadian hurdler Priscilla Lopes-Schliep and Paula Radcliffe have recently had children, is it fair to say this automatically puts them beyond any suspicion of doping? I suppose it would be possible to do this a few months after the birth? Perhaps there are examples of elite female athletes known to have been doping who did not have kids.

Reason for the question is the discussions on another board, well known for accusations and speculation, have recently included individuals I would never have suspected.

  I mean, the pregnancy itself is going to bring down their abilities, I don't see why they would need to risk the child in order to continue their illicit activities.

Actually, depending on how you look at it pregnancy can boost the ability.  Not normally in a way that the lowered training wouldnt erradicate, but for several months after birth there still is an increased blood volume. 

But I cant see any advantage to doping WHILE pregnant.  Normally the purpose of doping is either to increase the ability to train harder and recover faster (such as steroids) or temporarily boost performance (such as blood doping) neither of which is much good while on a scaled back training program. 

And there really isnt any reason to put them above suspicion either.  Most doping programs are cyclical anyway with short periods of use and periods of recovery.  Having a kid 15 or so months ago is irrelevant

And since its cyclical, they know when they need to be off the doping regime and how long traces linger in the body so they can pass any testing that may be required with flying colors.

She meant the doping is cyclical...testing is random.  Ask Meb, who was randomly tested like 3 times in 5 days shortly after winning the marathon trials.

Since you never know when you will be tested, most of the hormone doping strategies involve taking small doses spread out, in an attempt to get the effect while keeping the level low enough that it leaves the system even more quickly than usual, further shortening the window where you could test positive.

It's evolved since I was last involved in the testing process, I believe even for EPO there are now some sort of masking procedures they try, which is why you hear allegations that Armstrong's team would delay the testers at the TDF from getting into their room.

I dunno Ennay, very temporary blood volume expansion seems an awfully small advantage when taken into the context of lost training, weight gain, softened cartilage, etc.  By the time you fix everything else it would be gone, I think...

She meant the doping is cyclical...testing is random.  Ask Meb, who was randomly tested like 3 times in 5 days shortly after winning the marathon trials.

After he won, how about before?

If you stop early enough you can have the traces gone from your system before the event.

After he won, how about before?

 

If you stop early enough you can have the traces gone from your system before the event.

The reason he mentioned it after was the unusual frequency.  Who knows how often they tested him before, but given his performance in NY I'm sure he was tested now and again.

In reality, with EPO, it's not about stopping long enough before the competition.  It's about the random nature of the tests.  The time duration during which EPO can be detected is VERY short....rumors are that with the newer micro-dosing strategies that it is even shorter than it used to be.  So you MUST test people out of competition, randomly, to have any hope of catching them.  The strategy behind testing Meb 3 times in a short timeframe is to hope that if he IS doping, after the first or second test he'd figure he was safe for awhile and take a dose.

I am not sure on HGH.  That test is much newer, and they are being very tight-lipped about how it works and the length of time it can detect HGH after injection.  I think they learned from the EPO experience that revealing these details let the cheaters change their strategies to get around the test.

The Lagat incident, where he was cleared of EPO doping due to terrible sample handling, changed a lot.  Their process was picked apart publicly by Lagat's expert witness.  By the time I was brought in on a similar capacity on another case several months later, they wouldn't even talk about the protocol (even though they said beforehand that they'd answer questions).

My interest is spurred by the fact that I am fervently hoping for a relatively clean Olympic Games.

I have read Dick Pound's book about the Olympics, part of which deals with WADA, and tried to educate myself on the subject to a reasonable degree.

Like many Canadians, I was upset by the Ben Johnson disaster, and also by the later discovery that there was good evidence that no fewer than six of the eight sprinters in that race were doping. Each Olympics since then seems to have been tainted, and honest competitors deprived of recognition they deserved.

I have been  a  fan of cycling for some years, particularly since the days when Jan Ulrich and Lance Armstrong were battling it out. The level of doping in cycling, though, has led to suspicions that any individual who wins a stage is likely doing so by illegal means.The new "biological passport" with historical hematocrit and other blood information seems to hold some promise of cleaning up the sport, perhaps the Giro d'Italia will tell us more.

Furthermore, in both track and field and cycling, the penalties for those who are caught seem very inconsistent- and some seem to escape penalty altogether.

 

Spaniel, it seems you are well informed on the subject- what concerns do you have about London 2012?

Ha. Well, I'm a "bit" late replying to this as I found it while searching for something else....

As the continued busts in cycling show, the dopers continue to find ways to avoid positive tests for long periods of time.  I am too cynical to think that the Olympics will be clean, but I do hope they catch some of them.

My personal experience and knowledge on the matter is nearly as dated as my lab bench experience...almost a decade in the past now.  I know they guard the details of the tests and their sensitivity much more closely now in order to try and thwart athletes and their caretakers from finding ways around the tests.

Since pro-level runners are tested often, and randomly, and since (to my knowledge) Kara and Priscilla have not failed a test, I'd say that was what put them beyond suspicion.

 

Do we KNOW doping while pregnant would be bad --I assume it would but, unless we KNEW that, it would not put them beyond suspicion. Also, do we know their babies don't have problems (and can they be linked to doping, or just terrible luck)?

 

Meb (in his mediocre book) mentions being tested randomly all the time, in addition to after wins.  I assume the same goes for all pros.

 

Now, if their babies can pull low 2 hour marathons, I'd put my money on pregnant doping 

No, frequent testing does not put one beyond suspicion.

1) There may be substances for which we are not testing.  Remember, Marion Jones never failed a drug test; we did not know people were using the novel steroid she was taking.

2) Even with random testing, it is very difficult to detect some drugs due to the short timeframe in which they are detectable.  The original EPO test had a window of ~1.5-2.5 days, IIRC.  With new micro-dosing strategies, it's believed to be down to HOURS now.  Unless the testers are allowed to wake you up in the middle of the night (they are not), it's been reported that you can dose at bedtime and by the time the testers are allowed to knock on your door in the morning you are in the clear.

3)  The return of an old favorite, blood doping.  Freeze your blood in the off season, reinject it during the competitive season.  Almost impossible to detect.

I would not necessarily assume that all forms of doping during pregnancy are bad, but I would question the value of doing so.  The athlete is not going to return to competition for months.  I find it questionable that they would gain significant benefits from doping during this time.

I remember reading about testing for hematocrit or something similar, as well as comparing mature/immature erythrocyte counts ... ?

Hematocrit can be managed; these people have doctors helping them out.  You can make sure you stay below the cutoff.  Once they put a hematocrit cutoff for the TdF, all of a sudden all of the athletes were right up around the upper limit.  That is not normal; typically an athlete's blood volume expands to dilute it.   High level aerobic training does not routinely take people up to the high 40s on hematocrit.  Even in my best shape running 30:XX 10K my hematocrit was totally average.

The other, I would not know about without looking into it.  Raising suspicion is one thing (kicking their sample into additional testing), the problem is that it is difficult for this to PROVE guilt and lead to a ban.