How long have athletes been doping up?
Since 776
, when the Olympic Games began in Greece. Some competitors in the original Games ingested an extract of agaric mushrooms before competing, believing that it helped their mental concentration. We now know those mushrooms are hallucinogenic. Early marathon runners dulled their pain by swigging a mixture of herbs and wine along the route. Today, these tactics would get athletes disqualified, but in the original Olympics, there were no prohibitions on drugs. Even when the Olympics were revived, in 1896, athletes were free to take anything that might help them win.
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Did they?
Even with few useful drugs available, some found a way. Take the case of Thomas Hicks, an American marathon runner. At the Games held in St. Louis in 1904, Hicks was enjoying a mile and a half lead, with about 10 miles to go, but collapsed in exhaustion. Trainers gave him a mysterious potion, and he sprang up, only to collapse again after a few miles. Again, Hicks drank the potion and was restored—finally staggering over the finish line to capture the gold medal. It soon emerged that Hicks had drunk a concoction containing the rat poison strychnine, which in small doses functions as a powerful stimulant. Few athletes followed Hicks’ dangerous lead—until amphetamines hit the market in 1932.
How were amphetamines used?
Ostensibly, they were prescribed to treat nasal congestion. But athletes quickly discovered that amphetamines were a powerful stimulant, and for the first time the use of a performance-enhancing drug became widespread. In the Games of the 1930s and 1948, athletes were rumored to be gobbling handfuls of pills before competitions. In 1952, half a dozen speed skaters swallowed so many amphetamines that they became faint and were hospitalized with pounding hearts. Soon, though, the number of chemical options multiplied. Cyclists powered themselves by taking “speedballs,” a potent mixture of heroin and cocaine. Runners swallowed nitroglycerin pills to dilate coronary arteries and get themselves “pumped” for quick bursts of speed. The International Olympic Committee banned these drugs, but for decades, naively relied on nations to police their own athletes. Olympic overseers didn’t start testing athletes’ urine until the advent of steroids.
What was special about steroids?
Their startling effectiveness. First developed in the 1930s, anabolic steroids are a synthetic derivative of testosterone, the male sex hormone. When injected into the body, steroids stimulate the growth of proteins in muscle cells, creating bigger, more powerful muscles. Athletes undergoing intense training can use steroids to virtually transform their bodies, adding great strength and speed. But because they’re hormones, steroids also have powerful side effects, including violent mood swings, shriveled testicles, and even rare forms of cancer. Yet many athletes—male and female—have been willing to take the risk. By the 1952 Summer Games in Helsinki, steroids had become the Olympics’ big, shameful secret.
What happened that year?
It was the height of the Cold War, and the Soviet Union was making its first Olympic appearance. On both sides of the Iron Curtain, every competition was seen as a test between the merits of communism and capitalism. To the surprise of the Americans, who had long dominated the weightlifting competition, Soviet weightlifters crushed all comers that year, capturing three gold medals, three silvers, and a bronze. “They’re taking the hormone stuff,” the U.S. coach complained. American weightlifters and other athletes from around the world soon joined in. The IOC inaugurated urine testing in 1968, beginning a cat-and-mouse game that continues to this day.
Who’s winning?
In Athens, officials will conduct their most extensive drug testing ever, administering highly sensitive urine tests to the top four winners in all finals, plus two other competitors at random. “We have caught up with the cheats,” IOC president Jacques Rogge recently insisted. But all the evidence suggests that cheating remains widespread. Athletes have learned how to take steroids and other drugs intermittently, so they don’t show up on urine tests. Some cheaters get caught, such as legendary Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson, who tested positive for steroids in 1988, after winning the gold in the 100-meter dash. But many don’t: In 1992, the female Chinese swim team won several medals after showing up in Barcelona with grotesquely muscled shoulders and arms. Only in later competitions did team members test positive for steroids. All told, just 60 Olympic athletes have been caught in nearly four decades of urine testing. Most experts think the number of cheats is far larger. “A huge percentage of world records broken in the last 30 years were drug-assisted,” says professor Charles Yesalis of Penn State University, who has closely studied Olympic doping. An ongoing federal investigation into the Balco company of California indicates that cheats are still finding ways to beat the system.
What are investigators finding?
Balco has been charged with manufacturing and distributing a new synthetic steroid called THG, human growth hormone, and other “designer” performance enhancers. Among the company’s clients was a large roster of well-known professional baseball and football players and U.S. Olympic track-and-field stars. The cases of the Balco clients will not be sorted out prior to the Games, so several American athletes will be competing under a cloud. “I always went to a meet to see how fast somebody could run,” says Mel Rosen, a former U.S. Olympic coach. “Now, when someone wins, you wonder: Has that person beat the drug test?”
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