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STEROID
03-21-2012, 01:34 PM
Should Poor Countries Face the Same Doping Bar in Sports?

Should the world’s tough anti-doping laws for sports be as strictly applied in poor nations as rich ones?


An Indian appeals panel, handling the case of some of India’s few star athletes, suggested in a ruling Tuesday that doing so would be extremely unfair.


At issue was a one-year ban for doping imposed on India’s 4×400-meter women’s team, which won gold at the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi in 2010. Six members of the relay team who had passed all previous drug tests were found positive for steroids during routine testing last year.


A subsequent Indian government investigation found that ginseng pills provided to the athletes by their government-appointed coach were contaminated with stanazolol and methandienone, two old-time steroids rarely detected anymore in western athletes.


Because the Indian government’s sports ministry is inconsistent in buying nutritional supplements for its top athletes, who train at the National Institute of Sport, the coach personally purchased the ginseng during a trip to China for the Asian Games in 2010, according to a special government investigation and testimony at the appeal hearing. When the government-purchased ginseng supplies ran out in early 2011, the coach gave the women his own supply, the investigation found.


An Indian disciplinary committee gave them a one-year ban in a ruling late last year. The athletes appealed, making the case that they weren’t negligent – a criteria for the ban — given their circumstances. Before the same appeals panel, the World Anti-Doping Agency, which brings together governments and sporting federations, sought to lengthen the ban to two years.


The panel decided to reduce by several weeks the one-year ban. The effect was more than just about timing: The reduction allows the athletes to seek places at the London Olympics this summer.


The ruling might appear to undermine the efforts of the World Anti-Doping Agency, which has successfully clamped down on doping by insisting anti-doping laws be strictly enforced. It also has spearheaded a massive education campaign about ethics, the dangers of doping and how easy it is to inadvertently take banned substances.
In many rulings, the world agency has held that athletes are responsible for any banned substances found in their bodies.


Athletes are supposed to ask their coaches about the safety of medicines prescribed, research to ensure no ingredients in their food or medicine are on a list of banned substances and that any nutritional supplements are made by reliable manufacturers.


But India and many poorer countries only joined the anti-doping movement relatively recently, when they signed an international treaty against doping that took effect in 2007. To comply, India set up the National Anti-Doping Agency in January, 2009, which has been steadily escalating drug testing at sporting events within India.


In its decision Tuesday, the Indian appeals panel said holding this country’s athletes to the western standard of negligence was unfair because, “there is a day (and) night difference in the conditions and educational standards” of athletes in India compared to the west. Most Indian athletes are poor, dependent on the government for everything from coaching to healthcare to nutrition, and unable to read warning labels on medicines and supplements, the appeal panel said in its 22-page decision.


“These athletes could not have afforded and did not have personal coaches, doctors or lab facilities available to them to cross check the supplement and medicines given to them at the National Institute of Sports,” the appeal panel said. They “did not have any option but to completely trust and rely on the guidance being given at the sports institute.”


Not surprisingly, the women were delighted. “We are going to train as hard as we can to make sure we qualify for the Olympics,” said Priyanka Panwar, 23, one of the banned relay team members, in an interview.


Yet if poor countries like India want to build successful sports teams in the future, they must heed the lessons learned from the circumstances that led this country’s golden girls to test positive for steroids in the first place.


They must acknowledge that doping is widespread in sports in their own countries. Indeed, many countries—rich and poor — have intentionally doped their athletes in the past.


Rahul Bhatnagar, joint secretary of India’s Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports and director of the National Anti-Doping Agency, says he was stunned earlier this year when he instituted widespread dope testing at school games, in which children ages 12 to 18 compete. He says nearly 15% of the 60 athletes tested in three sports returned positive results.


Mr. Bhatnagar put in place a comprehensive program for testing Indian athletes while they are in training and also during competitions, this year aiming to do 3,500 tests.


But any tough policy on doping must be accompanied by a massive education campaign that is values-based, says Gary Wadler, an internist who has served as chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency’s committee that writes the list of prohibited substances.


“If your anti-doping program is just testing without an aggressive education program, it’s no program at all,” Dr. Wadler said.


The appeals panel, in giving the relay team a reprieve on their ban, noted the “poor efforts on the part of the government to efficiently educate the athletes.” Mr. Bhatnagar acknowledges India has a long-way to go in building an anti-doping education campaign but said he plans to step up the effort.

rghtnow
03-21-2012, 06:50 PM
"A subsequent Indian government investigation found that ginseng pills provided to the athletes by their government-appointed coach were contaminated with stanazolol and methandienone, two old-time steroids rarely detected anymore in western athletes." Really?? Could have fooled me.....And how did ginseng pills get contaminated? What were they being made in the same lab as some winny tabs and a little dust flew over onto the ginseng table?? Lololololol

I think you have to test everyone the same if your testing...how is it going to be fair to the Americans if the Athlete's from India can load up knowing they won't be tested?? That makes no sense at all....if that's going to be the case and you want to be a world class athlete with a free pass from testing you could just move to one of those poor nations and use whatever you like