Olympic Doping Retest

October 8th, 2008 filed in Olympics

The International Olympic Committee has announced that it will retest over 5,000 samples from the Beijing Olympics for the new blood-boosting drug, CERA. The samples from all sports are being sent to the World Anti-Doping Agency accredited laboratory in Lausanne, one of the sites that conducted the recent Tour de France re-testing. This unprecedented move comes on the heels of yesterday’s announcement by the IOC that cycling’s future in the Olympics was in jeopardy if they could not clean up the doping. Someone from the world of cycling must have advised the IOC that the latest riders caught by UCI testing were using a substance that the IOC doesn’t even test for. Thus putting cycling at the cutting edge of anti-doping practices, ahead of even the Olympics.

The Associated Press reports :

The samples will be reopened and tested for CERA, a new generation of the endurance-enhancing hormone EPO. The substance boosts an athlete’s performance by increasing the number of oxygen-rich blood cells. Details of the testing procedure are under discussion with WADA, Moreau said.

The decision comes after a new lab test used by the French Anti-Doping Agency detected CERA during retesting of samples from Tour de France riders. The original urine tests had raised suspicions but proved inconclusive. “It’s very good. It allows us to confound the cheaters,” Tour de France chief Christian Prudhomme said Tuesday. “What’s being done at the Tour de France has never existed in the world of sport.”

The AP continues with some more information on the proposed testing :

“All undiscovered cheats will be shaking now,” said Michael Vesper, director general of the German Olympic Sports Union. IOC spokeswoman Emmanuelle Moreau said the idea was to “retest across the sports, not solely on cycling. They will retest for all the new substances that are currently detectable, not only CERA. We have indication of other substances.”

As discussed in our Olympic Cheating Recap, the IOC disqualified six athletes for doping during the Beijing games, and 3 more cases are currently pending. With more than 5,000 samples being retested, how many more will be added to that list?

Olympic Athletes CHEATed
Chester Cheater
When cycling announced the athletes who tested positive for CERA, Leonardo Piepoli, Riccardo Ricco, and Stefan Schumacher, I immediately thought back to their unbelievable performances in the 2008 Tour de France. How at times they seemed to summon unimaginable strength and endurance, and literally dominate their opponents. When I think about which athletes exhibited those same characteristics from the Beijing Olympics, two names immediately come to mind, Michael Phelps, and Usain Bolt. These two “stars” will be among the athletes re-tested for CERA by the IOC. I guess it will only be a matter of time before we hear those names called. Then what will the IOC do, eliminate swimming and track from the Olympics too? Every sport is dirty, with cheating happening at every level, cycling just seems to be better at catching the cheaters recently.

Olympic Athletes BEAT!
Billy Beater
While I applaud the additional testing of Olympic samples, I think it is too soon to jump to conclusions about who will get caught Chester. As we have discussed before, Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt have never tested positive. They are amazing athletes and national heroes, and should be treated as such. I think the fact that over 5,000 tests have already been conducted and less than 10 athletes were caught shows that cheating is not as rampant as you think. The 2008 Olympics were an amazing display of athletic achievement that should not be undermined with such allegations.

What do you think? Did Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt CHEAT, or BEAT?