Should dopers be banned for life?

Manju Wanniarachchi

Usain Bolt

By Hishan Welmilla 

The usage of banned drugs in sports has had a major impact on the development of sports and sportsmanship. Drugs in sport concern medical practitioners because of the implicit risks they pose to the health of the athlete. There are also ethical concerns about cheating by artificially enhancing performance. 

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has prepared an Olympic Movement Anti-Doping Code which lists prohibited substances and methods of doping. Health professionals must be aware of the need to avoid prescribing banned medications and providing written notifications when restricted substances are necessary.

Cheating is cheating, no matter what venue or arena of sport. Every day we hear of some sports hero using banned substances. It doesn’t matter whether it is cocaine, methamphetamines, alcohol or steroids; drugs are prevalent in every sport. In most cases, these athletes are given a slap on the wrist, a temporary suspension from play and possibly some menial fine. This means nothing to the overpaid player who makes millions.

How many tournaments, championships, medals and rings have been won by a team or individual using drugs? Maybe the team or individual that abided by the rules should have been the winner. Is this fair to the ones who work hard to make it to the finals? What kind of an example does it set for our young generations who idolise and worship top sportsmen and women?

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has indicated that it wants more four-year sentences to be handed out to serious doping offenders, saying that not enough is being done to dissuade sportspeople from resorting to banned methods and practices. Revisions to the WADA Code a few years ago meant that the standard two-year sentence was increased to a possible four-year ban, yet this stiffer sanction has hardly ever been used. 

In the meantime, WADA President Sir Craig Reedie says life bans for athletes convicted of doping offences are not legal. Reedie says anti-doping penalties “must be proportionate”.

“Our advice was that [life bans] would be challenged and would not be sustainable in law,” the WADA President told BBC Sport.

WADA instead agreed to a new code which will double the standard suspension for dopers from two to four years from January 2015. 

“A four-year penalty will stand up in court and takes a person out of the cycle of the Olympic Games,” said Reedie, who was appointed WADA President in November 2013.”Not many athletes dope on their own,” he added. “There is usually someone else involved, be it a coach, friend, manager or agent.”

 

Life ban for dopers

One time WADA Vice President and IOC anti-doping official Arne Ljungqvist once told the international media that apart from the deterrent effect, a four-year ban also has a sound scientific argument. He said that substances such as anabolic steroids could stay in the system longer than two years, meaning that some of those who were handed a 24-month ban still benefited from the effects.

There is also the argument that a two-year ban is not necessarily long enough to properly disrupt the careers of those who have cheated. Many banned athletes are able to stand down, train hard and come back in good shape. They miss two years out of their careers but those who are considering taking shortcuts know that even if they are caught, they can return and continue to earn a high income.

Four years, though, is different. The gap is large enough to raise serious doubts about being able to get back to the same level and it can be easily argued that this will cause many to think twice about breaking the rules. 

It may be up to WADA to enforce the initial four-year ban by appealing a shorter sanction and forcing through a more serious penalty.

Once that happens, there will invariably be criticism that the measures are draconian and interfere with a person’s right to earn a living. However, for clean athletes, that right is interfered with every time someone intentionally breaks the WADA Code, and so opposition to the principle of a four-year ban is likely to be outweighed by those who see the logic of it.

On the other hand there is another argument building upon the punishment to be given to the dopers. The argument is banning them for life.

Sri Lanka’s National Olympic Committee (NOC) President Hemasiri Fernando believes in such a ban. 

“We should set an example to the others. If someone is found guilty of knowingly taking a banned substance then he or she should be given the most extreme punishment; they should be banned for life. That would make the young athletes think twice before taking banned drugs and also be extra vigilant not to be mislead by their coaches, trainers and medical advisors,” said Fernando.

 

Differences in WADA and IOC rules

It is even said that the NOC is reluctant to take such bold steps as the Government’s rules and regulations are not sufficient to make a case against athletes who defend their punishment. But it is important to note that the British Olympic Association (BOA) took its fight for a lifetime ban for drug cheats to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

The BOA imposes a lifetime Olympic ban on any British athlete banned for more than six months for a doping offence - the only National Olympic Committee to do so. However, the policy contradicts WADA’S global anti-doping code. 

In October 2011, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruled that the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) own doping rule - which barred offenders who had received bans of longer than six months from competing in the next Olympic Games - was unenforceable.

IOC’s rule 45 states that anyone banned for a doping offence for six months or more should miss the next Olympics (four years or more). An Olympic ban is beyond WADA’s sanctions of a maximum two-year ban.

Sri Lankan athletes in 

drug scandals

Even young Sri Lankan athletes got caught up in this disaster. Sprinter Himasha Eshan has been accused of having used a banned performance enhancing drug during the 90th National Sports Festival in 2012, where he won the 100 metres event. A Malaysian laboratory has confirmed the presence of a banned drug in Eshan’s urine sample and he received a one-year ban from athletics.

Six Sri Lankan athletes from four different disciplines tested positive for banned substances in 2010. Sri Lankan Prop Forward Eranga Swarnatilleke, No. 8 Keith Gurusinghe and Fullback Saliya Kumara have all been banned by the International Rugby Board (IRB). The ban follows positive drug tests carried out at the recently concluded five-nation tournament. 

Sri Lankan rugby has been a sport continually blighted by doping allegations, which have taken root at the school level. The action taken by the IRB is a firm reminder of the grim reality that Sri Lankan sports has the international community to answer to for its actions.

Another Sri Lankan doping controversy emerged in the wake of the 2010 Commonwealth Games held in India when boxer Manju Wanniarachchi was found to have used a banned substance. Wanniarachchi, who won the gold medal for Sri Lanka after a lapse of 72 years in boxing’s 56kg bantamweight category, beating Sean McGoldrick of Wales, in turn accused a medical practitioner who had given him an injection of a Vitamin B supplement.

In May of the same year, Chinthana Geethal Vidanage also tested positive during the Asian Weightlifting Championships held in China. Vidanage had previously won the silver medal at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi. Investigations are ongoing and if found guilty the weightlifter faces a ban.

Sri Lanka Cricket opener Upul Tharanga also joined the list of those caught out during a doping test. The opening batsman tested positive for a banned substance during the World Cup and has been banned for three months from cricket-related activities by the International Cricket Council.

This is not the first time a Sri Lankan medallist was accused of using performance enhancers. Previously, sprint queen Susanthika Jayasinghe was charged with using steroids and was suspended from participating in the games in April 1998. However, she was later exonerated.

Another Sri Lankan sprinter, Jani Chaturangi, was found guilty of taking a banned drug during the 2006 South Asian Games held in Colombo and faced a two-year ban by the International Athletic Association and the local Athletic Association of Sri Lanka. The resultant heavy fine not only cost the athlete her career but also disgraced Sri Lanka. In addition, all the medals she won from August 2006 were confiscated.

Premila Priyadarshani, a female weightlifter and a member of a swimming relay team have previously been banned for testing positive for drugs.

 

First human growth hormone suspension

In a major breakthrough in the fight against doping, a British rugby league player named Terry Newton became the world’s first athlete to be suspended for using human growth hormone (HGH) on 22 February 2010. But the 31-year-old former Leeds, Wigan, Bradford and Wakefield hooker was found dead after police were called to his home on 26 September 2010. 

The HGH test has been around since the 2004 Athens Olympics but it is not available to every laboratory in the world. 

The testing kits were not widely available and the process was only fully introduced at the 2008 Beijing Games. By acting on the liver and other tissues, HGH increases bone growth and plays a key role in muscle and organ growth. That makes it a prohibited substance under WADA’s list of prohibited substances.

When someone gets caught for doping, the word ‘knowingly’ should be given extra attention. There are too many cases of banned substances being found in regular medicines or in supplements that appear okay. 

Some use the defence that they were given the drug by people who work with them and therefore they presumed them to be okay. In some circumstances the coaches and doctors who give them the banned substances claim that they did not know they were illegal. As the doctors and coaches are working for the athletes’ benefit, this is often a hollow excuse as they are responsible for the athletes’ health and wellbeing. They should be researching everything that they deal out to their charges and should know all their ingredients; if they can’t be sure, they shouldn’t use them.

This is where the grey areas creep into the debate, mainly about who knew what and who was to blame. Then you go a step further towards the makers of the drugs; they will want to have a maximum effect so their products get sold. Many try to make their goods not only effective but also harder to detect for those trying to keep them out of sports. Before a rule like this is brought in, testing must become more stringent and regulated. Everyone involved in sports must know what they can and can’t take and this list must be updated regularly as new things are developed. 

Furthermore, the permitted list must be the one used by training staff. If the item is not on the list then don’t use it. Using a banned substance should be seen as a step towards cheating and should be used in any case against the people involved.

In 2011, nine Australian sportsmen faced a two-year ban after being tested positive for banned drugs, according to the Sports Anti-Doping Authority of Australia, while at least three Nigerians were also reported to have failed the doping test.

Recently, several Jamaican and Indian sprinters also tested positive for the same drug.

In 2013 five Jamaican athletes, including Olympic medallists Asafa Powell and Sherone Simpson, tested positive at the 2013 Jamaican National Championships for banned performance-enhancing drugs, according to the Jamaican Anti-Doping Commission (JADCO).

However, former world 100-metre record-holder Powell, who tested positive for the banned stimulant oxilofrine in 2013, was cleared to return to competition after the Court of Arbitration for Sport reduced his ban from 18 months to six months last year. 

Jamaica’s most successful female athlete, Veronica Campbell-Brown, tested positive for a diuretic, which can be used to mask the use of performance-enhancing drugs. The two-time Olympic 200-metre champion has been suspended by the Jamaican Athletics Administrative Association pending the outcome of a disciplinary panel hearing.

Former American double sprint world champion Tyson Gay also announced in 2013 that he had tested positive for a substance he could not identify and received a one-year ban. 

 

Resistance from athletesfor banning 

On the other hand, Justin Gatlin has said athletes returning from doping bans deserve to be given a second chance in the wake of Usain Bolt’s comments that Tyson Gay’s one-year ban was “the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Gatlin was Olympic 100-metre champion in 2004 but was given a four-year ban after testing positive for testosterone in 2006. Since his comeback, he has returned to the upper echelons of the track world and finished 2014 as the top-ranked sprinter, running personal bests over 100 metres (9.77 seconds) and 200 metres (19.68) last summer. The dissenting voices he’s heard since returning don’t faze him in the least.

“Critics are just what they are,” he said. “They’re going to pick at the positivity of things. I come out to do what everyone else is trying to do, which is run, run fast and win. I’m not really concerned with what naysayers or critics say. I come out here to do my job and I have to prepare myself for a race and run fast.” 

As he prepares to get his 2015 season underway, Gatlin says he feels as fast as ever.

Bolt’s comments mark his most scathing public criticism of former rival Gay, given a one-year ban by the United States Anti-Doping Agency which was reduced from two years after Gay offered substantial assistance to investigating authorities.

“The message should be: ‘If you cheat, you’re going to be kicked out of the sport,’” said Bolt in an interview with Runner’s World. “You have to drive fear into athletes, to make them think about the consequences of their actions. If they’re getting an easy penalty why would they care?”

 

Athletes’ support for life ban

In the meantime, it’s good to see that many international athletes who have directly and indirectly suffered through the penalties believe that dopers should be banned for life.

Ex-Sri Lankan athletics captain and Asian Games record-holder in the 400 metres, Damayanthi Dharsha, once warned athletes that there was no easy route to success and that drugs had no place in the field.

Olympian Jamie Baulch, who was retrospectively awarded a gold medal in the 4x400-metre relay at the 1997 World Championships after American runner Antonio Pettigrew admitted to doping, believes current sanctions are too lenient.

“These people should be banned for life,” he told BBC Sport. “People like me lost out on being a hero for the day because of them. If people knew they were going to get banned for life, drugs would diminish. I get angry that the system allows people to come back after 12 months.”

Scottish hurdler Eilidh Child and former 100-metre world record-holder Donovan Bailey are among the athletes who have previously called for doping cheats to be automatically banned for life.

 

New findings

Scientists previously thought that the reacquisition of muscle mass - with or without steroids - after periods of inactivity was linked to motor learning.

However, the new study reveals there is a celluar ‘memory mechanism’ within muscle of brief steroid users, which could have consequences for the two-year exclusion time of doping offenders as brief exposure to anabolic steroids might have long-lasting performance-enhancing effects.

Researchers at the University of Oslo, using mice in a study to investigate the effects of steroids on muscle reacquisition, found greater muscle mass and more myonuclei – essential components for muscle fibre function - were apparent after returning to exercise.

Lead author Professor Kristian Gundersen said: “Mice were briefly exposed to steroids which resulted in increased muscle mass and a number of cell nuclei in the muscle fibres.

Three months after withdrawal of the drug (approximately 15% of a mouse’s lifespan) their muscles grew by 30% over six days following load exercise. The untreated mice grew insignificantly.”

Writing for the Journal of Physiology, the researchers say future studies will include human muscles and look further into the celluar and molecular mechanisms for muscle memory. 

“The results in our mice may correspond to the effects of steroids lasting for decades in humans given the same cellular ‘muscle memory’ mechanism,” said Professor Gundersen. 

“The new results might spur a debate on the current World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) code in which the maximum exclusion time is currently two years.”

Furthermore, the type of drug usage and the attitude of those involved should also be taken into consideration in order to examine how these individuals are held accountable. After all, our children are watching them now more than ever. Too often the bottom line is more about winning and getting that big bonus than following the same guidelines taught to children about sports and the life lessons they are supposed to be getting from it. 

Yet despite the health risks and despite the attempts by regulating bodies to eliminate drugs from sport, the use of illegal substances is widely acknowledged to be rife. So now when a famous athlete fails a doping test, very few regard it as a shocking revelation. (www.srilankasports.com)

(The writer is Editor in Chief of www.srilankasports.com and Secretary General of the Sri Lanka Sports Writers’ Association)