Doping in Sport - Endurance Sports

Endurance Sports

In 1998 the entire Festina team were excluded from the Tour de France following the discovery of a team car containing large amounts of various performance-enhancing drugs. The team director later admitted that some of the cyclists were routinely given banned substances. Six other teams pulled out in protest including Dutch team TVM who left the tour still being questioned by the police. The Festina scandal overshadowed cyclist Marco Pantani's tour win, but he himself later failed a test. The infamous "pot belge" or "Belgian mix" has a decades-long history in pro cycling, among both riders and support staff. More recently David Millar, the 2003 World-Time Trial Champion, admitted using EPO, and was stripped of his title and suspended for two years. Still later, Roberto Heras was stripped of his victory in the 2005 Vuelta a España and suspended for two years after testing positive for EPO.

In triathlon, 2004 Hawaii Ironman winner, Nina Kraft, was disqualified for a positive test to EPO. She remains the only Hawaii Ironman Winner to be disqualified for doping offences.

Sports lawyer Michelle Gallen has said that the pursuit of doping athletes has turned into a modern day witch-hunt.

For extensive discussions of doping in the sport of competitive cycling, see:

• List of doping cases in cycling
• Doping at the Tour de France, with specific articles on the following doping cases in the Tour:
  • Festina affair (1998)
  • Floyd Landis doping case (2006)
  • Doping at the 2007 Tour de France
  • Lance Armstrong doping case (2012)

The use of performance-enhancing drugs in sport has become an increasing problem across a wide range of sports. It is defined as any substance or drug that, when taken, gives an athlete an unfair advantage relative to a "clean" athlete. The banning of these drugs promotes a more level playing field which most if not all sporting organizations seek to achieve. Recently, the use of 'the suit' in swimming, which gives athletes an advantage in the way of hydrodynamics, has been banned from international competition due to the unfair advantage it delivered. The drugs taken by athletes differ widely based on the performance needs of the sport. Erythropoietin (EPO) is largely taken by endurance athletes who seek a higher level of red blood cells, which leads to more oxygenated blood, and a higher VO2 max. An athlete's VO2 max is highly correlated with success within endurance sports such as swimming, long-distance running, cycling, rowing, and cross-country skiing. EPO has recently become prevalent amongst endurance athletes due to its potentcy and low degree of detectability when compared to other methods of doping such as blood transfusion. While EPO is believed to have been widely used by athletes in the 1990s, there was not a way to directly test for the drug until 2002. Athletes at the Olympic Games are tested for EPO through blood and urine tests. Testing endurance athletes for blood doping protects them from the deleterious effects that the practice can have on them. Stringent guidelines and regulations can lessen the dangerous culture of doping that has existed within a handful of endurance sports. As of 2012, 18 pro cyclists in the last fifteen years have died from using EPO.