Drug Abuse: Fresh Thinking Required

It was in 1967 that the British cyclist Tommy Simpson died in the Tour de France, on the barren slopes of Mont Ventoux in Provence. A combination of heat exhaustion and amphetamines killed him, thus exposing to the world the extent of drug misuse in sport.

Why has it taken almost forty years for those charged with fighting the use of banned substances in sport to reach the conclusion, long since arrived at by those dealing with drug abuse in society, that it is those who supply and encourage their use who are the most culpable?

Recently continental police forces have been active in investigating the supply of illegal substances to cyclists and their teams competing in the major European races. In Germany those involved with the GDR doping programmes have been pursued and punished. But in athletics it is only very recently that the curtain has been slightly lifted on the shadowy world of the provision of illegal substances. One result has been the exposure and prosecution of Victor Conte, owner of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO), the ex-Ukrainian coach, Remi Korchemny and others.

And, this year, with the sudden rush of exposures including Justin Gatlin and Marion Jones, the spotlight has fallen on their coach, Trevor Graham, thirteen of whose athletes have been banned for drug misuse. This month Graham has been banned by the US Olympic Committee from using its facilities and his lucrative Nike contract has been ended. He is also reported to be under investigation by the FBI. Graham, a man described in USA Today as having “the ability to be caught in the spotlight yet remain in the shadows,” denies any wrongdoing. But with his athletes testing positive over a number of years, why has Graham not been investigated before by US Track and Field and USADA, the US anti-doping agency?

For years the drug testers have been mopping the floor without turning off the tap. And, with the advent of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and its 20 million dollar budget, it’s become a very expensive mop indeed.

In setting out to counter the drug problem in sport the International Olympic Committee and the international federations set up a very crude form of justice. They decreed that athletes were entirely responsible for what they ingested. If a test proved positive then the athlete had to prove his innocence, the exact opposite of the centuries old legal tenet that a person is innocent till proved guilty. Simplistic and puts the onus entirely on the athlete.. As for the illegal drug traffickers, well, that was a complicated problem to be avoided at all costs.

The greatest drug scandal to hit sport was the positive test of Ben Johnson at the Seoul Olympics in 1988. He had won gold in a sensational 100 metres only to be stripped of it two days later. But Johnson, who was hounded out of the South Korean capital in a media frenzy, was something of an innocent abroad, taken under the wing of coach Charlie Francis and persuaded that, as all world class sprinters were on drugs, he should join them. Johnson and Francis were both banned by the Canadian federation.

In the very expensive Dubin enquiry that followed, Francis was found to have a whole squad of drug assisted sprinters. However he is still operating, seemingly with impunity, a lucrative athletics business. Indeed three years ago Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery travelled to Canada to consult with him, ostensibly on starting techniques.

But why has sport been so assiduous in chasing the drug cheats and been exactly the opposite in dealing with the dealers? Why have we taken the easy route? It’s mainly because sport has become over obsessed with the English Victorian concept of fair play. Anyone (i.e. a cheat) abusing such a concept must become a pariah for whom redemption is not an option. In exclusively pursuing such a policy in sport doping, it has missed seeing the wood for the trees.

In Britain we have a media frenzy every time an athlete tests positive, a frenzy that goes well beyond the sports pages. This is best illustrated by the case of Diane Modahl. In 1994 Modahl tested positive for a steroid, was withdrawn from the Commonwealth Games and sent home in disgrace. I was spokesman for British Athletics at the time and the day after the announcement my family and I had planned to travel to Cornwall for a long weekend. The phone rang; it was the BBC wanting an interview. I told them I was off to Cornwall and nothing was going to stop my trip. They assured me they’d be with me within the hour.

Sure enough within the time span a BBC van pulled into our cul de sac, some forty miles west of London. From it a mast made its way, literally, into the sky, well above the roofs of the houses. A satellite dish was manoeuvred towards the BBC Television Centre in West London and out went a live interview to the one o’ clock news. It was the lead item.

I did get my weekend in Cornwall but after ten minutes driving had to hand over to my wife because of the incessant ringing of my mobile. On the way down we had to deviate to Plymouth for Independent Television News. And finally in a tiny village in Cornwall I had to conduct an interview in a phone box. The good news? My mobile didn’t work in Port Isaac, our destination.

The Modahl case went on for years. She finally cleared her name at the cost of hundreds of thousands of pounds and went on to try, unsuccessfully, to gain compensation. It became a cause célèbre. Whenever something occurred in the case it was featured on mainstream news, often as a lead item.

If the Modahl case had been investigated thoroughly from the beginning, instead of being rubber-stamped guilty by a prejudicial committee, it would have been thrown out early on thus saving the then British federation and later Modahl from bankruptcy.

And some journalists take on an evangelical role, always taking care to remind us of an athlete’s drug record. One English reporter in particular always mentions Linford Christie’s nandrolone positive in writing of the great sprinter. Do fashion journalists refer to Kate Moss as an ex-junkie? I think not. No, for some redemption will never be an option for those who have so sinned.

If our sport is to effectively fight drug abuse it needs to move away from the present quasi-legal adversarial system against athletes. It needs to set up a full investigative process once a test proves positive. This process would include everyone involved with the athlete – coach, agent, doctor, physiotherapist. The testing process should be reviewed by an independent body. Experts in the field would be called in, not to represent one side or the other but to give a professional opinion. The sport and the public would draw its own conclusions concerning anyone who would refuse to co-operate.

The athlete, if found guilty from such an investigation, should be given the chance to plea bargain (which looks likely to happen in the Gatlin case). There should be a reduction in sentence if the athlete reveals the source of the drugs he or she has ingested and the people involved. Only by delving deeper into the murky world of drug abuse in sport will solutions be found.

In the thousands of tests carried out each year around the world the number of positive cases remains static at around one percent. This figure is either an accurate reflection of drug abuse in sport or it is not; we just do not know. What we do know is that the present test system is clearly not acting as a deterrent to those who are determined to win by whatever means it takes. Let us have fresh thinking on this always contentious issue.