However, when Itogi inquired at the IOC press service whether there is a specific list for those subject to enhanced testing, they received no concrete answer — it seems to be an anti-doping secret. It is easy to assume that Olympic champions and record holders are under the most scrutiny. "We know that any result that beats the top ten most notable achievements of the season in the world in any sport is an anomaly and must be thoroughly checked," says John Leonard, president of the American Swimming Coaches Association. "Therefore, each such result at the Olympics will be checked thoroughly."
DOPING WILL NOT GET THROUGH?
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) list of prohibited substances contains dozens of items — from steroids to drugs and alcohol, which are monitored by the Beijing anti-doping service. As Alexander Derevovedov, head of the anti-doping, scientific and medical support department of Rossport, explained, compared to Athens, new approaches have been introduced in the work of the anti-doping service. For example, each Olympic participant will be tested for doping at least once during the Games. If someone avoids a test twice during the Games, it will be considered a positive sample, as will a failure to appear at a doping control station at least once and then again within the next 18 months. The presence of even one substance from the WADA list, be it innocent ephedrine or traces of marijuana, will be classified as a violation.
Incidentally, more than 1,000 people have been recruited for the anti-doping service in Beijing (with about 10,000 participants) and another 206 escort athletes to control stations. Such extensive preparation indicates that the "zero tolerance" policy announced by IOC President Jacques Rogge at the end of last year is by no means a short-term campaign.
Along with the most popular steroid of the last decade, erythropoietin (EPO), the concerns of scientists and WADA experts are raised by the use of growth hormone (a test for its detection was prepared for the Athens Games, and this type of doping will be detected in Beijing) and genetic doping, in particular when stem cells are used. Despite vague assurances from WADA experts that the presence of gene doping can be determined indirectly — through the chain of metabolic reactions in the body — there is as yet no specific test, or, as specialists say, ready-made markers. As Vyacheslav Sinev, chairman of the executive board of RUSADA, noted: "I don't even want to say anything about this — we need to deal with cases of traditional doping first." Alexander Derevovedov also confirmed to us that gene doping will not be detected in Beijing.
However, the IOC indicates that the situation is under control. This presumably means that samples from current champions will be frozen and stored in a special bank for eight years, and during that time a test for gene doping will surely appear. Possibly even sooner — by the 2014 Olympics in Sochi. Incidentally, blood samples from participants of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin were also frozen and are being stored just in case.
NOT CAUGHT, NOT A THIEF
Meanwhile, information that the use of gene doping is in full swing is becoming increasingly plausible. For example, shortly before the Beijing Olympics, the main German channel Das Erste aired a film "High Flights in China" produced by the German public broadcaster ARD.
One of the authors of the journalistic investigation, posing as a swim coach from America, approached the head of the gene therapy department at a Beijing hospital with a request to help his athlete strengthen his lungs. "Yes, we can help you," the Chinese doctor agreed. "And although we have no experience treating athletes with stem cells, the procedure is completely safe. Stem cells enter the bloodstream and are distributed to organs. The treatment will take two weeks and will cost $24,000. I recommend four intravenous injections of 10 million cells each. Although, of course, a double dose is significantly more effective. We also use human growth hormones, but you need to be careful with them because they are on the list of banned substances."
"This exceeds my worst fears," commented David Howman, director general of WADA, on what he saw. "The most frightening thing is that gene doping and gene therapy, which we banned back in 2003, are being offered by a professional doctor who has traded ethics for money." And one can imagine that such "caring" doctors exist in other countries as well.
It is no surprise that the well-known Russian anti-doping expert Professor Nikolai Durmanov draws attention to the fact that the future of illegal medicine is precisely gene doping. Interest in it arose in 2004, when Professor of Physiology and Medicine Lee Sweeney from the University of Pennsylvania conducted the first studies on mice and found that muscle mass can increase when the corresponding gene is introduced. This opened up broad possibilities for illegal medicine. "Because gene doping is generally difficult to detect. New methods have not yet been developed, and this could hit athletes hard. Remember how EPO took a heavy toll on cyclists when they first started using this drug, which stimulates the production of red blood cells and thus increases endurance. Several 'mysterious' deaths during races marked the era of EPO. And no one can say that it will be any different with the use of gene doping," believes Nikolai Durmanov.
Meanwhile, WADA invests about a million dollars a year in research on gene doping and constantly laments that these costs are negligible - much more should be invested in the fight against such a global evil for sport. WADA defines gene doping as "the non-therapeutic use of cells, genes, genetic elements, or modulators of gene expression that have the ability to enhance sports performance." "Gene expression" is the synthesis of the proteins encoded in them. "Genetic elements" are, for example, modified genes, and "modulators of expression" are different types of RNA that carry information from DNA and regulate protein synthesis.
Methods of combating the achievements of genetic engineering in sports are still in the early stages of development. To date, three genes are known that athletes will apparently use. Moreover, these genes can be introduced into muscle tissue like a regular vaccine.
The first of the potential doping genes is analogous to synthetic EPO - repoxygen, developed by gene therapists for the treatment of anemia. Since 2006, repoxygen has been included in the WADA list of prohibited substances. The second is the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) gene, which improves blood supply to muscles. The third promotes muscle growth and will most likely replace currently banned steroids. The peculiarity of the gene, whose name can be roughly translated as "insulin-like growth factor," is that it can be used as a "repair gene" accelerating the regeneration of muscle tissue. Its importance in sports cannot be underestimated: with such "weaponry," athletes will find it much easier to recover from injuries.
As for stem cells, their use can extend the career of a great champion by 4-5 years. Just a few injections... It is possible that stem cells are already being used in sports much more widely than WADA officials would like to think. Some foreign experts express concern that professional cyclists and athletes in other endurance sports, such as swimming or running disciplines in athletics (middle and long distances), are supporting themselves this way. Similar to gene doping, where desired genes are inserted into an athlete's cells, additional stem cells can provide greater flexibility, strength, speed, and endurance. These cells can be taken from the athlete, multiplied in the laboratory, and returned to them.
With the help of stem cells, one can, for example, achieve joint regeneration. And in general, it is not superfluous for a professional athlete to have them in reserve. For instance, employees of the donor sample bank Cryo Genesis International said that a couple of years ago, five football players became their clients, storing the umbilical cord blood of their children. This is a "biological insurance" in case of illness of the children, but other uses of stem cells are also possible, experts suggest.
How can genetic doping be detected? Taking a biopsy from athletes is an unacceptable method. According to Theodore Friedmann, director of the gene therapy program at the University of San Diego and one of the most authoritative experts in this field, genetic doping will be detected by indirect signs. "If you intervene in a biological system, be prepared for a change in homeostasis, otherwise the system will simply stop working. Genes respond with changes in response to genetic intervention. Such altered genes give a new molecular structure in the system subjected to intervention. Catching this new structure is like proving an athlete's guilt," says Professor Friedmann, a WADA consultant.
CAUTION - GENE
The danger of genetic doping for the health and life of athletes is obvious. As Vyacheslav Sinev said, "Gene doping is a powerful uncontrolled method. No one in medicine knows the final result - treatment is unpredictable, and what can we say about its use by athletes..." For instance, genetic intervention can cause the growth of cancer cells if the introduced gene captures several oncogenes, and this serves as a signal for other cells to modify. Dr. Theodore Friedmann reminds: "When using gene doping, many body reactions may not go as expected. Such risk is acceptable if it is about saving a mortally ill person, but in other cases it is unjustified."
Despite this, Professor Arne Ljungqvist, the most famous anti-doping expert in Sweden, noted a very alarming trend: "We are noticing interest from individuals who are making contact with researchers in the field of genetic engineering in order to arm themselves with gene doping." And although some sports scientists predict the imminent emergence of separate competition tours for genetically modified athletes (then it will most likely be a competition of medical laboratories), WADA and the IOC are not going to give up.
So what is the result? Whether gene doping was used in Beijing, we will probably only learn in a few years. And then, quite likely, a revision of results will begin, as happened with Marion Jones or the American 4x100 meter relay team, champions of the Sydney Olympics. All of them, as it turned out, used cunning steroids supplied by the American underground laboratory BALCO. They simply did not know how to detect them in 2000 during the triumphant Games for these athletes. It took years to unravel the tangle. And during that time, scientists developed appropriate tests capable of confirming the guilt of athletes. As a result, Marion Jones was stripped of all her medals in 2007, and the runners - participants of the relay - literally on the eve of the Beijing Games. Perhaps, in the case of gene doping, the scenario will be similar, since there is no test for its detection yet. But it will appear.
So, it seems that revising results will now become common practice. Whether it's correct or not is another question. They didn't take away all of Lance Armstrong's Tour de France titles from him, although years later it turned out that they were not crystal clear. The current championship titles, it seems, will have a complicated history.