Drug testing at the Olympic Games Gaps, rumours, frustration: Paris threatens London's horror record
The fact that barely any dopers have been caught during the Olympics in Paris is no surprise. For many, it is simply easier not to have the inconvenience of major doping scandals during the Games - the frustration of clean athletes could hardly be greater.
No high-ranking official in Paris has yet praised the number four. Four positive doping tests have been recorded so far at the Olympics in Paris. They involved two judoka from Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as a boxer from Nigeria and a Greek pole vaulter.
On many occasions during past Games, IOC presidents or other honourable gentlemen of the rings have cited - interim - results such as these as proof of a pleasingly clean event and an efficient anti-doping campaign. Not so in the French capital. Hardly anyone would really believe such claims anyway.
Cohen's hollow phrase
Benjamin Cohen was the most confident defender of the anti-doping campaign in Paris to date, although he was also obliged to do so by virtue of his job. "We are here to ensure that these Games are clean," said the head of the International Testing Agency (ITA), which is responsible for all anti-doping measures during the Games. But the Olympics’ dirty past makes this statement ring hollow.
Even the biggest sports fan should have realised this by the time reanalysis had been completed on frozen samples from London 2012. A total of 41 medal winners from the celebrated Games on the Thames were subsequently exposed as doping offenders after retesting using newer detection methods. Since the introduction of retesting in 2004, a total of 118 Olympic medallists have been subsequently convicted of doping.
Only “dopey dopers" are exposed
Many critical observers of the anti-doping fight believe that Paris 2024 is also threatened by a similar horror story. David Howman, the long-serving former director general of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), told the ARD Doping Editorial Team that "only the dopey dopers" would be exposed during the Olympic Games anyway. Howman and all the experts agree that the peak of doping is always the weeks, months and years of training before the event.
Statements by prominent Olympic doping experts that became public during the Games paint a gloomy picture. Victor Conte, for example, once involved in the doping of stars including top United States sprinter Marion Jones - who was eventually stripped of five medals from the Sydney 2000 Games - claims that he knows of around 80 banned drugs and substances that are not currently being tested for during the training phase.
Well over 1000 athletes travelled untested
The Danish former professional cyclist Michael Rasmussen, who, by his own account doped for almost his entire active career and was never caught, told the ARD Doping Editorial Team that he was "100% sure" that there were "lots of new substances" in circulation today that were still undetectable during tests: "The substances are being used before they have even come onto the market."
Even those who dismiss such statements as hearsay cannot avoid the alarming facts in Paris. For example, the fact that test results from the ITA show that 12% of all starters on the Seine - well over 1,000 athletes - have not been tested once this year.
If you don't look, you can't find
And even when tests are carried out, they are often incomplete. The ARD Doping Editorial Team has a document from WADA that provides alarming evidence: Even if urine or blood samples are taken, they do not automatically search for common substances such as EPO or Human Growth Hormone. In individual disciplines or in sports such as football, tennis or athletics, only 10% of doping samples are usually searched for these highly effective substances.
Even if the odds may be higher at the Olympics in Paris: If you don't search properly, you can't find anything. However, it seems that many do not really want any more doping cases in Paris - the excitement and frustration are already great enough. The case of the 23 Chinese swimmers suspected of doping was a dominant theme during the first week of the competition, and WADA is still experiencing an unprecedented crisis of confidence as a result.
"Wake up and get the job done"
Two further cases involving Chinese athletes that had become public during the Games and in which WADA had accepted rather than challenged the decision to clear them of doping offences, just as it had with the 23, were for many the straw that broke the camel's back. The fact that apparently nobody was tested more frequently in Paris than Chinese swimmers did nothing to appease the critics of the ITA and WADA.
"The people who have to deal with the problem need to wake up and do their job," said British breaststroke champion Adam Peaty. The exceptional British swimmer is not alone in considering mass testing during the event itself an expression of helplessness rather than competence.
The inspectors in Paris also did their job rather badly for local superstar Léon Marchand, who won gold in all four of his individual events in the La Defence Arena. They did not look properly in the ADAMS reporting system, in which the athletes always enter their whereabouts for out-of-competition tests - and looked for Marchand at the wrong address. Power struggle at the highest level
Power struggle at the highest level
Power struggle at the highest levels But such events are just footnotes to a crisis that has long since escalated into a power struggle at the highest levels of world sport. At its session in Paris shortly before the opening ceremony, the International Olympic Committee only conditionally awarded the 2034 Winter Games to Salt Lake City. The background: the USA and its National Anti-Doping Agency, USADA, are too critical of the Lords of the Rings, and the anti-doping legislation of the sporting superpower ("Rodchenkov Act") is a thorn in their side. The US was ordered to change its approach or risk losing hosting rights.
How, many wonder, is the anti-doping fight supposed to calm down in such a situation?