Source: Toronto Star (Canada) Contact: http://www.thestar.com/ Pubdate: Sat, 1 Aug 1998 Author: Ian Austen DRUG PEDALLING HURTS THE TOUR Scandal sends French cycle classic into a spin Canadian cycling great Steve Bauer knew something was up when he suddenly found himself unable to keep up with some of his European competitors. Riders with previously mediocre careers suddenly became contenders, competing with flair and E9lan in some of the world's greatest feats of cycling endurance, including the global classic, the Tour de France. When asked by reporters what brought about the transformation they would cite special ``preparation'' or a weight training program developed by their physician. It wasn't long, however, before even the most naive knew exactly what ``preparation'' meant. Bauer, a now-retired former Tour de France leader, said the effects of such preparations were noticeable. ``In the early '90s I started having problems keeping up,'' he recalled in an interview this week. ``That was partly problems with my personal health,'' he conceded, ``but there were also advances in technology going on.'' As this year's Tour de France staggers to a close in Paris tomorrow, it will have the smallest number of finishers in 15 years. The problem now - as it was in Bauer's time - is the shocking use of performance-enhancing drugs, a scandal that has brought the French down from their World Cup high of earlier this month. Five of 21 teams have abandoned the 1998 Tour, and one leg saw just 102 competitors gather at the start line - down by nearly half from the 189 who began the race in Dublin two weeks ago. The spectre of drug use - and the accompanying strip searches, midnight hotel raids and all-night interrogations as police try to get a handle on it - has devastated both the race and France itself. The race has been overshadowed by images of riders and team directors being driven away in unmarked police cars and days of demonstrations by the cyclists still competing. Cycling's most important event, the Tour de France has become, as a headline in the Paris newspaper Liberation put it, ``The Big Flat.'' For a sport that depends heavily on advertising sponsorships fixing that puncture will be vital. Tackling the issue of performance-enhancing drugs is at the top of the fix-it list. One of the biggest advances - the red-cell booster erythropoietin, or EPO - has pushed no-names into the front ranks of cycling's elite. The morality of cheating aside, the biggest problem with EPO is that it can kill. Blood with too many red cells can thicken into a syrup that's too much for the heart to pump, especially during sleep, or create fatal clots. Between 1987 and 1990, 18 racing cyclists in Holland and Belgium died from unexplained heart failure. The assumption - then strongly rejected by the International Cycling Union (UCI) - was that they had used EPO without a doctor's supervision. The ever-widening investigation into abuses of a whole new category of performance-enhancing drugs by cyclists was a scandal waiting to happen. At the heart of the investigation are drugs, including EPO, that come from the cutting edge of biotechnology. They are also, as the current crisis at the Tour suggests, an irresistible temptation for cheaters - producing significant performance gains with no danger of being caught by the current testing system. Swiss star Alex Zuelle started the Tour as a leading contender but wound up in a jail cell in northern France. After confessing to EPO abuse, Zuelle apologized but pointed out that everyone in the cycling world knew what has been going on for more than a decade. ``I had two possibilities: I could also go along with this or I could quit and go back to being a house painter,'' Zuelle told a Swiss newspaper this week. While the current controversy centres on riders and team directors, its aftermath will focus attention on both the UCI and the International Olympic Committee, the two organizations ultimately responsible for controlling doping. Some critics blame the epidemic on bureaucratic inertia, a willingness to turn a blind eye to avoid unpleasantness and legal fears. They say these factors have combined to prevent the introduction of tests for catching the use of modern biotechnology as an illicit performance enhancer. Dr. Guy Brisson, a scientist who recently retired from the Montreal anti-doping lab affiliated with l'University de Quebec, helped developed a test for EPO over two years ago but was unable to convince the IOC and UCI to adopt it. The reason, he charges, is that both organizations have a conflict of interest. ``Everybody knew what was going on for years,'' Brisson, an endocrinologist, said from his home in Trois Rivires. ``But the arguments they were against the test made it clear they didn't really want to catch athletes. It's always going to be the same if your responsibility is to both promote a sport and be a watchdog.'' EPO arrived on the cycling scene in the latter part of the 1980s when the sport was revolutionizing its training. Until then, training programs were usually developed by retired riders who suggested doing more or less what had worked for them during their careers. But Italian star Francesco Moser showed the way to the future when he worked with Italian sports medicine specialists to apply formal science to his training. It worked for Moser, who wound up his career by breaking the distance record for one hour's riding - one of cycling's most difficult feats. Many top-ranked riders began hiring their own personal physicians and worked with them to develop training plans. Big-budget teams brought scientists and physicians to serve everyone. Those training plans included many valid practices. But gradually and very quietly, many of the same programs also came to include new biotechnological products such as EPO. First developed to treat anemia, EPO is a cloned version of the hormone that turns on red blood cell production in the bone marrow. More red cells mean more oxygen in the blood. The effect is exactly like fanning the flames of a camp fire. One disputed study estimates a performance improvement of 10 per cent through EPO use - an enormous boost for elite level athletes. Drug abuse is not a problem confined to cycling. ``In any professional sport, not just cycling, there are guys who are going to cheat. That's human nature,'' said Gord Fraser, another Canadian cyclist who rode in the Tour last year and is now based in the United States. Unlike other sports, however, a shattering crisis in the Tour forced cycling to adopt widespread dope testing three decades ago. Then, it was a highly publicized death that prompted action. During the 1967 Tour, Britain's Tommy Simpson, a former world champion, collapsed and died on a hot afternoon while climbing a difficult mountain. The subsequent autopsy revealed amphetamines in his system. Testing, despite massive opposition from riders, began the following season. The trouble is that when it comes to EPO and other genetic creations, the current testing system is largely worthless. EPO isn't passed through urine, the current sampling medium. And even if it were, as a cloned natural hormone it wouldn't be picked up by traditional dope tests which look for synthetic substances. Even worse, to be effective, EPO must be injected long before races and gone from the body before dope testing time. As an interim measure, the UCI began measuring randomly selected riders' blood cell counts before races. Those with a count of more than 50 per cent are sent packing as a health and safety measure. However, the whole point of EPO use is to obtain an ideal level of about 48 to 49 per cent. Brisson and others believe that many riders caught with the current screening are simply dehydrated, not EPO users. Brisson's test attempted to get around the current system's problems by looking for a lingering secondary effect of EPO use that can be tracked with blood samples and antibody testing - a standard procedure in hospitals. The scientific journal Nature reviewed and published the test which was also developed by a l'University de Quebec blood specialist Raynald Gareau. Then the frustration began. At several meetings, officials from the UCI and IOC expressed their fear that the test's indirectness made it vulnerable to legal challenge by millionaire athletes. ``It was too easy for them to say that because then nobody is accused of using EPO,'' Brisson said. Eventually Brisson gave up. ``Throughout that world you see all kinds of conflicts. I'm glad to be on the outside now because you get contaminated by these people. And there are so many things to do outside doping.'' The question now is whether the current crisis will force cycling's establishment to take real action. Brisson, for one, doesn't think that's possible without the creation of a well-funded, fully independent organization to run dope testing programs. Bauer agrees. ``It comes down to the fact that sport governing bodies have left products like this on the loose for too long.'' For former ski star Jean-Claude Killy, president of the Society du Tour de France, and the race's director general, Jean-Marie Leblanc, the current public relations nightmare may have significant business consequences. Sixty-five per cent of the Tour's $65 million budget comes from sponsors. Coca-Cola, for example, pays large sums to have its name plastered over every conceivable surface at the finish line while Nike buys the right to adorn the race leader's yellow jersey with its swoosh. Similarly, all of the teams in the race exist only because companies are willing to pay to use riders' as rolling billboards. So far no sponsor has publicly abandoned the sport. But the crisis will undoubtedly make negotiations for next year difficult and may spell the end of some teams. Despite all the challenges that lie ahead, no one's predicting the Tour's end. ``Obviously this has damaged the Tour,'' said Fraser. ``But the Tour's bigger than that. It will recover, just like Canada did after Ben Johnson. But hopefully when it goes on, it will be a little cleaner.'' - --- Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)