Can Spain afford to reveal doping in football?

On the eve of the 2006 Tour de France cycling was rocked by yet another drug scandal, Operacion Puerto. The Spanish Police had uncovered a vast doping network organised by Dr Eufemiano Fuentes, a network used by some of the biggest names in the sport. Not since the Festina affair had the Tour been broadcast in such a negative light. The two favourites, Ivan Basso and Jan Ullrich were thrown out of the race along with Alexandre Vinokourov and Francisco Mancebo among others. Much to the annoyance of many cycling fans, the press coverage focussed primarily on the involvement of cyclists despite Fuentes himself stating that cyclists only made up roughly one third of his client base.

Fuentes stated on record that he counted track and field athletes, tennis players, hand ballers and footballers among his clients despite no names officially being linked to Puerto from any of the aforementioned sports. Why is it that the name of every cyclist on Fuentes' 'list' is public knowledge while the footballers or tennis players keep their anonymity? Even this week as the Operacion Puerto trial started the Spanish authorities explicitly stated that the trial would focus only on cycling. This is despite their acknowledgement of the involvement of other sports and pressure from WADA to release the additional evidence.

Why is Spain so keen to protect sports such as football at the expense of cycling? Put simply football is worth a lot more money to a failing Spanish economy, especially an international team that wins trophies. Financially they can't afford to reveal the truth.

In 2006 French newspaper Le Monde acquired two sheets of A4 paper whilst interviewing Fuentes at his Canary Island home, the sheets in Fuentes' handwriting were 'preparation plans' for the 2005-2006 season. Allegedly the 'preparation plans' were not for cyclists but for Barcelona FC with the Champions League and the World Cup as the primary goals. The plans contained circles for steroid cycles and 'IG' symbols similar to those used to indicate insulin use on a cycling plan found in Fuentes' Madrid office. In addition to steroid cycling and insulin use the plans also contained small 'e' notations and circles with a dot in the centre. These were thought to indicate when EPO injections and blood transfusions were to be performed. Barcelona denied the Fuentes link but did admit to attempting to hire him in 1996 and 2002, both times their offer was refused.

It's almost certain that despite Operacion Puerto, Fuentes continued to help athletes dope. This is evident by his involvement in Operacion Galgo (2010), in which Fuentes again found himself at the centre of a doping scandal. As a result of Galgo Fuentes spent a night in prison during which he reportedly bragged, "If I said what I know, goodbye to the World Cup and European Championship". It's worth noting that while Barcelona allegedly planned to 'prepare' for the World Cup in 2006, a large portion of the Spanish National team that won the World Cup in 2010 constituted Barcelona players. I highly doubt that Barcelona stopped doping post Puerto and Fuentes, it seems far more likely that Fuentes was simply replaced.

A World Cup and two European titles; the financial benefit associated with winning a World Cup alone is pretty staggering. ING estimated that by winning the World Cup Spain boosted their GDP growth by 0.25-0.5%, quite a big increase when you're really struggling. Add on the economic benefits from two European Championships and you can see how much international football has helped Spain since 2008. Even if you consider the tourism revenue from Barcelona and Real Madrid alone, Spain has a lot to lose if the truth was revealed.

It could be argued that Spain has already reaped the majority of the benefits associated with international football success. The big prize however is still to come, the 2020 Olympic games. If Spain were awarded the 2020 Olympics it would create jobs, increase tourism and if done correctly turn a respectable long term profit. Include football in the Operacion Puerto trial and all this could potentially be replaced with a serious dent to national pride.

Even this morning when Fuentes said he would name all he athletes he'd treated, the judge refused. It seems that the Spanish authorities are willing to go to serious lengths to ensure both national pride in their football teams and the associated financial benefits.

It's my opinion that a large majority of the Spanish national team used performance enhancing products during the 2010 World Cup and the 2008 and 2012 European Championships. Spain simply can't afford a doping scandal that would disgrace their prized possession; they're willing to sacrifice cycling to save football.     

As always, discussion welcome.

How easy is it to beat UKA's whereabouts system?

Eleven days ago Kazakhstan's Alexander Vinokourov won the men's cycling road race in emphatic fashion. Just over a week later GB's Christine Ohuruogu won a silver medal in the women's 400m. Both athletes have served suspensions, one for blood transfusions, the other for missing three out of competition drug tests. Vino was announced on the 6 o'clock news as the former drug cheat who ruined British hero Mark Cavendish's dream of Olympic gold, Ohuruogu's suspension is rarely mentioned and I'd be surprised if the majority of the British public even knew she had served a ban. Ohuruogu is portrayed as a victim of the system, a role model and an ambassador for British Athletics, Vino on the other hand is portrayed as a cheat and the villain. Ohuruogu a victim of the system? The system is victim of Ohuruogu.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Ohuruogu was using performance enhancing drugs at the time when she missed those three out of competition tests. Missing out of competition tests on purpose is a strategy used by numerous athletes in track and field. This strategy allows them to reap the benefits of PEDs outside of competition thus eliminating the need to use 'heavy' products during competition when the likelihood of being tested is much much greater. I'd like to outline how easy it is to beat UKA's whereabouts system and how athletes manipulate it to continue doping. I'm going to use the method Victor Conte devised as an example, Ohuruogu was likely using a similar system. Athletes can only miss three out of competition tests in an 18 month period, unfortunately for Ohuruogu she ran out of tests to miss.

For this program the athlete will be taking seven banned products: THG, Testosterone Cream, EPO, HGH, Insulin, Modafinil and Cytomel. 

Firstly the THG would be taken two days a week on a three week on, one week off cycle preferably on the heaviest weight training days during the off season. The athlete would place 30 IUs under the tongue, this would accelerate healing and tissue repair. 

Secondly, the testosterone cream would be mainly used during the off season. The athlete would rub the cream onto his/her forearm two days a week using a dosage containing 50mg of testosterone and 2.5mg of epitestosterone. This dosage would offset the suppression of endogenous testosterone and accelerate recovery. This product would be used in cycles of three weeks on, one week off.

The EPO would be used three days a week during the first 2 weeks of a doping cycle and once a week afterwards as maintenance using 4000 IU per injection. EPO boosts the red blood cell count and enhances oxygen uptake, this enables athlete to cope with a much deeper training load during the off season.

HGH would be used three nights a week with each injection containing 4.5units of growth hormone. Similar to the testosterone the HGH would help with recovery from heavy weight sessions.  

The Insulin should be used after heavy weight sessions during the off season. Three units of fast-acting insulin would be injected immediately after the workout sessions together with a sports drink that contained 30 grams of dextrose, 30 grams of whey protein and 3 grams of creatine. This cocktail would replenish glycogen, re-synthesize ATP and promote protein synthesis and muscle growth.

The Modafinil would be used one hour before competition in the form of a 200mg tablet. It will decease fatigue, enhance mental alertness and improve reaction time.

Cytomel should also be used before competition to improve the athlete's metabolic rate. It should be taken in the form of two 25mg tablets one hour before competition.

Now that I've outlined products the athlete would be taking, how do they avoid getting caught? Most will use the 'duck and dive' technique, it works something like this.

Firstly the athlete fills his/her own voicemail and message inbox so they can claim not to have received messages from testers. Secondly they will put incorrect information on their whereabouts from, meaning they can still train without being interrupted by an unannounced tester. Once the athlete has completed these steps they can start using the testosterone, HGH and other drugs on a short three week cycle. Once the three week cycle has finished the athlete can wait a few days until they know they will test negative and resume training at their normal facility, or the facility listed on the whereabouts form. UKA randomly tests each athlete approximately two times a year out of competition, if the athlete misses three he/she will receive a sanction. This means an athlete can continue to dope using the 'duck and dive' approach until they have missed two tests. It's a pretty good trade, two supposedly innocent mistakes in the eyes of UKA enable the athlete to 'prepare' in the off season for their big objectives i.e. Olympic games or World Championships. It is my opinion that Ohuruogu was using this system and as a result missed three out of competition tests.

On a final note, if you think it wouldn't be possible to take the cocktail of drugs I've mentioned and avoid testing positive think again. This is the exact system Dwain Chambers admitted to using for two years until he was caught. Scarily he only tested positive for the THG, all the other substances went undetected. During these two years Chambers won two European titles, ran 9.87 for the 100m and 20.27 for the 200m, all heavily drug assisted.  

Does Swimming Have A Doping Problem? Probably not.

Maybe like a lot of you, I've been watching the Olympics over the past few days. In particular the cycling road races and the early stages of the swimming competitions. The swimming has really caught my attention. For a sport that requires such physical fitness, why is it almost untarnished by doping scandals? The only scandals I'm aware of are the Chinese in the 90s and Ian Thorpe's alleged use of EPO, and that's nothing when compared to the scandals cycling or athletics have suffered. Is it because swimming is free from doping?

It's unlikely, I don't believe any sport is completely free from doping. If there is an opportunity to cheat, a small percentage of athletes will take that opportunity. In my opinion the percentage of athletes who do dope depends on the environment they're in, for example a cyclist in the mid 90s would be far more likely to dope than a cyclist nowadays. Better testing and the blood passport program is a factor but in my opinion the main catalyst for change in professional cycling has been the environment, the 'Omerta'* no longer exists to the extent it once did.

However I really don't believe swimming has these issues that have plagued other sports, mainly because doping seems to be far less beneficial in swimming than say cycling or athletics. To understand this better we need to look at the average age of world records in swimming and athletics and compare the two (for both we will use the close of the Beijing Olympics).

Firstly swimming: The average age of a men's world record is 1 year, 1 month, the average for women is only 8 months, out of 32 combined events only 4 have records older than 3 years.

Secondly athletics: The average age of a men's world record is 8 years, 11 months (Bolt breaking a 12 year old record played a large part in that), the average for women is far longer at 14 years, 9 months (22 times older than the women's swimming records!).

Swimming doesn't follow the same pattern at all and I've no doubt the swimmers of the 80s and pre EPO test era were doping to a similar extent as the track and field athletes. It just means that doping in swimming doesn't increase performance to anywhere near the extent it does in athletics, largely because swimming is such an inefficient activity. The best swimmers are only about 7% efficient, so a drug that improves strength and power would have a far smaller effect because most of the strength and power gained is lost to the inefficiency of the stroke. Swimming only started to see world records tumble with the introduction of the 'speed suits', better technology in pools and an all round better understanding of how to swim efficiently.

When you're swimming fast improving how efficiently you move through the water would be far more beneficial than doping. This can be clearly seen after the farcical 2009 swimming world championships where almost every world record was destroyed. Soon after, the suits were banned and the sport went almost 2 years without a world record.

I'm not saying that doping doesn't exist in swimming, it just seems that doping is far less prevalent than you would expect of a sport in which world records were broken at will. For a sport that is so dependent on efficiency, it may be more beneficial to improve your stroke than improve your red blood cell count.

However that's not to say some athletes don't do both.........


*Omerta - Term used in cycling to describe the wall of silence surrounding doping, you simply do not discuss doping to an outsider.