Salt Lake City GER 12 16 7 35 USA 10 13 11 34 NOR 11 7 6 24 CAN 6 3 8 17 RUS 6 6 4 16 AUT 2 4 10 16 ITA 4 4 4 12 FRA 4 5 2 11 SUI 3 2 6 11 NED 3 5 0 8 Full 2002 table

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Nearly all athletes tested for drugs

By Lois M. Collins
Deseret News staff writer

      The pre-Olympics goal of drug-testing 100 percent of athletes competing in the 2002 Winter Games has nearly been reached, with more than 95 percent of the athletes already tested at least once for banned substances.
      "We are hopeful to reach 100 percent by the end of the Games," said Dr. Doug Rollins, SLOC doping control director.
      So far, none of the athletes screened since the Salt Lake Organizing Committee took over the job Jan. 29 have tested positive for banned substances or "prohibited methods."
      That includes the 4 percent of athletes subjected to pre-competition testing and the athletes who have been screened after placing in the top four of competition or who were selected randomly from the field of competitors in completed sporting events.
      In fact, the only positive doping test so far was from a deliberately contaminated sample sent through the IOC-accredited UCLA lab in Research Park to see if it would catch a positive doping sample. It did, according to IOC medical director Dr. Patrick Schamasch.
      The Salt Lake Games' lab, which came here from the University of California, Los Angeles, is the first temporary lab ever to be fully accredited by the IOC, he said.
      Four percent of all the athletes were targeted for screening, now 80 percent complete, to look for a menu of anabolic steroids and masking agents such as diuretics. The 20 percent not yet tested include athletes who have not yet arrived in Salt Lake for the Games, said Rollins.
      All the endurance athletes — biathletes, cross country and nordic combined skiers and long- and short-track speed skaters — have also been screened for erythropoietin (EPO). Of the 900 blood tests already completed for EPO, all were negative for doping as of Tuesday evening. The blood tests are given a preliminary check at the venues, and those "outside parameters" are sent to the UCLA lab for further testing. Urine samples are used to confirm a positive EPO test.
      Everyone who breaks a world record is also screened for use of prohibited substances and methods, Rollins said, so the doping control staff — including 250 volunteers — is busy.
      Schamasch gave SLOC high marks on both doping efforts and the medical teams' work handling accidents and illnesses.
      "We are very, very satisfied with what has been done," he said.
      The IOC has also undertaken a study of dietary supplements to see how many of them have been contaminated with substances that are not on the label. They have finalized the screening part of about 636 different supplements, bought around the world, and found that one in five seems to contain something not on the label.
      The high adulteration rate — 20 percent — including some substances that could cause an athlete to fail doping control, is a "major problem," Schamasch said. "The IOC Medical Commission and the IOC have raised a kind of red flag. We want more strict regulation of these supplements."

E-mail: lois@desnews.com