Drug testing at the Summer Olympics

With the Summer Olympics taking place in Beijing, its interesting to review the history of drug testing at the Olympics. As the testing laboratories have introduced newer test methods, the athletes doping find more exotic dopands or new ways to avoid being caught with existing drugs.

This "arms race" is perhaps best demonstrated by the Moscow Olympics of 1980: During the Moscow games none of the 1,645 tests performed (in urine) came back positive for doping at the time. However after testosterone analysis was introduced -- the so called T/E ratio -- many samples from the Moscow games were reanalyzed and appeared suspicious. Several left over samples from the game had T/E ratios exceeding the IOC limit, 7.14% of womens' 2.12% of mens'. By the next olympiad, Los Angeles 1984, T/E ratios were being measured as well as a few other metabolites.

In the early 1990s the protein hormone EPO entered the scene as a dopand. However practical detection of EPO was not implemented until the Sydney olympics in 2000.