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Gene Doping only 24 Grand in China |
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Written by SuperHuman
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Wednesday, 23 July 2008 |
Plus more breaking news from the Olympics.
CHINA
July 22, 2008, 4:24 pm
The Starting Line: Got Gene-Doping? In China, It’s Yours for $24,000
By JEFF Z. KLEIN
A human stem cell. A Chinese doctor said he was willing to inject at least 40 million of these into a fictitious American swimmer. (Stemagen via Bloomberg News)
In China for the Olympics and looking for some gene-doping? Seems you can get hold of everything you need for it, despite the country’s well-publicized efforts to stamp out the production and distribution of illicit performance-enhancing drugs.
That was the experience of journalists in a report shown on the German TV network ARD on Monday. One of the journalists, posing as an American swimming coach, was offered performance-enhancing stem-cell therapy by a Chinese-speaking doctor in exchange for $24,000.
In the encounter, which took place in a Chinese hospital and was shot with a hidden camera, the doctor said that it would take two weeks to perform the performance-enhancing treatment on the American swimmer the undercover journalist pretended to be representing.
“I recommend four intravenous doses: 40 million stem cells, perhaps twice, the more the better,” said the doctor, whose face was blurred in the video.
The hospital encounter was part of a documentary made by the German production company Dokfilm, “Olympia im Reich der Mittel — Doping in China,” produced and written by Hajo Seppelt and Jo Goll. A one-minute English-language promotional clip of the documentary is available on the Dokfilm Web site.
Patrick Diel, a gene therapy expert at the Deutsche Sporthochschule in Cologne and WADA officer, expressed astonishment that such performance enhancements were so readily available.
“I find this shocking,” Diel said. “It carries enormous health risks. Quite frankly, this surpasses my worst fears.” Diel and other German experts also said there was no evidence that stem-cell injections would work as a doping treatment.
The documentary also shows evidence of a cavalier stance among some doctors and pharmacists from Chinese drug companies toward distributing illicit substances, as well as testimony from scientists and doping experts on the development and background of the drugs. An excellent summary of the program has been posted on Swimnews.com and can be found here.
POWELL BEATS BOLT In a showdown of the world’s fastest sprinters, Jamaican Asafa Powell edged out countryman Usain Bolt by one one-hundredth of a second in a 100-meter dash at an IAAF meet in Stockholm on Tuesday.
Powell, the former world record holder, ran the sprint in 9.88 seconds, pipping Bolt, the current world record holder, at the wire.
Here’s the race:
BID FOR RECORD EIGHTH OLYMPICS FAILS The Jamaican-born sprinter Merlene Ottey failed Tuesday in her bid to become the first athlete ever to compete in eight Olympic Games.
Merlene Ottey in 2003. (AP/Michael Probst)
The 48-year-old Ottey, who competed in six Olympics for Jamaica before running for Slovenia in 2004, failed to hit the qualifying time in the 100 meters by 28-hundredths of a second at a meet in Maribor, Slovenia — her final attempt to make that country’s Olympic team.
Over the course of her Olympic career, which began at the 1980 Moscow Games, Ottey won three silver and five bronze medals: six individual medals in the 100 and 200 meters, as well as a silver and a bronze in the 4×100-meter relay. She also won gold medals in the 200 meters at the 1993 and ‘95 world championships, and a 1991 gold in the 4×100 relay.
In 1999 she tested positive for an anabolic steroid and was banned, but she denied the charge and fought to clear her name. In 2000 she was cleared of all charges, and the laboratory that tested her samples was blamed for making errors.
Ottey’s Slovenian coach said that Tuesday’s failure to qualify does not mean the end of Ottey’s career.
“She will still train,” he said, “simply because she can still run very fast.”
SOCCER’S INTERCONTINENTAL OLYMPIC CONFLICT
The world’s big soccer clubs are proving very unwilling to let their players go to the Olympics. The latest kerfuffle: Real Madrid’s statement on Monday that Brazil star Robinho is injured and unable to play in August, a contention that the Brazil soccer federation called “disrespectful” to Brazilian fans in an official statement on its Web site. The Times’ Jack Bell explains what the fuss is all about:
Argentina wants Lionel Messi for the Olympics. Brazil wants Robinho and Diego for the Olympics.
Barcelona does not want to release Messi. Real Madrid tried to dissuade Robinho from making the trip. Werder Bremen do not want to release Diego.
With the start of the Olympic men’s soccer tournament in China on Aug. 7, the tug of war between some of the top clubs in Europe and players who want to play for a gold medal has intensified and could spill into court. According to FIFA rules, the Olympic tournament is its de facto under-23 world championship, which means clubs around the world are required to release players 23 and younger if asked. That seems clear — and it is — except that even those rules are being challenged. European clubs view the Olympic tournament, which had once been limited to amateurs, as a nonessential event that impinges on the European schedule and steals costly international players.
The real problem arises with overage players, of whom each of the 16 nations in the Olympic men’s tournament is allowed to have three on their rosters. So, Barcelona balked at allowing Ronaldinho to join Brazil’s team as an overage player, but Ronaldinho’s new club, A.C. Milan, has agreed to release him.
Messi has every intention of joining the Argentine team, which will be defending its gold medal won four years ago in Athens. Real Madrid said on Monday that Robinho has developed a groin injury; he was dropped by Brazil’s team later that day.
Werder Bremen said it is ready to go to a German sports tribunal in an effort to bar Diego, who has scored 26 goals in 63 matches for the Bundesliga club, from going to China. Late last week, Diego said he would accede to the club’s request not to play for Brazil (which is seeking the only title it has never won), but then he left the club to join Brazil’s team in Paris.
Another Bremen player — the Serbian Dusko Tosic — was barred by the club from joining his Olympic team. Another Brazilian playing in Germany — Rafinha — left Schalke 04 against the club’s wishes to join Brazil’s team.
The imbroglio between European teams and primarily players from South America is the result of a differing perspective when it comes to the Olympics, according to an article on the BBC’s Web site by Tim Vickery, a difference of opinion that is nearly as old as the Olympics and older than the World Cup.
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