Steroids and the London Olympics

Though the Olympics are ostensibly about sports, it is not uncommon to find some kind of political or legal drama attached to the games. In 2008, the Beijing Summer Olympics were met with protests and boycotts, due to China's support for the Sudanese government, which was dealing with accusations of state-sponsored genocide in Darfur. China, which had invested large amounts of money in Sudan, vetoed plans to stage Security Council interventions in the country. The 2012 Summer Olympics in London may not necessarily be meeting with drama on that scale, but controversy is by no means absent. A major issue this year is the manner in which the British government deals with the use of steroids. The rules of steroid use in the UK are considered comparatively lax. Athletes would be able to bring steroids into the country in their luggage, provided they can be considered to only be for "personal use." However, the athletes can still be sanctioned or penalized if they are tested and found to have the steroids in their system. Basically, trafficking in steroids is punishable, but simple possession is not. Other countries that have hosted the Olympics have managed to tighten up their steroid legislation for the occasion. However, partly due to the mechanisms and scheduling of its legislative process, the British parliament cannot or will not make big changes to steroid laws in time for the games. The Olympic authorities may compensate for this by stiffening the penalties for players who test positive for prohibited substances. For example, instead of being banned for two years for the first offense, competitors may be banned for four years or more. In addition, testing processes will be advanced in terms of both quantity and sensitivity. However, even if both the host country and the Olympics authorities have very strict rules against steroid use, this is not necessarily a guarantee that all athletes who use prohibited substances will be caught. Firstly, there are so many athletes coming that testing all of them would not be feasible. Secondly, some athletes may have access to designer substances that will not be detected by tests. Thirdly, the Olympics are quite long, so it is possible that athletes who use prohibited substances will be tested on days when the drugs have been cleared from their systems. These and other factors mean that, even though a record number of tests will be performed and half of the athletes will be tested, not all use of prohibited substances will be detected. Then again, despite all the attention being given to athletes’ use of steroids, authorities are becoming more and more aware of some competitors’ use of other performance enhancing substances like human growth hormone (HGH) precisely because it is becoming more difficult to hide the use of steroids. Synthetic growth hormone is being used by more and more athletes, and for the past decade, sports authorities have been paying more attention to developing and institutionalizing better testing to detect HGH use. According to http://www.hghhelp.info/hghurinebloodtesting.php tests were only able to detect HGH hours or at most a few days after the taking of the sample. However, the London Olympics will be using a more advanced testing method that allows detection up to about three weeks after the last use of HGH. The publication of these more advanced testing methods can serve as a deterrent to athletes (or their coaches, doctors, etc.) who plan to use HGH before and/or during the Olympics. All in all, this particular Olympics may be an important landmark in the way this sporting event approaches the use of performance-enhancing substances by athletes.