Posts Tagged ‘banned substances’

Usain Bolt recently expressed his shock after hearing the news about five Jamaican athletes failing to clear a test for banned substances.

The triple world record holder, Usain Bolt, who won the 100m in 9.91sec in the London Grand Prix at Crystal Palace, said the positive drug test are backward steps for the sport.

From Guardian.co.uk:

A spokesman for the World Anti-Doping Authority (WADA) said they could not get involved yet, although Jamaica’s prime minister Bruce Golding has called an emergency meeting to address the situation. “Announcements relating to doping controls fall under the responsibilities of the organization in charge of results management of the relevant case.”

The most recent Jamaican athlete to have tested positive was Julien Dunkley, who was dropped from the Olympic team after Boldenone was found in a sample taken at the national trials in 2008. He is serving a two-year ban. Others to have tested positive for performance enhancing drugs include the sprinters Merlene Ottey and Patrick Jarrett. Jarrett was suspended for two years, but Ottey escaped a ban as her ‘B’ sample was returned negative. Earlier this month Bolt lamented that Jamaica did not have the finances to implement a world-class drugs testing regime. “I get tested a lot but we just do not get the facilities in Jamaica to do so much testing like in big countries such as the US,” he said.

Though the five athletes have yet to be named, it is believed that two of the five trace their roots to the Racers Track Club, the same club as Bolt, and are coached by Glen Mills.

A detection system is being developed by scientists at The University of Nottingham that would be used to test athletes for performance enhancing drugs.

This research is expected to offer a reliable method for detecting drug molecules in the body besides the detection system proving useful for helping scientists to accurately identify banned substances in system of an athlete.

From News-medical.net:

In collaboration with Dr Mark Sephton at the Open University, Professor Snape’s research group has developed a technique called hydropyrolysis, commonly used to aid oil exploration by liberating small fragments of organic matter from petroleum rock sources. The modified process can recognise the origin of any carbon-based molecules, including fatty acids and steroids, in the body.

The type of carbon in the body’s molecules reflects the carbon ingested as part of an athlete’s diet. Drugs manufactured in the lab contain very different carbon, allowing the two types of molecules to be distinguished by scientific instruments.

However, previous techniques have been unable to offer a precise detection method. Professor Snape explained: “In effect, you are what you eat plus a little bit of what you might inject. In their natural form, however, the body’s molecules are too ‘sticky’ for accurate measurements by our laboratory equipment.”

Some methods overcome these problems but add carbon to the target molecule, irreversibly overprinting the carbon source ‘signal’. The research into hydropyrolysis, funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, has developed a new approach that delicately strips molecules of their ‘sticky’ parts but retains the carbon skeleton intact, allowing easy detection of the carbon source.

The research was led by Professor Colin Snape in the University’s School of Chemical, Environmental and Mining Engineering and published in Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry.

Bernardino Jimenez grew up as a young body with big dreams about baseball in his eyes in San Pedro de Macoris. After some years, he became victim to a mischievous agent who injected mixture of Boldenone to Bernardino by saying that the injectable substance was legal vitamin. Everything was going fine and Bernardino got a contract with the Arizona Diamondbacks’ training squad in 2008 but destiny had something stored in him. He was found positive for Boldenone, anabolic steroid used in horses, which leaded to a suspension of fifty games.

From TimesUnion.com:

Jimenez’s case is just one example of a disturbing trend in this hotbed of baseball talent.

Of the 69 minor leaguers suspended for using banned substances in 2008, nearly two thirds — 42 — came from the Dominican Summer League, a developmental program for Latin American players housed in secluded palm tree-lined campuses owned by big-league teams. This year, 31 of the 71 minor leaguers suspended for using banned substances came from the DSL.

In the major leagues, where performance-enhancing substances have been a divisive issue for more than a decade, players with Dominican roots have also been at the center of several high-profile drug cases.

Sammy Sosa and Manny Ramirez have been accused in stories by The New York Times of being on a list of more than 100 players alleged to have tested positive during an initial drug survey of MLB players six years ago. David Ortiz has acknowledged the union told him he was on the list, and slugger Alex Rodriguez, following a February report in Sports Illustrated, said he used steroids while with Seattle from 2001-03. Rodriguez said a cousin obtained a substance he knew as “boli” in the Dominican Republic.

This incident once again highlighted the fact that steroids and sports share a relationship and some sportsmen often find it “interesting and beneficial” to use steroids, amphetamines, or performance enhancing drugs to get success. The lure of fast and easy money leads most of the players coming from Dominican Republic to take on steroids.