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Saturday, August 1, 2009
Early effort to drug test Olympic athletes kept secret
With organizers and athletes alike uncomfortable with testing regimen, officials chose to keep 1984 results confidential.
BY SCOTT M. REID
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Comments 2 | Recommend 1
LOS ANGELES – The U.S. Olympic Committee, concerned about the potential embarrassment of a doping scandal involving American athletes at the 1984 Summer Olympic Games, conducted an informal drug testing program in the months leading up to the Los Angeles Games that allowed Olympic-caliber athletes testing positive for banned substances to escape sanctions, according to documents obtained by The Orange County Register and interviews with three officials involved with the program.
At least 34 U.S. track and field athletes either tested positive or had possible positive tests during six weeks of informal testing by USOC in the spring of 1984, according to confidential USOC memos. None of the athletes was sanctioned or lost eligibility, according to USOC documents and interviews.
Athletes were informed of their positive tests and told continued use of banned drugs could result in positive tests at the U.S. Olympic Trials and Olympic Games, where violations would lead to bans from competition.
"It gave them a heads up," said Ollan Cassell, executive director of U.S. track and field's governing body from 1980 to 1997. "It let them know what was coming, what to expect."
The then-head of the USOC sports medicine council said a report raising concerns about the informal testing and a blood doping program involving the U.S. Olympic cycling team but the USOC president chose not to pursue the issue.
To get ready for drug testing structure ready for the 1984 Olympic Games, the USOC not only had to get the drug testing lab accredited by the International Olympic Committee but had to set up numerous crews to collect urine samples at competition sites.
Officials involved with the program either could not recall, said they did not know or would not confirm whether athletes who tested positive for banned substances in the informal testing went on to compete in the Los Angeles Games, where the United States won 174 medals, 83 of them gold, in an Olympics weakened by the Soviet-bloc boycott. Thirty-five of those medals, 16 of the golds, were won by American track and field athletes.
"It's not fair, it's not right," Dr. Irving Dardik, in 1984 the chairman of USOC sports medicine council, said of the informal testing program. "If an athlete tested positive, they should have been penalized."
Dardik said he hand delivered his report to Robert H. Helmick shortly after Helmick took over as USOC president in early 1985. Three weeks later, Dardik asked Helmick about the report.
"Helmick said 'What report?' " Dardik recalled. "It was clear you were not to make any waves that could in anyway implicate the internal workings of (U.S. track's governing body) or the USOC."
Dick Pound, the former president of the World Anti-Doping Agency and a International Olympic Committee member from Canada, criticized the informal testing program, saying the United States "was running a drug counseling program."
"They were allowing athletes to check their clearance times," Pound said, referring to the time from when an athlete takes a banned substance to the time when that substance will not be detected by a drug test.
But Kenneth S. "Casey" Clarke, the USOC sports medicine director who oversaw the informal testing, and Cassell are unapologetic about the program that they said also tested athletes in other sports at the USOC Training Center in Colorado Springs.
"It was done quietly and efficiently," Clarke said of the informal testing.
Clarke and Cassell said the informal testing was first step in establishing a drug policy and was necessary in determining how widespread the use of banned drugs, such as anabolic steroids and stimulants among U.S. athletes.
"We were trying to get a handle on how big the problem was, what athletes were taking so the scientist could test for them, and what the benefit were of what they were taking," Cassell said.
"I didn't have any concerns about it," Cassell continued. "No athlete would be punished. It helped us find out how deep (the U.S. doping problem) was."
And the extent of banned substance use by American athletes was a major concern of USOC officials and other U.S. sports federations in the months leading up to the Los Angeles Games, the three former officials said.
While they said the program was in part set up as a dry run to the drug testing operation that would be used at the 1984 Games, the former officials said the USOC's desire to avoid a repeat of a drug scandal that marred the 1983 Pan American Games was a driving force behind the informal testing program.
Athletes were caught off guard when Germany's Manfred Donike revealed a new test to detect steroids at the Pan Am Games in Caracas, Venezuela. After a Canadian weightlifter tested positive for steroids athletes, a dozen American athletes in several sports unexpectedly left Venezuela and returned to the United States.
The USOC, Cassell said, was "embarrassed, upset after the Pan Am Games."
But while the USOC wanted to tackle the doping issue, there was also concern within the organization's Colorado Springs headquarters and at several national sports federations that a drug testing program that sanctioned athletes who cheated might weaken the U.S. Olympic team for Los Angeles.
"There was a feeling at the USOC that the Russians were getting (away with doping) and that we should be getting ahead of (the issue)," Dardik said. "But I also remember a lot of USOC meetings talking about testing there were a lot of people concerned 'if we do this are we going to ruin our team?'
"It was really political."
Cassell said there were also concerns about lawsuits.
In early 1984, the USOC decided that all U.S. Olympic team members would have to pass drug tests before competing in the 1984 Winter Olympic Games in Calgary and the Summer Games in Los Angeles. But USOC also signed off on the informal testing program focusing on Summer Olympic athletes where USOC officials suspected doping was more widespread, officials said.
"We were trying to get the (drug testing) system going for the Olympics, get the (drug testing) crews ready," Clarke said. "And, yes, we wanted to get the athletes aware, make them know they had to straighten up."
"It wasn't a punitive test, wasn't a punitive program," Cassell said. "We wanted to determine what kind of problem were facing and make the athletes aware, let them know they could have a problem."
The informal program was voluntary, the officials said. Athletes were contacted by the USOC and asked to participate in the program.
Fifty track athletes were contacted by the USOC in the early spring of 1984 and all 50 participated in testing conducted by Dr. Harmon Brown, a USOC drug testing crew chief, on March 27 in Los Angeles, according to a confidential USOC memo. Brown died last November.
Under drug testing protocol an athlete's urine is split at the time of the test in two samples. If the first test, the so-called "A" sample, is positive, the second sample or "B" is tested to verify the positive result. If the "B" is also positive the result is ruled positive and the athlete faces sanctions including a ban from competition.
The tests for 28 of the 50 resulted in "possible positive findings" of banned substance use, according to the June 5, 1984, "Informal Drug Testing of Track & Field Athletes" memo from Clarke to Cassell.
But second verification tests were not conducted and the athletes were not penalized and were allowed to continue competing.
"Because Formal Testing receives priority at the Lab, so many of these samples needed repeated testing and the imminence of the Trials, preliminary results are released before final verification can be gained," Clarke wrote. "A non-user athlete (inadvertent use) will learn why it is a possible positive. The user-athlete will know why."
Ten track athletes were tested by Brown on May 8, 1984 also in Los Angeles, according to a July 9, 1984 Clarke memo to Cassell.
Six of the 10 had "positive findings" for testosterone, the memo said.
Clarke said athletes in other sports were tested based on "basically whoever was available at the (USOC) training center" in Colorado Springs.
In a memo later in 1984, Clarke wrote that "no report" of the 28 "possibles" "will go to Harmon." Dardik said he also didn't receive copies of Clarke's memos and didn't learn of their existence and the exact number of positive or possible positive results until informed by the Register last week.
"I never received any of those, which is surprising since I was chairman of the sports medicine council," Dardik said. "That was a lot of the problem with the USOC back then, they were always trying to keep things to themselves."
Contact the writer: sreid@ocregister.com
Early effort to drug test Olympic athletes kept secret
With organizers and athletes alike uncomfortable with testing regimen, officials chose to keep 1984 results confidential.
BY SCOTT M. REID
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Comments 2 | Recommend 1
LOS ANGELES – The U.S. Olympic Committee, concerned about the potential embarrassment of a doping scandal involving American athletes at the 1984 Summer Olympic Games, conducted an informal drug testing program in the months leading up to the Los Angeles Games that allowed Olympic-caliber athletes testing positive for banned substances to escape sanctions, according to documents obtained by The Orange County Register and interviews with three officials involved with the program.
At least 34 U.S. track and field athletes either tested positive or had possible positive tests during six weeks of informal testing by USOC in the spring of 1984, according to confidential USOC memos. None of the athletes was sanctioned or lost eligibility, according to USOC documents and interviews.
Athletes were informed of their positive tests and told continued use of banned drugs could result in positive tests at the U.S. Olympic Trials and Olympic Games, where violations would lead to bans from competition.
"It gave them a heads up," said Ollan Cassell, executive director of U.S. track and field's governing body from 1980 to 1997. "It let them know what was coming, what to expect."
The then-head of the USOC sports medicine council said a report raising concerns about the informal testing and a blood doping program involving the U.S. Olympic cycling team but the USOC president chose not to pursue the issue.
To get ready for drug testing structure ready for the 1984 Olympic Games, the USOC not only had to get the drug testing lab accredited by the International Olympic Committee but had to set up numerous crews to collect urine samples at competition sites.
Officials involved with the program either could not recall, said they did not know or would not confirm whether athletes who tested positive for banned substances in the informal testing went on to compete in the Los Angeles Games, where the United States won 174 medals, 83 of them gold, in an Olympics weakened by the Soviet-bloc boycott. Thirty-five of those medals, 16 of the golds, were won by American track and field athletes.
"It's not fair, it's not right," Dr. Irving Dardik, in 1984 the chairman of USOC sports medicine council, said of the informal testing program. "If an athlete tested positive, they should have been penalized."
Dardik said he hand delivered his report to Robert H. Helmick shortly after Helmick took over as USOC president in early 1985. Three weeks later, Dardik asked Helmick about the report.
"Helmick said 'What report?' " Dardik recalled. "It was clear you were not to make any waves that could in anyway implicate the internal workings of (U.S. track's governing body) or the USOC."
Dick Pound, the former president of the World Anti-Doping Agency and a International Olympic Committee member from Canada, criticized the informal testing program, saying the United States "was running a drug counseling program."
"They were allowing athletes to check their clearance times," Pound said, referring to the time from when an athlete takes a banned substance to the time when that substance will not be detected by a drug test.
But Kenneth S. "Casey" Clarke, the USOC sports medicine director who oversaw the informal testing, and Cassell are unapologetic about the program that they said also tested athletes in other sports at the USOC Training Center in Colorado Springs.
"It was done quietly and efficiently," Clarke said of the informal testing.
Clarke and Cassell said the informal testing was first step in establishing a drug policy and was necessary in determining how widespread the use of banned drugs, such as anabolic steroids and stimulants among U.S. athletes.
"We were trying to get a handle on how big the problem was, what athletes were taking so the scientist could test for them, and what the benefit were of what they were taking," Cassell said.
"I didn't have any concerns about it," Cassell continued. "No athlete would be punished. It helped us find out how deep (the U.S. doping problem) was."
And the extent of banned substance use by American athletes was a major concern of USOC officials and other U.S. sports federations in the months leading up to the Los Angeles Games, the three former officials said.
While they said the program was in part set up as a dry run to the drug testing operation that would be used at the 1984 Games, the former officials said the USOC's desire to avoid a repeat of a drug scandal that marred the 1983 Pan American Games was a driving force behind the informal testing program.
Athletes were caught off guard when Germany's Manfred Donike revealed a new test to detect steroids at the Pan Am Games in Caracas, Venezuela. After a Canadian weightlifter tested positive for steroids athletes, a dozen American athletes in several sports unexpectedly left Venezuela and returned to the United States.
The USOC, Cassell said, was "embarrassed, upset after the Pan Am Games."
But while the USOC wanted to tackle the doping issue, there was also concern within the organization's Colorado Springs headquarters and at several national sports federations that a drug testing program that sanctioned athletes who cheated might weaken the U.S. Olympic team for Los Angeles.
"There was a feeling at the USOC that the Russians were getting (away with doping) and that we should be getting ahead of (the issue)," Dardik said. "But I also remember a lot of USOC meetings talking about testing there were a lot of people concerned 'if we do this are we going to ruin our team?'
"It was really political."
Cassell said there were also concerns about lawsuits.
In early 1984, the USOC decided that all U.S. Olympic team members would have to pass drug tests before competing in the 1984 Winter Olympic Games in Calgary and the Summer Games in Los Angeles. But USOC also signed off on the informal testing program focusing on Summer Olympic athletes where USOC officials suspected doping was more widespread, officials said.
"We were trying to get the (drug testing) system going for the Olympics, get the (drug testing) crews ready," Clarke said. "And, yes, we wanted to get the athletes aware, make them know they had to straighten up."
"It wasn't a punitive test, wasn't a punitive program," Cassell said. "We wanted to determine what kind of problem were facing and make the athletes aware, let them know they could have a problem."
The informal program was voluntary, the officials said. Athletes were contacted by the USOC and asked to participate in the program.
Fifty track athletes were contacted by the USOC in the early spring of 1984 and all 50 participated in testing conducted by Dr. Harmon Brown, a USOC drug testing crew chief, on March 27 in Los Angeles, according to a confidential USOC memo. Brown died last November.
Under drug testing protocol an athlete's urine is split at the time of the test in two samples. If the first test, the so-called "A" sample, is positive, the second sample or "B" is tested to verify the positive result. If the "B" is also positive the result is ruled positive and the athlete faces sanctions including a ban from competition.
The tests for 28 of the 50 resulted in "possible positive findings" of banned substance use, according to the June 5, 1984, "Informal Drug Testing of Track & Field Athletes" memo from Clarke to Cassell.
But second verification tests were not conducted and the athletes were not penalized and were allowed to continue competing.
"Because Formal Testing receives priority at the Lab, so many of these samples needed repeated testing and the imminence of the Trials, preliminary results are released before final verification can be gained," Clarke wrote. "A non-user athlete (inadvertent use) will learn why it is a possible positive. The user-athlete will know why."
Ten track athletes were tested by Brown on May 8, 1984 also in Los Angeles, according to a July 9, 1984 Clarke memo to Cassell.
Six of the 10 had "positive findings" for testosterone, the memo said.
Clarke said athletes in other sports were tested based on "basically whoever was available at the (USOC) training center" in Colorado Springs.
In a memo later in 1984, Clarke wrote that "no report" of the 28 "possibles" "will go to Harmon." Dardik said he also didn't receive copies of Clarke's memos and didn't learn of their existence and the exact number of positive or possible positive results until informed by the Register last week.
"I never received any of those, which is surprising since I was chairman of the sports medicine council," Dardik said. "That was a lot of the problem with the USOC back then, they were always trying to keep things to themselves."
Contact the writer: sreid@ocregister.com
And we are still looking at the finger and ignoring the moon.
