THE 'ROID REPORT FOR THE WEEK OF JULY 6

by Gary Gaffney, MD, Steroid Nation

As American slides into the baseball summer All-Star break, and the Olympic Games slide into the quiet before the Beijing storm, steroid doping enthusiasts(?) focused on the Olympic athletes and the Tour de France riders.

The 2008 Tour -- after huge busts in 2006 (Floyd Landis) and 2007 (Alexandre Vinokourov, and Michael Rasmussen) -- was determined to monitor doping. Almost any drug known to man appeared at some point in the history of the tour. EPO and blood doping, anabolic steroids (Landis), amphetamines, and anti-inflammatory injections, appear to be the most frequently abused drugs during the long ride. Tour authorities thought this year's race might be different. Surprise!

By Day 5, Tour officials announced suspicious signs of doping, followed by news that Manuel Beltran tested positive for EPO, a hormone that promotes production of red blood cells thus increasing oxygen carrying capacity of the blood. The alleged doping may have been nailed by serial blood tests of normal physiological measures. Another major cyclist, Riccardo Ricco was dodging rumors of abnormal blood measures at the end of the week too. Meanwhile, the French announced that last year's dopers -- Alexandre Vinokourov, Iban Mayo and Italian Cristian Moreni -- may be subject of criminal charges in France.

Interesting that Beltran teamed with US cycling and cultural icon Lance Armstrong. Other Armstrong cycling buddies implicated in doping include: Floyd Landis (testosterone), Alberto Contador (Operation Puerto), Tyler Hamilton (blood doping), and Freddie Andreu (blood doping), Birds of a feather?

With the Olympics pending, observers recounted past dopers, and defined current possibilities. Just who should be considered the world's fastest female sprinter? Flo-Jo (Florence Griffith-Joyner) who holds the historic world record, an unassailable 10.49; Marion Jones, second at 10.65; or Frances Christine Arron at 10.73? A conversation with Arron -- who will run at Beijing in 2008 -- reveals she considers her effort tops, dismissing the other 2 female sprinters for doping. She offers particularly harsh words for Jones:

"She has lied for years," Arron said. "She treated everyone as idiots. I'm not choked she is going to jail. Many people criticised me because I was always the one who lost in the Jones-Arron battle, even if I had very good results. We started running together in 1997. She has stolen my best years. Everything could have been different for me."

Although other Olympic hopefuls were caught juicing, particular scrutiny continues on 41 year-old Dara Torres who has never urinated a positive doping test. Opinions on Torres alternate between hero worship as the mother of one takes on the young athletic does ("bucks" didn't work here) beating them in the water, or abhorrence of her ripped muscular physical appearance combined with gravity-defying personal best times in the 5th decade of life which could only be (the argument goes) masterminded with artificial hormonal aid.

At Steroid Nation, we tepidly entered the debate until San Francisco Chronicle columnist Gwen Knapp said Torres was suffering a double standard: men get away with juicing, and women don't. Did she mean Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro, and Mark McGwire are all now home free for the Cooperstown Hall of Fame? Did she mean the press was all over Marion Jones from the beginning (took 8 years and multiple denials before she admitted to doping) and Tammy Thomas immediately (took about 4-5 years before she was convicted of lying about steroid use)?

Indeed Torres, now engineering her 3rd comeback (yes her third) swims faster in sprints than she did while a collegiate star at Florida State during WW2, and in the '84, '88, '92, '00 Olympics. In Sydney. she impressively hurdled doping questions about her 2000 Olympic appearance. One would think 8 years, one baby, several surgeries, and a long layoff would bring even more juicing heat on her during the 2008 games in Beijing. However Dara daresya to find a dirty urine in her multi-epoch career. It's going to be All-Dara-All-the-Time for the next month (along with the All-Brett-All-Favre-All-the-Time). Say didn't a very veteran Brett Favre also become pregnant at some time in his illustrious career?

In other juiced Olympic news, the Greeks destroyed their livers with methyltrienolone, (and here) the Chinese are kicking 'roiders out ?and ? (left and right), and the Europeans are baffled why steeplechase athletes would actually juice.

Meanwhile back in the boring US of A, the only doping action in the major sports consisted of opinions about megajuicer Jason Giambi's mustache. At least Giambi didn't use the Butt Wedge or the Urinator to grow his mustache...or did he?


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