One Times Online article labeled International Olympic president Jacques Rogge as a “deluded individual” when Rogge expressed his displeasure of Usain Bolt’s celebration of his victory at Beijing. Usain earned Rogge’s rebuke when the Jamaican sprinter failed to shake hands with his co-competitors after his impressive win at the 100 meters.

However, Rogge’s recent interview with the BBC’s Inside Sport, as related by AFP, portrayed a very pragmatic man. The IOC president said those who aspire for a 100 percent drug-free Olympics were out of touch with reality. He added cheating will always be part of human nature.

“I think one has to be realistic,” Rogge said.

“Drug-free sport in general is Utopia. It will be naive to believe that no-one will take drugs.

“There are about 400 million people practicing sport on this globe, there are not 400 million saints on earth.

“Cheating is embedded in human nature and doping is to sport what criminality is to society.

“You will always need cops and judges and prisons and jails and rules and regulations.”

IOC is planning to catch more users of anabolic steroids and other performance enhancers as it’s currently implementing re-testing of the samples taken at the Beijing Olympics. The IOC head “expects further positive doping cases to emerge from these” up to 2016 Games.

Rogge said all the samples they obtained from Beijing – more than 5,000 screenings, including nearly 1,000 blood samples – will be available for retroactive testing. The blood samples will be screened for new generation performance-enhancing drugs CERA and insulin. And if new testing techniques will emerge between now and 2016, the same samples will go through re-testing.

“We are keeping the samples for eight years and we are going to re-test them,” said Rogge.

“And ultimately the judgment on the Beijing Games will be given in eight years’ time, because each time a new scientific test is coming up we are going to re-test.”

Rogge assumed the IOC position on July 2001, replacing Juan Antonio Samaranch. Rogge has his share of criticisms and the most recent of these were his disapproval of Bolt’s behavior (mentioned above) and his statement regarding Greek athletes. He allegedly stated that “Greece won the gold medal in doping” because of a spate of failed dope tests of Greek athletes.

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Max Jaben, member of the Israeli swimming team, has been penalized with a one-year suspension due to a failed dope test.

The 23-year-old Jaben qualified to represent Israel in the Olympics but missed the chance to swim in Beijing when he tested positive for the anabolic steroid boldenone (commonly sold under the trade name Equipoise) in his two samples. In his “A” sample, taken on April, traces of boldenone were detected. His “B” sample was likewise found to contain the prohibited compound.

The Israeli Swimming Association could have imposed a two-year suspension but opted for only a year since it’s Jaben’s first offense and he already missed the Olympics, said Yaron Michaeli, spokesperson for ISA.

Jaben grew up in Kansas City and attended the University of Florida for two years before transferring to the University of Missouri. He became a member of the swim teams of both universities.

Jaben attempted to make it to the United States Olympic swim team but failed on two occasions. He then made aliyah to Israel.

When interviewed after the announcement of his disqualification from Beijing Olympics, Jaben stated his disappointment.

“I felt like a plane crashed. I went from being atop the world. As of right now, it’s all gone,” said Jaben. “It’s a horrible feeling, something that I’ve never imagined feeling…

“As a sportsman, this is the lowest low that you can go.”

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This is probably Tim Montgomery’s way of redeeming himself in the eyes of the public.

As he serves his four-year sentence for fraud and conspiracy offenses, the former sprinter admits in an interview with HBO that he took testosterone and human growth hormone prior to the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. Because of the doping infringement, Montgomery says, he does not deserve the gold medal he won in the 400 meter relay.

“I have a gold medal that I’m sitting on that I didn’t get with my own ability,” Montgomery stated in the interview. “I’m not here to take away from anybody else’s accomplishments, only my own. And I must say, I apologize to the other people that was on the relay team if that was to happen.”

Darryl Seibel, spokesman for the US Olympic Committee, has an immediate retort for Montgomery.

“If Tim Montgomery cheated at the games, then he should step forward and voluntarily return his medal, just as others from the 2000 team have done. By using a banned substance, any result he achieved is tainted,” Seibel said to Associated Press.

“He has a responsibility to his sport, to the athletes against whom he competed in Sydney and also to the new generation of track athletes who are doing their best to compete the right way and put problems like this in the past.”

Montgomery’s case has precedents, and they don’t bode well for Jon Drummond, Bernard Williams, Brian Lewis, Maurice Greene and Kenneth Brokenburr – Montgomery’s teammates at the 400 meter relay.

The men’s team which won the 1,600 meter event also at the Sydney Olympics were stripped off their medals when one member, Antonio Pettigrew, confessed to doping. Same thing happened with the U.S. women’s teams also in Sydney when the former sprint queen Marion Jones was implicated in a doping scandal. Jones’ teams, which won the gold in the 1,600 meter and bronze at the 400 meter relay, were disqualified by the International Olympic Committee executive board and were asked to return their medals.

“This is an example of the far-reaching consequences of cheating,” Seibel said. “The integrity of sport must be preserved, even if that means invalidating results and forfeiting medals.”

Jones had served her six-month sentence for lying about her use of anabolic steroids and her role in a check-fraud scheme. She was released from prison facility in Texas on September 5, 2008. Meanwhile, Montgomery, Jones’ former boyfriend, has to face another prison term after serving his check-fraud sentence, wherein Steve Riddick, coach to both Montgomery and Jones, was also involved. Riddick was also convicted for conspiracy, bank fraud and money laundering charges.

After Montgomery completes his sentence for the fraud charges, the 33-year-old former record holder is to serve another five years for selling more than 100 grams of heroin. He was found guilty of this crime and sentenced to jail October this year.

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The cat’s out of the bag!

This could be the collective statement of athletes who’ve been getting some help from the diamond-shaped blue pills of Viagra outside the bedroom – i.e. as an anabolic agent.  Viagra may be among the prohibited compounds endorsed by anti-doping organizations, principally the World Anti-Doping Agency.

This comes up as a WADA-financed research is nearing culmination. The study, being conducted by the Marywood University in Scranton, PA involved lacrosse players, is aimed at finding out if Viagra provides unfair competitive edge to athletes. If Viagra is proven to be a performance-enhancing drug it can be put on WADA’s banned list on September 2009 at the earliest, five months before the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia, according to New York Times.

Aside from the Marywood study, several researches have been initiated to pinpoint the exact effects of Viagra on the performance of athletes. More from the New York Times:

Through the decades, athletes have tried everything from strychnine to bulls’ testicles to veterinary steroids in a desperate, and frequently illicit, effort to gain an advantage. Several years ago, word spread that Viagra was being given to dogs at racetracks, said Travis Tygart, the chief executive of the United States Anti-Doping Agency, based in Colorado Springs.

Interest in the drug among antidoping experts was further increased by a study conducted at Stanford University and published in 2006 in The Journal of Applied Physiology. The study indicated that some participants taking Viagra improved their performances by nearly 40 percent in 10-kilometer cycling time trials conducted at a simulated altitude of 12,700 feet — a height far above general elite athletic competition. Viagra did not significantly enhance performance at sea level, where blood vessels are fully dilated in healthy athletes.
A 2004 German study of climbers at 17,200 feet at a Mount Everest base camp, published in The Annals of Internal Medicine, found that Viagra [cialis] relieved constriction of blood vessels in the lungs and increased maximum exercise capacity.

At this point, there is no evidence of widespread use of Viagra by elite athletes, Mr. Tygart said. Yet, because the drug is not prohibited and thus not screened for, there is no way to know precisely how popular it is.

Viagra is the popular trade name of sildefinil citrate which was made commercially available in 1998 in the United States and has become a household name because it’s been found to be effective in treating what used to be a hush-hush condition – erectile dysfunction.

Viagra was originally developed to treat hypertension and angina pectoris, but it has been discovered that it has minimal effects on angina but impressive outcome on penile erections.
In bodybuilding circles, Viagra is popular as a pre-contest drug because it positively affects the release of nitric oxide (NO), the chemical compound that relaxes or widens the smooth muscles, allowing ideal blood flow. This further leads to improved transport of oxygen to muscle cells and increased rate of release of lactic acid, a compound which takes part in the body’s energy production.  This results to the so-called pump that many bodybuilders – and athletes – seek because it translates to high endurance.

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