As promised, we’ll keep you posted on the ongoing Paralympic Games in Beijing. So far, we’ve only reported two Paralympic athletes who were kicked out of the Games because they tested positive for steroids.

Now, we’re going to add two more to that statistics as two powerlifters have been banned for failing doping tests. The two Paralympians who both received two-year ban are Facourou Sissoko of Mali and Liudmyla Osmanova of Ukraine. The two gave positive tests for anabolic steroids in out-of-competition tests, according to the International Paralympic Committee on Thursday.

Sissoko’s urine sample on September 6 tested positive for boldenone metabolites. Osmanova’s sample on August 29 yielded 19-Norandrosterone, a metabolite of anabolic steroid nandrolone. The IPC stated that it had implemented 461 tests to date for the ongoing Paralympic Games and it intends to carry out around 1,000 screenings before the Games end on September 17.

Earlier doping incidents at the Paralympics involved Pakistani powerlifter Naveed Ahmed Butt and German wheelchair basketballer Ahmet Coskun.

Butt’s urine sample tested positive for methandienone. The sample was taken September 4 just tow days before the opening ceremony. Coskun, meanwhile, was banned from the games because his pre-competition urine test resulted to a positive test for a masking agent. Coskun’s sample taken on August 23 tested positive for finasteride, a legitimate drug that is used in the treatment of male pattern baldness. The drug, however, is included in the World Anti-Doping Agency’s Prohibited List since it is typically used  by anabolic steroid users to cover up drugs that enhance athletic performance.

The IPC’s official website states the following relating to their anti-doping program:
“Anti-doping programmes seek to preserve what is intrinsically valuable about sport – “The spirit of sport”. Thus, the rationale for doping control in sport is twofold: first, to protect athletes from the potential harmful side effects that some drugs can produce; and second, to ensure fair and ethical competition by preventing athletes from taking prohibited substances or using prohibited methods in an attempt to increase performance or violating the spirit of sport.”

According to IPC’s Anti-Doping Code, doping is defined as the occurrence of one or two of the following anti-doping rule violations:

•    the presence of a prohibited substance in an athlete’s bodily specimen
•    use or attempted use of a prohibited substance or a prohibited method
•    refusing or failing to submit to sample collection after notification
•    violation of the requirements regarding athlete availability for out-of-competition testing
•    tampering with any part of doping control
•    possession of prohibited substances and methods
•    trafficking in any prohibited substance or prohibited method
•    administration or attempted administration of a prohibited substance or prohibited method to any athlete, or assisting, encouraging, aiding, abetting, covering up or any other type of complicity involving an anti-doping rule violation or any attempted violation.

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Nameed Ahmed Butt, a 37-year-old powerlifter who hails from Pakistan tested positive for a banned compound in the ongoing Paralympic Games in Beijing.

From Fox News:

Naveed Ahmed Butt tested positive for the steroid methandienone metabolites, the International Paralympic Committee said in a statement Tuesday.

The urine sample was taken Sept. 4, two days before the opening ceremony.

“In accordance with the IPC anti-doping code, and after a hearing of the IPC anti-doping committee, the IPC ratified the decision to disqualify Butt from the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games,” the statement said, adding that a two-year ban had been imposed.

Peter Van de Vliet, the IPC’s medical and scientific director, said Butt’s accreditation was also being canceled.

The IPC has said it plans about 1,000 in- and out-of-competition tests on both blood and urine.

Another Paralympian also was kicked out of Beijing because he tested positive for a masking agent.

Ahmet Coskun, German wheelchair basketballer, was disqualified from the games for using a banned drug. Coskun’s pre-competition urine test on August 23 tested positive for finasteride, a compound used to treat hair loss.

According to the statement released by the German National Paralympic Committee, although finasteride does not enhance performance it can be used to mask or cover up drugs that do. Coskun, meanwhile, denied he had used performance-enhancing drugs.

“I was thinking about my hair and had no idea that the drug, which is against hair loss, contained a banned substance. I’m very upset. I never intended to do doping,” the 33-year-old Coskun stated in said statement.

“We take the issue of anti-doping very seriously. We’ve been carrying out an intensive anti-doping campaign for years in cooperation with NADA (the German anti-doping agency),” German chef de mission Karl Quade said in the same statement.

In 2004 Paralympic Games held in Athens, two powerlifters from Azerbaijan were banned after testing positive for anabolic steroids in out-of-competition screenings.

Urine samples from Gunduz Ismayilov showed traces of stanazolol while Sara Abbasova tested positive for nandrolone. They were the second doping offenses for both athletes as such they received lifetime ban from the sport.

Ismayilov had served a two-year ban after testing positive for methandienone and nandrolone metabolites at the Sydney Paralympics in 2000.

Abbasova’s first offense was at the 2001 European powerlifting championships where she tested positive also for methandienone.

Methandienone is a steroid derived from testosterone that exhibits strong anabolic and moderate androgenic properties. This compound is popular among athletes because it is one of the most effective steroids around. This steroid is known to yield impressive muscle mass and strength in just a short period of time. It derives strength for athletes by readily augmenting depleted glycogen storage. Glycogen is a form of glucose which functions as the primary short term energy storage in human cells.

The incident with the Azerbaijan athletes was the first time the International Paralympic Committee has imposed a lifetime ban.

The Paralympic Games in Beijing commenced September 6 and will run up to September 17. That’s a few more days to go and so other Paralympian might be tested positive for banned compounds. We’ll keep you posted.

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