Gary Hall Jr., a guy who spent most of his 33 years underwater, has a crystal-clear view of the use of steroids in his sport.

The two-time defending gold medal winner in the 50-meter freestyle offered straightforward views on doping and anti-doping agencies as he met the press during the first day of the eight-day US Olympic trials on Sunday.

Hall pointed out that sport in general appears flooded with use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs, overwhelming anti-doping agencies to the limit to keep up. He said majority of athletes who have been found out of using steroids and other PEDs were inadvertently brought down by scandals such as the infamous Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO) affair, and not by anti-doping agencies. This means that many athletes who use these substances oftentimes escape these agencies’ detection.

Hall, not known for diplomatic tact when dealing with those who run his sport, would surely rankle some more feathers with his too-honest opinions. In his sport, Hall said, the use of steroids is far more prevalent than most athletes and coaches publicly acknowledge. Although he admitted he has no direct evidence to prove his belief, he knows that the problem exists.

“Unfortunately, we rely on an inadequate doping system — doping agencies — for the proof,” Hall said. “We live in a society where you’re innocent until proven guilty — the key word being ‘proven.’ We don’t have any way of proving people are cheating.”

At the US Olympic trials, athletes will be randomly tested for steroids and other banned substances.

Hall is a three-time Olympian and 10-time Olympic medalist, and a role model for diabetes patients. In 1999, he was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, commonly known as childhood or juvenile diabetes. A year prior to the diagnosis, Hall was suspended for marijuana use by FINA, the International Swimming Federation.

Tags: anti-doping agencies, BALCO, FINA, Gary Hall Jr., olympics, Performance enhancing drugs, steroids, swimming

Posted in steroid nation, Steroids and Anabolic Steroids, Steroids in Sports

A 2007 doping study on Australian world-class athletes came up with staggering fact – about 30% of athletes believe they could get away with the use of performance-enhancing drugs (anabolic steroids use). The results of this survey by Curtin University, in association with the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA), were released on March this year.

“It is perhaps of some concern that a substantial proportion (30 percent) of ‘Olympic/world’ athletes consider that they are unlikely to be caught if using doping out of competition, and even 7 per cent consider that they are unlikely to be caught if using doping during competition,” an ASADA report on the research said.

This reflects that Australian athletes lack faith in the ability of the country’s anti-doping agencies to catch wayward athletes who use steroids (or buy steroids) to boost their performance.

Other interesting facts gathered through the study are the following.

The proportion of athlete who might consider using steroids dropped from 16% to 8% in three years:

• More than 90% of athletes across all levels considered the use of steroids as morally and ethically wrong
• Among Olympic and world championship-level athletes, 44% said that using performance-enhancing drugs  and technologies was unnecessary
• Among the world-class athletes surveyed, 72% advocated tough penalties for doping for first offenders, and a lifetime ban for second-time offenders

The challenge now for Australia’s anti-doping agencies is to adapt new initiatives and new measures to respond to the growing problem of steroid use.

“The message that’s coming from ASADA is, ‘if we don’t get you now, we’ll get you later’,” Australian Olympic Committee chairman John Coates said. “Once there’s a realization of that, those percentages that you’ve referred to might come down.”

When kangaroos start hopping a bit higher and farther than the usual, then Australian anti-doping agencies would know they are doing a lousy job.

Tags: Australian athletes, doping, olympics, Performance enhancing drugs, steroids

Posted in steroid nation, Steroids and Anabolic Steroids, Steroids in Sports

With the opening of Summer Olympics in Beijing just over a hundred days to go; and as the Olympic Torch is being relayed on all continents except Antarctica, the excitement for this big sporting event intensifies by the hour. Simultaneously, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) intensifies its efforts against steroid use.

WADA’s latest ‘trophy’ is the Greek Olympic Weightlifting Team. The surprise testing conducted by WADA, on the behest of the International Weightlifting Federation, has rocked the sports community especially in Greece. Eleven out of the total 14 members of the Greek tem have tested positive of banned substances. It was reported that the 11 professional athletes used trebelone acetate. This steroid is indicated for veterinary use to facilitate muscle growth and improve appetite in livestock and is known to cause severe virilization symptoms. Of the 11 weightlifters, six were women.

If said athletes also test positive for the second round of tests, they might say ta-ta to their chance in joining the Beijing Olympics which will be held come August. Their only recourse is for the Dalai Lama to speak for their cause, which is an improbability considering Tibet and China’s current political scenario.

With this doping scandal is still dominating local media, Greek authorities are undertaking a massive crackdown against steroids. As a result, a staggering amount of more than 90,000 pills of anabolic steroids were seized at an Athens post office on April 14.

Tags: anabolic steroids, Beijing Olympics, doping, Greek weightlifting team, olympics, Thailand steroid industry, WADA

Posted in steroid nation, Steroids and Anabolic Steroids, Steroids in Sports

A new gene might help prevent athletes from testing positive for steroids, i.e. testosterone. It seems gene UGT2B17 can provide athletes a way to cheat the steroid tests and beat the system at the Olympics. It’s estimated about 10-20% of the population lacks this gene, making steroid tests on 2 out of 10 people possible false all the time. Who cares right? well, think about this. In the future the modification of the UGT2B17 or gene splicing will probably create the ability for humans to get around all tests for steroids / testosterone. Meaning, no matter if you make steroids legal or not legal, they’ll be untraceable.

As the World Anti-Doping Agency and Olympic officials prepare to crack down on steroids at the upcoming Olympic Games, they may face a larger problem than they were previously aware of. The lack of a particular gene, UGT2B17, may provide athletes a way to get away with cheating by beating testosterone tests.

Tags: anabolic steroid, anabolic steroids, olympics, steroid, steroid tests, steroids, testosterone

Posted in steroid nation, Steroids and Anabolic Steroids, Steroids in Sports

The Japanese are finally testing athletes for anabolic steroids, or is this just to show the Olympics that the Japanese give a shit about steroid use? (they don’t) A Japanese weightlifter was suspended for using Metenolone, aka Primobolan. It’s widely believed Ryuta Takahashi, the weightlifter in question, was using about 600mgs of primobolan enanthate (primo) per week. Probably trying to gain a bit of muscle while trying to make weight and lean out. Out of the 120million+ people in Japan, their anti-doping organization found 4 athletes who tested positive for steroids, which shows you that Japan doesn’t care about steroid use. This is a good thing, since it’s bad to have anti-steroid countries growing in numbers. Right now, the biggest steroid hater is USA followed by Australia. At least Australia keeps it’s nose clean, but USA is wasting a ton of tax dollars on steroid investigations.

Japanese weightlifter Ryuta Takahashi has been given a two-year ban after testing positive for anabolic steroids.

The Japan Anti-Doping Agency banned Takahashi after an out-of-competition test showed traces of the anabolic steroid metenolone, a JADA official said Friday.

Takahashi was tested during training in February. He has not been selected for next month’s Asian championship in Japan, which doubles as a qualifier for this summer’s Beijing Olympics.

Takahashi becomes the fourth athlete to receive a two-year ban from JADA since the agency took on the role of a national disciplinary body in July 2007.

Metenolone is an androgenic substance which is on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s list of banned substances.

Tags: anabolic steroid, anabolic steroids, JAPAN, olympics, primobolan, steroid, steroids

Posted in steroid nation, Steroids and Anabolic Steroids, Steroids in Sports

There has been a lot of talk about Marion Jones using steroids, but now that she’s in prison there seems to be a cloud of misunderstanding. First, yes she did use steroids.
Second, that’s NOT why she went to jail. That’s just the media tagging on a good topic. She went to jail for check fraud, plain and simple. It had nothing to do with her steroid use or Olympics for that matter. This is just an overblown topic by the media tagging steroids into the equation (they have nothing to do with check fraud). We know nothing will happen to Barry Bonds or any other baseball player, so let’s face it, this is NOT about steroids but about something else entirely.

It’s become common to blame steroids for everything from bad economy problems to failing war in Iraq.  Let’s face the real problems, not the self delusion created ones by the media.

Marion Jones, the disgraced Olympic runner, was just sentenced to six months in prison after pleading guilty to federal steroids and check-fraud charges

Tags: anabolic steroids, Barry Bonds, Marion Jones, olympics, prison, steroids

Posted in Steroids and Anabolic Steroids