Performance Enhancers & Triathlon

Triathlon Forum
1

The following article appeared in this mornings (July 30/03) Hamilton Spectator. It suggests a possible link between performance enhancing drugs found in a park with the recent Edmonton World Cup Race. Even if there is no link, the suggestion alone may create a negative pereception of our sport. Comments anyone?

Performance enhancer syringes found in sand (www.thespec.com, July 30/03)

Syringes found in the sand of a children’s playground were labelled Eprex, a drug used to treat kidney failure and anemia in cancer patients and also used as an illegal performance enhancer for athletes.

Sports medicine specialist Dr. David Reid said Eprex is used by athletes to enhance their ability to utilize oxygen and improve endurance.

“I think the prevalent athletes that might use it are cyclists, triathletes and track athletes,” Reid said.

Edmonton hosted the World Cup Triathlon on July 13. The triathlon’s organizers don’t believe the syringes had anything to do with the racers.

“It would be a pretty big stretch because the park was so far away from where the athletes were staying and running,” said Carol Medynski of World Cup Triathlon.

The World Anti-Doping Agency, which specifically prohibits this type of drug, was responsible for drug testing at the triathlon. Although the agency does not reveal where, when and if it tests racers at an event, no failed drug tests were reported at the Edmonton race.

Rick Hollingsworth, an Edmonton AIDS activist and former injection drug user, said the needles found are not the same kind that illegal drug users would use. “Those weren’t from cocaine or heroin addicts,” Hollingsworth said, adding that illegal drug users usually use smaller needles because they have weaker veins.

Officials of the Capital Health region are investigating the case. The west Edmonton park was quickly cordoned off Sunday and guards were posted after 21 syringes were discovered near the wading pool, swings, slides and monkey bars.

The park remained closed Monday. City workers armed with shovels and screens sifted through the playground’s sand. Metal detectors were also used in the search for needles. As of Monday afternoon, a total of 25 had been recovered.

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I would like to see the time results of the guy who took 25 EPO injections prior to the race. I’ll be his feet didn’t even touch the ground!!! Of course, I’m being sarcastic. To link this to the race is ludicrous. If they found 25 EPO syringes then there is obviously some kind of recurring behavior going on at this park.

4

Actually Eprex is manufactured and a trademark of Johnson&Johnson.

A good story about it is that J&J refused to add a marker to the product so that it would be easily traced in urine samples. I guess they didn’t want to be closed to a potential market for their product…

Paulo

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I agree that linking this with the triathlon sounds ludicrous. However, there’s still the possibility that the syringes were used elsewhere and by more than one athlete (like some cycling teams of years past) and buried in the park. I just hope this doesn’t turn into another drug scandal (whether it’s triathlon or any other sport).

7

Eprex was also the subject of a big investigation on J&J’s manufacturing processes after some patients developed autoimmune responses to their own red cells after taking the product. Other non-US product was later implicated as well, but last I heard there were still no cases involving Procrit/EPO distributed in the US. Those do use a different “manufacturing” process on which Amgen owns the patent although improper storage could also be involved by altering the protein structure sufficiently to provoke an immune response.

Assuming adequate iron stores, according to the package insert it takes EPO 2-4 weeks to reach full effect so anything taken near the event would be a waste of money. More is not necessarily better either outside of a certain range. In addition to the obvious problem of turning your blood to jello, just because your blood can carry more O2 doesn’t mean you have any of the other physiological characteristics needed to use it to produce better athletic performance (like mitochondrial count for example - although there is a newly isolated naturally occuring protein that increased that in rats. Ask Rumsas’ mom about it next month when she gets hers).

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Here’s an updated article from the Edmonton newspaper. No mention of triathlon this time but still unknown where the syringes came from.

http://www.canoe.ca/EdmontonNews/es.es-07-30-0014.html

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Ask Rumsas’ mom about it next month when she gets hers.

Best line I’ve read all year!

:slight_smile: