TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/012191/0121260.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.7 KB | 121 lines

                ä                                                              SPORT, Page 72

Running Again -- on Empty


Sprinter Ben Johnson is now drug free, but other athletes are
using performance-enhancing steroids as much as ever

By TED GUP -- With reporting by Lee Griggs/San Francisco and
Alexander Tresniowski/New York


    In the Seoul Olympics of 1988, Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson
won a 100-meter gold medal in 9.79 sec. His fall from grace
came almost as fast, after it was revealed that he had used
steroids to achieve his world-beating performance. His
deception shocked the sports world and caused the loss of his
medal, but it also held out the hope that athletes tainted by
steroid use might finally forsake the drugs that many believe
stimulate muscle growth and enhance strength. Last week, after
two years' banishment, a steroid-free and noticeably less
muscular Ben Johnson returned to the track in Hamilton, Canada,
and ran his first race since the scandal, a 50-meter dash. He
finished second, in 5.77 sec., 0.16 sec. off the world indoor
mark for the distance.

    Johnson's return may signal his rehabilitation, but the link
between sports and steroids is as pervasive today as before his
ignominious fall. And by all accounts, steroid users are
getting younger: a 1990 federal study says 250,000 adolescents
use the drugs. Even athletes who have never used steroids
suffer from the blight of performance drugs, coming under
suspicion each time they score a personal best or put on
muscle.

    "Two years ago, I was jumping for joy, in high hopes that
better testing and closer monitoring would follow the Johnson
incident at Seoul," says Dr. Robert Voy, former chief medical
officer of the U.S. Olympic Committee. "But looking back today,
I see that almost nothing has been done." Moreover, efforts to
detect steroid use face formidable difficulties. Warns National
Collegiate Athletic Association drug tester Frank Uryasz: "Drug
testing in this country is in its infancy."

    The best defense against steroids, year-round random
testing, is meant to counter athletes' efforts to hide the
presence of drugs by stopping their use just before
competition. But year-round testing is costly and complicated.
Even sports organizations that say they are intent upon rooting
out steroids -- the U.S. Olympic Committee and the NCAA, among
them -- are only now gathering the experience and resources to
do so. The NCAA conducted about 14,000 drug tests in 1990, vs.
5,000 in 1986, but year-round testing is still limited to
Division I football.

    Ollan Cassell, head of the Athletics Congress (TAC), the
governing body for U.S. track and field, boasts that TAC's
year-round testing is the world's best. But a lack of
technicians forces TAC to exempt from examination any athletes
living more than 75 miles from testing centers. Last year TAC
exempted or excused more athletes (395) than it monitored
(246). The group says it will hire an outside firm next  month
to close that gap.

    But athletes still seem determined to outwit testers. "I
feel sorry for my friends in the lab business," says Charles
Yesalis, a Penn State University professor and steroid expert.
"It's not even a close fight." Some athletes use so-called
masking agents, chemicals that muddle test results to conceal
steroid use. Others have turned from synthetic substances to
human-growth hormone, which is virtually impossible to detect.
Some have retained private labs to help them cheat.

    Despite the daunting problems, there is room for hope.
Long-rampant steroid use among professional football players
may be falling because of tougher testing, stiffer penalties
and a changed player attitude toward drugs. Last November,
President Bush signed legislation adding steroids to the list
of tightly controlled substances, restricting their
distribution and giving investigative authority to the Drug
Enforcement Administration.

    Outside the U.S., steroid use may even be waning. East
German swimmer Raik Hannemann, who won the bronze medal in the
1990 Goodwill Games, said he took steroids from 1982 until
1988. "It was a normal thing all over the world," he says. With
Germany's unification, East German swimmers became subject to
a much tougher testing program, which ended broad steroid use,
Hannemann claims.

    But the myth that steroids provide gain without pain dies
hard. For years, physicians have warned that steroids could
cause cardiovascular and liver disease, as well as sexual
dysfunction. Nonetheless, some athletes still believe they can
be taken safely. Now it appears that "severe psychiatric
symptoms are much more common than severe medical symptoms,"
says Dr. Harrison Pope, an associate professor at Harvard
Medical School. Pope says steroids can cause aggression, impair
judgment and, in rare cases, lead to psychotic behavior. At
least 10 steroid users have been involved in murders or
attempted murders, he says.

    What will it take for athletes to think differently about
steroids? Maybe more cautionary tales like that of Rhory Moss,
the 21-year-old star quarterback from New York's Hofstra
University. For six weeks last year, he injected steroids into
his buttocks, not to improve his football, he says, but to look
good in a bathing suit for spring break. Within weeks, he added
12 lbs. to his 180-lb. frame. But an NCAA drug test detected
his steroid use, and his coach sat him out of the semifinals
of the NCAA Division III championship. His team lost, and Moss
could face a year's ineligibility. "I screwed myself, I screwed
the team and the people who rooted for me," he says. "It's not
worth it." Too many others still need to learn that lesson.