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Thursday, September 7
Drugs in baggage of Uzbekistan official
Associated Press
SYDNEY, Australia -- An Uzbekistan Olympic team official
caught with vials of drugs at Sydney Airport could face expulsion
from the Games and severe legal penalties if the substance he was
carrying proves to be human growth hormone.
Olympic official Jacques Rogge and a customs service spokesman
said the substance was discovered by customs agents Thursday
morning, the first such seizure since athletes and officials began
arriving for the games that begin Sept. 15.
"There was a member of the Uzbekistan delegation who was caught
at the airport with illegal drugs," said Rogge, vice chairman of
the International Olympic Committee's medical commission. "All the
publicity of drug controls did not seep into Uzbekistan."
The Australian Customs Service said it "has detained a small
quantity of what appears to be human growth hormone after it was
found in the baggage of an Olympic team official at Sydney
International Airport."
Leon Bedington, the Olympics spokesman for the customs service,
said the substance was being analyzed at a government laboratory in
Sydney, but he could not predict when the tests would be completed.
"The label is clearly marked as human growth hormone," he
said. "But it has not been chemically analyzed."
Bedington refused to identify the gender, age or nationality of
the suspected official, but said at a news conference that the
person caught with the substance was not an athlete.
The Australian Associated Press reported the person was a
wrestling trainer for the Uzbekistan team.
Bedington said the person was neither detained nor arrested, and
that the official was cooperating with authorities.
Under an Australian law passed in March, a person caught
illegally importing a performance-enhancing drug into the country
could face a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $57,000
fine.
Bedington said the illegal importation of HGH is covered by that
law. HGH can be legally imported only if special permission is
sought from the health ministry.
Rogge said trainers were expelled from the Atlanta Games for
giving performance-enhancing drugs to athletes "and we will do the
same here if we have the proof. That person would be expelled."
"If we receive a report that the person has tried to smuggle
drugs into Australia, their accreditation will be withdrawn by the
IOC," he added.
Rogge, a surgeon, said he could not understand why anyone would
bring HGH to the Olympics. The drug would be used to allow an
athlete to train more strenuously, not during the period of
tapering immediately before an event.
"If an athlete wants to cheat, he probably doesn't need to
inject any more now. Because the effect of HGH lasts a long time,"
he said. "Medically it doesn't make sense. But we know that
athletes sometimes take more than makes sense medically."
The Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio reported the official
was carrying two vials of HGH. Bedington refused to disclose the
exact amount, saying only it was "a small quantity" but more than
the ABC had reported.
The person carrying the substance was stopped based on customs
service assessments that identify people to search.
"We do not do random or routine searches," Bedington said.
"The person was selected for further investigation based on that
risk assessment."
The IOC has approved a test to detect the use of the banned
synthetic hormone erythropoietin, or EPO, considered the drug of
choice for endurance athletes, but there is still no test to detect
HGH.
HGH, which helps build muscles, is produced naturally by the
pituitary gland. A synthetic form of the drug is used
therapeutically, especially to treat slow growth in children. Rogge
said possible side effects of HGH use for an adult include
diabetes, cancer and an unnatural growth of arms, legs, the jaw and
the forehead.
IOC vice president and head of the World Anti-Doping Agency,
Dick Pound, said the seizure highlighted the success of heightened
cooperation between the IOC and national governments in efforts to
crack down on drug use in sport.
"You have got to be nuts with all the publicity on cracking
down on drug use in the games to come whistling through customs
with HGH," he said. "It seems reckless to me."
Australian customs inspectors discovered 13 vials of HGH hidden
in the luggage of Chinese swimmer Yuan Yuan before the 1998 World
Swimming Championships in Perth.
Also Thursday, IOC medical director Patrick Schamasch said
Olympic officials will target top-ranked endurance athletes for the
new EPO tests during the Sydney Games.
Schamasch said the tests would focus on events including
long-distance running, cycling, swimming, triathlon and modern
pentathlon.
The first of 301 combined blood and urine tests for EPO was
conducted Sept. 3 at the Olympic athletes' village. An additional
200 EPO tests could follow if organizers are satisfied with the
preliminary testing, Schamasch said.
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