DRUG-TESTING CZAR SPEARHEADS FIGHT OVER CHEATING

Lyons Preparing Her Own Case For Reinstatement By The IAAF

The cheaters were always out in front.

With new drugs and devious methods for masking their use, cheaters had
better science than the testers.

Their motivation to win at all costs easily outdistanced the will of
sports governing bodies to spend what it cost to win the war on doping.

However, a concentrated assault -- in the guise of the World
Anti-Doping Agency -- promises to even the playing field some day.

Already, many cheaters are left with little more in their arsenal than
excuses we have all heard and rejected out of hand.

The banned substance of the moment is nandrolone, a steroid.

The excuse du jour is ignorance, a travesty.

All over the globe, cheaters are blaming their positive drug tests on
nutritional supplements that must have been spiked with nandrolone or
its metabolites.

Some authorities, like professor Wilhelm Schaencer who runs the
International Olympic Committee's anti-doping lab in Cologne, Germany,
believe positive tests could be linked to supplements.

Others, like Dr. Christiane Ayotte, director of the IOC-sanctioned
anti-doping lab in Montreal, do not.

"These supplements can be contaminated, indeed," said Ayotte, in
Edmonton on Tuesday to promote an upcoming Montreal conference aimed
at eliminating doping among Canadian youth.

"Of course the supplements are coming from an industry that is not
doing any quality control; so you're not even sure of what's inside."

That being said, usually it is contaminated with very, very low levels.

"These levels are not going to produce high amounts in urine, only a
trace."

Edmonton was a focal point for one such debate last summer as Robin
Lyons burst onto the hammer-throwing scene and won the Canadian title
in Victoria.

But she failed a drug test, was booted off the Olympic team and
suspended from competition for a four-year period by the International
Amateur Athletics Federation.

In the wake of the positive test for norandrosterone, a metabolite of
nandrolone, Lyons offered many lines of defence.

She disputed the science behind the testing.

She said the substance occurred naturally in her body and if that
wasn't found to be the case, that it may have occurred from
contaminated nutritional supplements, which she would have ingested
unknowingly.

Ayotte's lab analysed Lyons' urine tests from the Victoria meet.

The lab also subsequently tested one of the three supplements Lyons
said she had taken during training prior to the meet, looking for
contaminants.

"We found nothing," Ayotte said.

Lyons coach Ian Maplethorpe said the supplement test proves nothing.

"She had taken three supplements. She only had one left of the three.

"That was the only one they could test. And that's neither here nor
there.

"The original argument wasn't that anyway. We sent it in, they tested
it, we had no expectations."

Maplethorpe said Lyons trains just to keep in shape now and shuffles
through a mountain of paper and a jungle of legal jargon in
preparation to file for reinstatement by the IAAF.

"It's a very lengthy process and she hasn't got a lawyer because he
wanted $7,000 to do the case," said Maplethorpe.

She and her mother have had to put the case together on their own.

"There is no legal aid for this kind of thing."

There is a price to pay for a positive drug test. Lyons is still
paying it and will continue to do so until she is either reinstated or
her suspension lapses.

The lesson will have been a harsh one.

It need not be that way in the future. Ayotte wants anti-doping
experts, governments and sports bodies to produce education programs
and prevention programs aimed at kids much younger than Lyons.
Athletes as young as 12 are using banned substances. They are
ingesting supplements that are illegal in Canada. Their thinking must
be altered now or we'll lose another generation.

"We want Health Canada to do something. We want them to have doping as
a priority. We want them to do something regulating supplements and
informing people about them," said Ayotte. "We want that kind of
policy to come out of the conference."

And she wants kids to learn from the Lyons example.

Regardless of how it happens, "an athlete is ultimately responsible
for everything he ingests. And for God's sake, this is how every human
being should be aware.

"I wouldn't even listen to my physician prescribing a drug if I didn't
know what the side-effects were, what the reason for giving it is.
Everyone has the responsibility to protect his own body, his health
and his integrity."

Until that kind of thinking dominates society, we won't win the war on
doping.

"We are not yet there. But there is a tendency internationally to find
a solution because it is impossible to go back to not looking at the
problem."