ON THE EDGE

Athletes resort to doping, drugs to win at all costs

As Mark McGwire smacked one home run after another into the upper decks of
stadiums around the league last season, cynics were adamant that an
asterisk should be affixed to his single-season record because he takes
androstenedione, a testosterone-producing substance that is legal in
baseball but banned by the NFL, NCAA and the International Olympic Committee.

Gold-medal winning sprinter Florence Griffith Joyner suddenly died in her
sleep last fall. At her funeral, family members called the press
"scorpions" for suggesting that use of steroids killed the Olympic champion
at 38.

In July, cycling's premiere event, the Tour de France, was nearly canceled
after six teams pulled out and another was kicked out because of suspected
doping.

Meanwhile, the creation of an Olympic anti-doping agency is the centerpiece
of a 2 1/2-day conference that began Tuesday in Lausanne, Switzerland.

In this age of sophisticated training, athletes have the financial backing
to work out full time and the access to a team of coaches and medical
experts. But do the athletes who take performance-enhancing drugs and beat
the system really win? And why do so many athletes find enhancements
necessary?

"When you devote yourself to a certain activity, there is pressure to
excel," said Dr. Charles Yesalis, a Penn State professor of exercise
science and author of "The Steroids Game." "It doesn't matter whether you
are a lawyer trying to win a case, a journalist trying to get a story or an
athlete trying to win a game. It is a high-pressure, highly competitive
world out there. In fighting for your livelihood, some people are willing
to cross a line ethically, legally and at the risk of their health."

The line between enhancement and cheating is a fine one because only
anabolic steroids are universally banned. Some sports organizations, such
as the U.S. Olympic Committee, are strict, banning everything from
excessive caffeine to certain cough medicines. Other governing bodies, such
as Major League Baseball and the NBA, are lenient.

Yesalis estimates there are more than 1 million past or current steroid
users in the United States. The figure increases when including athletes
who use odd natural performance enhancements or take over-the-counter
supplements such as creatine, a popular supplement legal in the NCAA, NFL
and Major League Baseball that aids in building lean muscle mass. An
example of unordinary natural performance enhancements is the injection of
calf's blood, which aids muscle recovery. U.S. national soccer team member
Thomas Dooley seeks such treatment in Germany.

Anabolic steroids are synthetic versions of the male hormone testosterone,
which can significantly build lean muscle mass, boost speed and endurance
and accelerate recovery time. Steroids are illegal because they give the
user results he or she could not get in a lifetime of training. But they
also have been deemed a serious health risk, with side effects including
increased aggression, sexual dysfunction, infertility and liver and heart
damage that, in severe cases, can lead to death.

Over-the-counter supplements such as creatine, DHEA and androstenedione
offer some of the same benefits as steroids, but the side effects are
unclear. They are classified by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a
dietary aids rather than drugs.

While Yesalis says drug use at the elite level is "epidemic," steroid and
supplement use is not confined to professional athletes and Olympians. The
aerobics teacher at the local gym, the county firefighter and the junior
high school student may all be looking for a way to boost performance,
Yesalis said.

Yesalis' research shows that between 4 and 12 percent of high school boys
have admitted to taking some form of steroids. Other research shows that
steroid use among high school girls is on the rise as women are getting
remarkable, albeit dangerous, results with increased amounts of testosterone.

Despite state-of-the-art testing at the 1996 Summer Olympics and a $20
million annual drug-testing budget, the IOC agrees drugs continue to aid
Olympians' performance.

The IOC's meetings currently under way are investigating the possibility of
developing the first worldwide anti-doping agency to begin by late 1999.
The agency is intended to create uniform testing standards and sanctions in
amateur sports worldwide.

"We think at the moment what is going on is dangerous for the future of
sport," IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch said. "If one country develops
one law and another has a different law with different sanctions, it is not
the best way."

Said USOC Executive Director Dick Schultz: "There is no doubt in my mind
that athletes must not be allowed to gain an unfair advantage through the
use of drugs. The USOC remains committed to a policy of zero tolerance for
the use of drugs by American athletes because competition at all levels
must be safe and fair."

At this week's IOC summit in Switzerland, an IOC panel proposed that
athletes face lifetime bans and fines of up to $1 million in serious cases
of intentional doping. The suggestion was immediately met with dissension
from several governing bodies.

This situation didn't happen overnight. As the stakes became higher, so did
the number of athletes who sought performance-enhancing drugs. Big
contracts, endorsement potential and the increasing prominence of sports in
American culture helped make athletes incorporate drug use into their
routines.

Performance enhancement has received the most attention in the Olympics,
where an athlete has one shot every four years to earn medals, fame, and,
sometimes, fortune. In the marathon of the 1904 Games, winning American
Thomas Hicks was aided by a cocktail of "stimulating strychnine and
courage-inspiring brandy." By the 1960 Games, Soviet and American
weightlifters and shot-putters were taking anabolic steroids, according to
Yesalis.

By 1968, sprinters and distance runners had caught on to the then- legal
drugs. Bill Toomey, 1968 decathlon gold medalist and Sullivan Award winner,
freely admitted his performance was drug-aided. A survey of 1972 Olympians
revealed that 68 percent of the participants had used steroids.

In the NFL, where strength, speed, and size is at a premium, steroid use
escalated in the 1970s.

Former Pittsburgh Steelers offensive lineman Steve Courson took the drugs
but is now an outspoken critic of them. Courson has had numerous health
problems, including severe heart disease, since retiring from the NFL in
the early 1980s.

"It was a reflection of your commitment to football," he said recently. "I
have regrets that I sold out to the system, that I was so gung-ho that I
turned myself into a biochemical machine and complied with the
win-at-all-costs directive."

It wasn't until the 1976 Summer Games in Montreal that the Olympics began
full-scale drug testing. The NCAA instituted testing in 1986.

In 1987, the NFL began testing for steroids, with the first suspensions
levied in 1989 and random testing instituted in 1990. Within the past few
years, the league has increased testing and penalties, which could include
a one-year suspension.

"No question, year-round random testing has been effective," said NFL
spokesman Greg Aiello. "Steroid abuse has been on a fairly steady decline
for years, with just a handful of players testing positive. It is down from
where it was in the early 1990s."

But no testing system is foolproof. When an athlete suddenly turns in the
best performance of their careers, there is always a suspicion of drugs.

Consider Ben Johnson, the Canadian sprinter who had his gold medal in the
100 meters in Seoul revoked after testing positive for steroids. Some
experts have said almost all of the sprinters on the track had taken some
form of drugs at some time and that Johnson was simply unlucky. Said one
anonymous Soviet coach: "I feel sorry for Ben Johnson. All sportsmen, or at
least 90 percent, including our own, use drugs."

Then there were the East Germans, who won 11 of 13 women's swimming events
in Montreal in 1976 and continued to dominate swimming through the 1988
Games. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, documents were released revealing
massive doses of steroids - about 10 times what Johnson was accused of
taking in Seoul - were given to the swimmers and track and field athletes
by the communist government. Some of the women began taking the drugs as
early as 14. Athletes who couldn't tolerate steroids were kicked out of the
program.

"It was true body engineering," Werner Franke, a Heidelberg biologist, said
in a 1991 interview. He said athletes used the drugs year-round, carefully
weaning themselves from steroids in time test negatively just after a
competition.

No East German swimmer tested positive at a big competition. After the
unification of Germany, many East German coaches moved to China, where the
women's national swimming team prompted strong rumors of drug use -
onlookers waved syringes at the medal ceremony - when it surprisingly won
12 gold medals at the 1994 World Championships in Rome.

Chinese officials attributed the success to rigorous training and a diet
boosted by caterpillar fungus and stewed soft-shell turtle.

Nonetheless, 27 Chinese women swimmers - more than the combined total of
all other nations - have flunked drug tests since 1990, making the Chinese
team a non-factor at the 1996 Olympics.

Even though the Chinese were exposed, dozens of others have not and will
not be caught, says Yesalis.

"Athletes snicker and call Atlanta `the growth hormone Games,' " he said.
Human growth hormone is the latest wonder drug. It has effects similar to
steroids but is undetectable with today's testing.

Another drug rising in popularity is erythropoietin (EPO), a banned but
undetectable hormone that increases oxygen flow to red blood cells. It
replaces the old blood doping tactics in endurance sports such as cycling.

There are also a myriad of masking agents and diuretics, some banned,
available to cover up or flush out the drugs. Yesalis says it is not
unheard of for athletes to catheterize themselves to remove tainted urine
or for a woman athlete to take a test with a balloon full of someone else's
urine hidden in her vagina.

Until the urine test is universally replaced by blood tests, as some
critics are calling for, athletes will be able to beat the system.

"If the monitors can't keep up with the dopers, then those who don't take
it have to be that much more talented," says Dr. Peter Ubel, a medical
ethics specialist at the University of Pennsylvania. "It is hard to know
where to draw the line {between taking drugs or not}."

Ubel said one reason athletes are willing to jeopardize their health to
take drugs is the value our society places on physical enhancement.

"This is clearly a problem in competitive industries," he said. "Not just
in sports, but in Hollywood and modeling, where the only way you can get an
advantage is by doing something unnatural to your body."

Both Yesalis and Ubel agree the issue could escalate into the biomedical
engineering of producing better athletes.

"I think of the old show `The Six Million Dollar Man,' " said Yesalis. "I
think if there were biomechanics that could help an athlete, one would take
advantage of it. But so would others. If {a writer} had a pill that would
help him win the Pulitzer Prize, don't you think he would take it? Even if
he knew there was a small risk to his health?"

Mel Williams, professor of exercise science at Old Dominion University,
says he believes genetic engineering to build a better athlete is on the
horizon.

Dr. Williams is the author of "The Ergogenics Edge: Pushing the Limits of
Sports Performance," a book that details how athletes can enhance their
performance with nutritional, psychological, biomechanical and even
pharmacological aids and stay within the rules.

Williams believes there is a place for some enhancements in sports but
points out drugs will not work if the athlete doesn't have the right
components. It starts with being genetically blessed with the right body
type for a particular sport. He said training, nutrition, psychological
tactics and today's advanced equipment, such as state- of-the-art shoes or
rackets, also are important.

"Athletes today get a whole team fine-tuning them," Williams said. "In some
ways, they are healthier than ever. There are trainers, nutritionists,
chiropractors working on them. It is a $1 million machine."

But often, it isn't nearly enough.

"I'd say athletes are like the rest of us," Yesalis said. "They are willing
to push it to the limit at their job just like anyone else in this
high-stress world."