WADA report throws light on more drug use

Bengaluru, August 28: Over 30 per cent of athletes who competed at the Daegu World Championships and Doha Pan-Arab Games held in 2011 admitted to having used banned substances in the past, according to a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)-commissioned study released on Tuesday.

The study, conducted by researchers from Germany's University of Tuebingen and Harvard Medical School in 2011, found that more than 30 per cent of World Championship participants and over 45 percent of athletes at the Pan-Arab Games said they had taken banned drugs.

The researchers asked a total of 2,167 athletes whether they had used banned substances. A combined total of 5,187 athletes competed at those two events.

A process of indirect questioning was used for the study titled "Doping in Two Elite Athletics Competitions Assessed by Randomized-Response Surveys" in order to guard the athletes' anonymity.

More than 90 per cent of athletes asked to take part agreed to do so.

Only 0.5 per cent of drugs tests in Daegu were positive, while the figure was 3.6 per cent at the Pan-Arab Games.

"The study shows that biological tests of blood and urine reveal only a fraction of doping cases," said Harrison Pope, Harvard Medical School professor.

"As described in the publication this is likely due to the fact that athletes have found numerous ways so as not to be caught during tests."

The study's release had been delayed for years as the researchers wrangled with the WADA and the international association of athletics federations (IAAF) over how it was to be published, researchers said.

Athletics is desperate to improve its tarnished image after a doping scandal led to the banning of Russia's track and field team from the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

Reigning 100M world champion Justin Gatlin has once served a ban for using a banned substance.

Gatlin appealed against the ban on the grounds that the positive test had been due to medication that he had been taking since his childhood, when he was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. The appeal resulted in an early reinstatement by the IAAF.

But Gatlin is still seen as an offender and he was recently booed at London after his win at the World Championships in which he put to shade Jamaican star Usain Bolt in the latter's swansong race.