Written by The Tokyo Olympics are in trouble. The immediate issue is COVID-19. Case rates in Japan are rising while vaccination rates are low. It will take a logistical miracle to figure out protocols and rules on how to follow them effectively. Public pressure is mounting to cancel them altogether.
However, there is a more significant threat to the Olympics. Drug testing is failing. Testing was a disaster at the 2016 Rio Olympics and, if the games go on, it will likely be even more chaotic and controversial this time around.
The dopers have always had an advantage over the anti-doping agencies. We all know the stories of the East German swimmers, Lance Armstrong, and Russian state-sponsored doping programs. National and international doping agencies have been chasing their tails ever since. The problem is not the tests, as testing technology has matured. It is easier, faster, and cheaper now. And, as I will get into later in this article, it may be getting too good for our existing protocols to execute fairly.
Corruption doesn’t help, either. The initial controversy with the 2016 games was the refusal to give a blanket ban to Russia after revelations of their doping program. Then, coordination of testing during the Olympics was poor, and officials aborted almost half of the tests. There are too many testing agencies, and they don’t work together very well.
COVID-19 has made it impossible for the anti-doping agencies to meet commitments they had made after the Rio games, further complicating this year’s games. As a result, they will be even more reliant on testing during the games themselves. Testing stopped during the pandemic because most of the events leading up to the Olympics did not occur.
Protocols to prevent a superspreader event require athletes to arrive only five days ahead of their events. Unfortunately, budget cuts reduced the number of testers, and most of the issues from 2016 remain. Nevertheless, it is probably safe to assume that we have made about as much progress on stopping Russian state-sponsored doping as we have made on preventing Russian computer hacking.
A bigger and less-discussed problem is how contaminated, faulty, or overly sensitive tests are causing innocent athletes to endure the tragic impacts of false-positive tests.
Last November, I took a COVID-19 test to prepare for a trip to visit my daughter in Chicago. I wasn’t sick and expected a negative result that I could take with me to avoid quarantining when I arrived. Chicago considered Texas an “orange” state. Remember those days? We ended up canceling the trip due to enhanced restrictions put in place. I was surprised when I received an email with my positive test result. I served my ten-day house arrest and notified everyone I had been near. It wasn’t a big deal, and my follow-up test was negative. I was too cheap to pay for the antibody test, so I don’t know if I was infected.
It is not so simple if you have spent most of your life preparing for the Olympics or playing Major League Baseball, and you get surprising news of a positive test result for performance-enhancing drugs. Just ask Brenda Martinez or Kent Emanuel. They have had to defend themselves against the allegations while wearing the shameful and likely permanent label of being a cheater caused by protocols to discourage doping.
Today’s PED tests can catch almost anything and even the tiniest amounts of them. Because some substances clear the system quickly, the tests now reveal “metabolites” left behind indefinitely. Almost anything you eat or allow to enter your body can contaminate your system. Legal medicines can be compromised in their production process and show up on your test results.
That’s what happened to Martinez. A diuretic from a blood pressure medication contaminated her anti-depression medication, causing her positive test result. So not only did she have to defend herself from public scrutiny of a positive test, but she had to reveal her battle with depression, which is nobody’s business. Martinez has prepared nearly her entire life to run in the Olympics. Her depression started after disappointing results at Rio. She has told her story to the New York Times ahead of a decision by the World Anti-Doping Agency expected this month on how its policy handles positives caused by contaminants. The article tells stories of other athletes testing positive due to sex and eating beef.
Emanuel doesn’t know what caused his positive test result for “Oral-T.” However, it found a microscopic amount of a metabolite of the banned substance used primarily by Eastern European countries in the 70s and 80s. He served an 80-day suspension and is back with the Astros now but has been very convincing in defense of his reputation. He researched the topic extensively and posted this video on Instagram imploring Major League Baseball to make changes similar to what WADA is considering.
Emanuel wears number zero on his Astros uniform, representing a “zero percent chance he took PEDs.” His story is compelling. He explains how small the amount of substance found was, how curious the timeline was, and the financial consequences he endured for being removed from the Major League roster. However, it likely will be impossible for him to shake the reputation of someone who tested positive.
Mixed Martial Arts league UFC has been the leader in establishing thresholds and reforms to reporting protocols. It needs to be a model for the other leagues and anti-doping agencies to adopt.
It may be late to save this year’s Olympics, even if they happen. The train is too far off the tracks. Canceling the games will be tragic to the athletes and disappointing to the fans. Still, maybe it will be a blessing in disguise if it allows for meaningful reform to drug testing protocols and adequate preparation to be in place for the 2024 games.