Catching the Dopers

Cakir Alptekin

Over the last couple of months, 2013, is proving to be a successful year in catching the dopers.

The extent of the Russian ‘doping scandal’ becomes more evident as more and more cheaters are exposed via the retesting of samples from 2005.

Before the London Olympics, there were murmurings about the performances of the Turkish females over 1500m, with doubt and trepidation expressed about their sudden level of excellence in the Diamond League. People stated openly, that due to the athlete being caught for ‘performance enhancing drugs’ as a junior that they believed the person in question was no doubt ‘at it again’.

When they won the Olympic Gold over 1500m, it left a sour tastes in many a mouth and even I mentioned that it would be a matter of time before all things would catch up.

Well; it did take longer on this occasion as the athlete in question, Cakir Alptekin, was announced as having ‘abnormalities’ in during her biological passport testing.

This to a great degree shows that the Biological Passport system is working and we are expecting there to be more ‘positives’ to come from Turkey, especially as there was a sudden surge in performances coming from their athletes.

The Biological passports work on the system of creating a profile for each athlete, so instead of testing for specific, performance-enhancing drugs, they are able to monitor the change in the athlete’s records and if the changes are sufficient then a doping case will be opened.

I am of the firm belief that athletes should sign an affidavit stating that they are not cheating and that if after a period of years they are proven to have cheated, a criminal case should be opened, as too many athletes are willing to run the gauntlet of trying to beat the system, where a 2 year ban does not prove to be sufficient a deterrent.