Ever since the beginning of the definition of sport, some athletes have used some sort of doping. In ancient Olympics in Greece athletes experimented with herbal medications to enhance their performances. They also drank wine potions, used hallucinogens – often mushrooms, and ate animal hearts or testicles just to get an edge over their competitors.
In newer sport history less, innocent drugs were used. French cyclists were known to use coca leaf extracts and wine. Later cocaine, strychnine and heroin were used. In 1904 the American track and field athlete almost died after using strychnine at the 1904 Summer Olympic Games in the USA. He collapsed at the finish line after ingesting two doses of the now banned substances.
1960s – the rise of synthetic performance-enhancing drug and deaths
The 1960s marked a turning point in doping history with the advent of synthetic performance-enhancing drugs. Amphetamines, anabolic steroids, and other substances found their way into the world of sports. Athletes, coaches, and sports organizations began to realize the potential benefits of these substances in enhancing strength, speed, and endurance.
But it was not without a cost. During the Olympic Summer Games in Rome in 1960, the Danish cyclist Knud Enemark Jensen collapsed and fell from the effects of heatstroke, hitting his head.
He was quickly taken by military ambulance to Sant Eugenio Hospital but fell into a coma and died later that day.
According to the IOC website, the cause of death was listed as a brain injury secondary to a skull fracture from the fall. However, great controversy surrounded the incident, as a trainer for the Danish team admitted that he had given the riders Roniacol, an amphetamine-like substance that acts as a peripheral vasodilator, although he later retracted that statement. Initial reports from the hospital noted that Enemark Jensen’s toxicology screen contained multiple drugs, including various amphetamines.
The result of the death of the Danish cyclist was that the International Olympic Committee began testing for drugs at the 1968 Olympic Games.
Another athlete who also became a victim of drug use, was the British cyclist Tom Simpson. In the morning before the 13th stage of the 1968 version of the Tour de France, Simpson takes a cocktail of alcohol and amphetamine. Under extreme heat on the way up Mont Ventoux that cocktail ends his life only 29 years old. His passing prompted increased scrutiny of doping practices.
1970s and 80s – the steroid era
Anabolic steroids were a major factor in the rise of doping in the 1970s and 1980s. These synthetic hormones, which mimic the effects of testosterone, were used by athletes to increase muscle mass, strength, and endurance. Anabolic steroids became increasingly popular among athletes in various sports, including bodybuilding, weightlifting, and track and field.
The East German state-sponsored doping program during this period was one of the most notorious examples of systematic doping in sports history. The program, which was overseen by the East German government, provided athletes with PEDs and other performance-enhancing substances to achieve sporting dominance. East German athletes won numerous medals at the Olympics and other international competitions, but the long-term health consequences of their doping were devastating.
Andrea Pollack, who captured two Olympic gold medals with the 1976 East German women’s swimming team, died in March 2019 of cancer at age 57, according to Swimming World Magazine. In 1988 Pollack publicly accused her coach and physicians for giving her performance enhancing drugs without her knowledge.
Pollack was systematically doped as a teenager with Oral-Turinabol (dehydrochloromethyltestosterone), an anabolic steroid.
Other Eastern German athletes has reported miscarriages, heart failures, liver tumors and more. Female athletes also reported that they had given birth to children with club feet or other defects, according to Global Sport Matters.
In 1988 the steroid use got a face when the Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson broke the world record in the 100-meter race at the Olympic Games in Seoul in South Korea. However, just hours later the chocking, but maybe not surprising, news broke that Ben Johnson had used steroids – namely Stanozolol.
When someone as prominent as Ben Johnson is being caught as a cheater at the most prestigious event at the Summer Olympic Games, the IOC couldn’t say there wasn’t a doping problem in sport.
It would take another ten years and another big scandal to setup an international Anti-Doping Organization.
1990s – the blood booster decade
Erythropoietin (EPO) was first isolated from the urine of anemic patients in 1977 by two Finnish scientists, Eva Bonsdorff and Eeva Jalavisto. Its gene was later isolated in 1983, and recombinant human erythropoietin (rHuEPO) was first produced in 1985. EPO became widely available in the 1990s and was used by athletes to enhance their performance, particularly in endurance sports.
The use of EPO began in the 1980s. It quickly became a popular doping agent among endurance athletes. In the 1990s its usage increased. Especially in endurance sports.
And how widely used it was becoming clear during the Tour de France in 1998.
Soigneur Willy Voet of the pro cycle team Festina was stopped by French customs on July 8, 1998. In the car they found anabolic steroids, EPO, syringes and other products. Festina was not the only team on the Tour who transported PEDs. Ten days after Voet was stopped by customs, French police found 104 ampules of EPO in a car belonging to pro-team TVM.
Results of the analysis of the samples taken from the nine Festine riders revealed evidence of Human Growth Hormone, amphetamines, steroids, corticoids and EPO.
The Festina affair, as it has later been dubbed, was the incident that sparked the idea of finally setting up a global Anti-Doping Organization. A year later World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) was created.
2000s – Doping Operations and designer drugs
A year into the new millennium the Balco scandal rocked US sport. And not only the Olympic sports, but also Baseball. Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (Balco) was run by Victor Conte.
Balco came up with the design steroid THG which was undetectable until someone sent a syringe with THG in it to the US Anti-Doping Agency. Once that was in place, things really started rolling.
Conte had many large profiles as clients. One being baseball start Barry Bonds, and another being Olympic Champion and sprinter Marion Jones.
The latter won five Olympic gold medals at the games in Sydney in 2000, she was stripped of all medals.
Balco is not the only big operation that rocked sport in the first two decades of the 2000. It was however the one who involved the biggest names in sports.
2006 – an exceptional year
2006 was really a year to remember when it comes to doping in sport. During the Olympic Winter Games in Turin, Italy, the Italian police raided the rooms of Austrian skiers at the request of the International Olympic Committee. In the rooms police found syringes, blood bags, bottles of saline solution and other materials that the Torino state prosecutor concluded were being used for blood transfusions.
That raid started a police chase of the Austrian cross country coach Walter Mayer. He fled the Olympic village in a car trying to escape to his home country. Only to be caught in the town of Paternion some 250 miles from Torino.
The dust hadn’t even settled before another big doping scandal came. This time, again, in cycling: Operation Puerto.
On May 23, 2006, Spanish law enforcement conducted raids as part of the operation. One of the persons involved was Eufemiano Fuentes. The Spanish doctor was accused of running a widespread doping network that involved numerous athletes, particularly in the sport of cycling. There were indications that athletes from sports such as soccer, tennis and track and field had used the services of Doctor Fuentes, but because the evidence was destructed, no athletes from any of these sports were publicly disclosed.
During the raid, police found thousand doses of anabolic steroids, 100 packets of blood products, and machines to manipulate and transfuse them.
The Spanish newspaper El Mundo described the program created by Fuentes as: riders would visit Fuentes a few weeks before a race and have blood removed. Fuentes would then run the blood through a centrifuge, separating the blood plasma from the red blood cells. The cells would be re-injected shortly before competition, boosting resistance to fatigue. This is a typical description of blood doping.
The website Cyclingnews.com believes Operation Puerto to be more significant than the 1998 Festina Affair. This because it uncovered a pervasive culture of sophisticated doping going on in professional cycling.
The operation really got attention on the start of Tour de France that year when riders like Jan Ullrich (Germany) and Ivan Basso (Italy) were told to leave the competition because their names were mentioned in the police reports.
In the same competition US pro cyclist Floyd Landis tested positive for synthetic testosterone during the Tour de France. This would later be the start of the decline of another Tour de France winner – Lance Armstrong.
2010s - the revelation of the biggest scandals
The years between 2010 and 2020 will be remembered for at least two big doping scandals or operations. The US Postal Service Pro Cycling Team Doping Scandal and the Sochi 2014 Sample swap scheme.
US Postal Service Pro Cycling Team Doping Scandal
There had always been rumors around seven-time winner of the Tour de France, Lance Armstrong. The American won the biggest of all Grand Tour cycling competitions from 1999 to 2005.
Most people hoped to believe that Armstrong did compete clean, but some people who had been close to him did tell other stories. The pro cyclist always denied any wrongdoing.
In 2006 when Floyd Landis was caught for doping, things would slowly start to change for Armstrong.
Landis claimed he had done nothing wrong up until 2010. In May that year the former pro cyclist sent emails to cycling officials and sponsors – including USA Cycling and the International Cycling Union (UCI). In the letter he wrote about his own doping practices and accused other riders to do the same – including Lance Armstrong.
The investigation that followed resulted in a lifetime ban for Armstrong who also was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles.
Armstrong continued to claim his innocent until 2013. That year he appeared in an interview with Oprah Winfrey where he confessed to have used performance-enhancing drugs and methods throughout his cycling career.
The Armstrong case has later been dubbed as the “US Postal Service Pro Cycling Team Doping Scandal”.
The Sochi 2014 Doping Scandal
No doping operation in sport has been more sophisticated than the one Russia put into action before and during the Olympic Winter Games in Sochi in 2014.
The goal of the whole operation was to make sure that any Russian medalists would return a negative sample. This was made possible thanks to a system where urine samples collected during the Winter Games were swapped with clean samples provided long before the Games.
The swapping system involved agents from the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), a hole in a wall and a whistleblower named Grigory Rodchenkov.
Rodchenkov was the former director of the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory. He had also set up a doping program involving a cocktail of banned substances.
According to a report done by the Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren, more than 1000 Russian athletes across various sports were involved or benefited from the doping scheme. This number includes athletes who participated in the Sochi Games as well as those in other competitions.
2020s the decade of Intelligence and investigation
As of writing we are soon entering 2024 and this decade hasn’t revealed any big operations or doping scandals. Not like the ones described in this article.
However. There are voices out there telling us athletes do use prohibited substances and that they are currently not being caught.
In a recent Webinar, Richard McLaren claimed that most of the athletes being banned now, is a result of use of intelligence and not from sample collection. The WADA accredited laboratories statistics for 2021 show there is a decrease in the total percentage of AAFs: 0.67% in 2020 (1,009 AAFs from 149,758 samples) to 0.65% (1,560 AAFs from 241,430 samples).
An example of using intelligence and investigation is the Operation Carousel. This operation was run by the Investigation & Intelligence department at WADA. They investigated the National Anti-Doping Agency of India. It was launched in 2018 after WADA found a strange pattern in Indian sport. The investigators found it odd that Indian athletes went incommunicado after stunning performances. WADA also noticed that athletes from India had a sudden and magical improvement of performances. At the same time, they were not caught for doping. After the Jakarta Asian Games in 2018 no Indian athletes faced a single out-of-competition doping test.
That practice changed after WADA started investigating the anti-doping work in India.
In a report WADA published in July 2023 they wrote that the Investigation and intelligence department at WADA had found that the testing program of NADA India were not in accordance with the World Anti-Doping Code.
The work done by the I&I department at WADA resulted in that NADA India had discovered and recorded 97 whereabout failures against 70 athletes. NADA India had also employed a dedicated investigator and two intelligence staff.
Resources:
Sports and Drugs – Historical timeline: https://sportsanddrugs.procon.org/historical-timeline
Knud Enemark Jensen: https://olympics.com/en/athletes/knud-enemark-jensen
Tom Simpson: https://cycling.today/put-me-back-on-my-bike-remembering-tom-simpson/
Operation Puerto: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operaci%C3%B3n_Puerto_doping_case
Timeline of Operation Puerto: https://www.cyclingnews.com/features/time-line-of-operacion-puerto/
Major cases in WADA’s first decade: https://www.reuters.com/article/doping-wada-cases-idUKLL1288020091106/
USADA – U.S. Postal Service Cycling Team Investigation - https://www.usada.org/athletes/results/u-s-postal-service-pro-cycling-team-investigation/
The McLaren Independent Investigation Report – Part 1: https://www.wada-ama.org/en/resources/mclaren-independent-investigation-report-part-i
The Operation Carousel Report: https://www.wada-ama.org/en/resources/operation-carousel-investigation-report
2021 Anti-Doping Testing Figures – published January 2023: https://www.wada-ama.org/sites/default/files/2023-01/2021_anti-doping_testing_figures_en.pdf