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'You can't hide' Drug-testing program should make cheaters easier to catchPosted: Monday February 04, 2002 7:18 PMSALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- From a red brick building near a discreet back entrance to the Olympic village, Don Catlin will try to make the Salt Lake City Olympics as clean as a Utah snowfall. Catlin runs the UCLA doping control laboratory that for years has tested athletes' urine and blood samples for the U.S. Olympic Committee, the NFL, the NCAA and other clients. This month, his team of analysts is running a temporary lab on the University of Utah campus in what organizers say is the most rigorous Olympic drug testing effort ever. Catlin's team will be able to accept a sample during the Feb. 8-24 Winter Olympics and determine the results within 24 hours. Olympic officials hope to weed out cheaters from the field of 2,500 athletes. They're looking for anyone using illicit stimulants, diuretics, narcotics or the endurance-boosting hormone EPO. "I'd worry about athletes who aren't here," Catlin said Monday. "If I were on drugs and I knew when I step foot in the village that I could be tested, I'm not going to step foot in the village." The opening ceremony won't take place until Friday, but doping already has made news leading up to the Olympics. American bobsled pusher Pavle Jovanovic and Latvian bobsled driver Sandis Prusis have appealed doping results that made them ineligible for the games. Rulings are expected this week. Last week, Estonian cross-country skier Kristina Smigun was reinstated following a positive doping result. The error occurred because Italian officials goofed on her test, believing the sample came from a man. At a news conference Monday, World Anti-Doping Agency president Dick Pound tried to reassure athletes the system is sound. He said competitors won't face an unfair playing field because of unscrupulous rivals. "There is a system in place to catch people who cheat," Pound said. "We want to foster an environment where you can run but you can't hide." In the past, the International Olympic Committee has been accused of ignoring drug problems or even covering them up to protect the games. No more, according to those responsible for catching the bad guys. To Catlin, the biggest difference, besides the creation of WADA, is that national organizing committees are finally taking the problem seriously. "Dick Pound and WADA are trying to raise the bar, cutting off more and more avenues of escape," he said. "It's not perfect yet, but it's moving. We've got allies now. Before, we were out there on our own." Pound, meanwhile, pointed out that new IOC president Jacque Rogge has advocated improved doping controls, and he promised that anti-drug measures in Salt Lake City will be "unprecedented." "We will have the same number of observers as we had in Sydney" at the 2000 Summer Olympics, Pound said. "But as you know, Sydney was four times the size of the winter games." Another lesson from the Australian games that will be applied in Salt Lake is the use of independent observers, each with medical backgrounds and expertise in doping controls. They will monitor testing at the UCLA lab. "There is an enormous amount of deterrence," Catlin said. "WADA is not just blowing smoke. They're serious, and there is a lot of testing going on here. Is it enough? Probably not, but it's a lot more than it was." For the first time at the Olympics, every endurance athlete will be tested for EPO, or erythropoietin. That's as many as 800 competitors in cross-country skiing, biathlon, Nordic combined and speedskating. On-site testing facilities will be operating at two outlying venues: Soldier Hollow, site of Nordic skiing and biathlon, and the Utah Olympic Oval, site of speedskating. Pound said the goal is simple: Eliminate cheaters. "We're going after them," Pound said. "Here in Salt Lake at the Olympics, you should be looking at heroes, not just winners. Anybody who wins should live up to the Olympic ideals."
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