Better technology and stricter rules have made egregious doping harder. In Tokyo, samples will be analysed by sophisticated chromatography to look for drugs or their metabolites. Biological passports will be scrutinised for indirect evidence of blood doping, which may reveal itself as suspicious changes in any of a dozen variables, including levels of haemoglobin (the oxygen-carrying molecule that gives blood its red colour), red-blood-cell count, and the proportion of those cells which are immature. Outside competitions, "whereabouts" rules mean elite athletes must keep antidoping authorities apprised of their movements, to permit unannounced tests.
更好的技術和更嚴格的規則已經使惡名昭彰的興奮劑的使用條件變得更加艱難。在東京,檢查人員將通過對樣品進行復雜的色譜分析來尋找藥物成分或其代謝物。同時還會通過仔細檢查生物護照來尋找血液興奮劑存在的間接證據,血液興奮劑可能會在十幾個變量中的其中一個中顯現出可疑的變化,這些變量包括血紅蛋白(使血液呈現紅色的載氧分子)的水平、紅細胞的數量、以及未成熟細胞的比例。除了比賽場上之外,“行蹤”規定意味著運動員必須將自己的行蹤告知反興奮劑機構,以便允許進行突擊檢測。
But record performances are not necessary for victory. Simply being better than your opponents on the day is enough. For that reason, subtler chemical assistance is still worth pursuing. One option is to experiment with new drugs. Sometimes, these are created deliberately to dodge the tests. In 2003 a syringe was posted anonymously to American anti-doping officials. It contained a new AAS nicknamed "The Clear", for which no test existed. This had been developed by a chemist called Patrick Arnold and supplied to athletes including Marion Jones, an American sprinter with a string of Olympic medals to her name, who admitted using it.
但是,打破紀錄的表現并不是勝利的必要條件,僅僅比對手更好就足夠了。因此,更不易察覺的化學道具仍值得研究。一種選擇是試驗新藥。有時,制造特定的新藥來躲避測試。2003年,美國反興奮劑官員收到了一位匿名人士寄來的注射器。該注射器包含一種新的原子吸收光譜(AAS),又名“透明原子吸收光譜”,目前還沒有針對它的測試。它由一位名叫帕特里克·阿諾德的化學家發明,并提供給了包括馬里恩·瓊斯在內的運動員。瑪麗安·瓊斯是一名美國短跑運動員,名下有無數枚奧運獎牌,她承認自己使用過它。
Most new drugs, though, are created by the pharmaceutical industry. Selective androgen receptor modulators (SARMs) are experimental drugs intended to provide similar benefits to AAS, but with fewer side-effects. Researchers hope they will help treat muscle-wasting diseases. But SARMs have attracted sporting interest too. Oliver Catlin runs the Banned Substances Control Group, an American firm which tests sports supplements for forbidden drugs. He points out that although more than a dozen SARMs are in development, tests exist for only a few of them, and only at the most advanced laboratories.
不過,大多數新藥都是由制藥工業制造的。選擇性雄激素受體調節劑(SARMs)是一種實驗性藥物,旨在提供與AAS類似的好處,但副作用更少。研究人員希望該藥物能夠幫助治療肌肉萎縮疾病。但SARMs也吸引了體育界的興趣。奧利弗·卡特林經營著一家名為“違禁物質控制集團”的美國公司,該公司負責檢測運動補充劑是否含有違禁藥物。他指出,目前有十幾種SARMs正在開發當中,而只有少數幾種SARMs能夠被測試出來,而且只在最先進的實驗室才能進行測試。
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