Not in Atlanta, yes in Sydney

1996/05/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Osasuna

At the Atlanta Olympic Games, athletes cannot be punished for the use of a prohibited substance in erythropoyet. To punish it, it is necessary to detect the prohibited substance in the blood and although the groups of researchers are working, they have not yet prepared a reliable test to detect this hormone.

This hormone, called EPO, is secreted by the kidneys and has the function of forming red blood cells. Athletes currently use two red blood cell reproductive pathways: by injecting hormone (artificially) or training at altitude (naturally). Thanks to this reproduction, athletes get better oxygenation in long-term sports tests, allowing them to get better performance.

During the studies of detection of the substance EPO, they found in the blood of athletes who injected the synthetic version of the protein a peculiarity: in them a type of protein was produced more than in those who did not artificially take the hormone. Therefore, scientists consider that the development of the doping test consists in checking the degree of concentration of this substance.

However, for the moment, the tests must be performed to the athletes when they are taking the substance EPO, since once taken the tracks disappear. However, researchers have announced that the doping test for the Sydney Games will be near.