'Don’t cheat’ warning

Press, 26 July 1984, Page 21

'Don’t cheat’ warning

NZPA Los Angeles Drug tests for the Los Angeles Olympics will be the most stringent and fastest ever, according to the Games medical director, Dr Tony Daly. “We would like every athlete to have received this message: Don’t come (to Los Angeles) and try to test our system,” he warned at a press conference. About 1500 athletes, more than 25 per cent of the total competitors, are expected to

undergo dope tests. The top four finishers are tested and other are selected randomly. Every woman athlete will have a sex test before being allowed to compete. Urine samples will be taken by courier from Olympic venues to a new SNZ4M laboratory at the University of California, Los Angeles. Test results will be known within 24 hours — compared with two to four days in the past.

Eight gas chromotagraph mass spectrometers being used in the laboratory can detect drug levels as small as one part per billion. Daly said to avoid detection athletes would have to stop using anabolic steroids three to four months before competition. Stimulants could safely be used three to five days before an event. No test exists yet for monitoring human growth hormone levels in the blood.