How Easy is it to Dope in Sport?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 7 July 2015
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The global effort to prevent athletes using performance-enhancing drugs is vast and sophisticated. You might think, in this era of advanced testing, it would be almost impossible to cheat and get away with it. But is that really the case? Alberto Salazar, one of the world’s most successful coaches, has been accused of encouraging his athletes to dope. Salazar strongly denies the allegations. But the story has reignited concerns that, despite the efforts of the anti-doping authorities, cheating is still too easy in elite sport. The Inquiry hears from someone who sets the rules, someone who tests the rules and someone who broke the rules to find out if the dopers or the testers are winning.
(Photo: The starting line of an athletics track. Credit: Ben Stansall/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC World Service. This is Helen and Merriman with the inquiry. This week |
| 0:09.0 | THG Tetrahydrigestronone, insulin, insulin, |
| 0:12.0 | insulin, EPO, growth hormone, T3, the brand name |
| 0:17.6 | Cyto Mill. |
| 0:18.6 | How easy is it to dope in sport. |
| 0:34.0 | Last week, anti-doping agencies in Britain and the US began their investigations of top American coach Alberto Salazar. He's accused of giving performance enhancing drugs to his athletes. |
| 0:38.0 | He's strenuously denied the allegations in a 12,000 word document, but it's put doping under the spotlight once again. |
| 0:47.0 | It was only a few years ago that cyclist Lance Armstrong was banned from the sport for using |
| 0:55.2 | performance enhancing drugs throughout his career. |
| 0:59.8 | His was one of the highest profile cases ever detected. Others perhaps go unnoticed. |
| 1:08.7 | So this week we're going to dive into the world of steroids, stimulants and supplements as we ask how easy is it to |
| 1:17.2 | dope in sport. Part 1. How to cheat. |
| 1:30.0 | Oh, I've received postcards and anonymous messages. |
| 1:33.8 | You can't catch me. |
| 1:39.0 | If catching sports dopers is a game of cat and mouse. Michelle Varrokin is one of the most experienced |
| 1:45.1 | cats around. She was once an international corporal player. It's a more tactical |
| 1:50.2 | version of netball. Skills that stood her in good stead when she became head of |
| 1:54.8 | Britain's anti-doping organization. She did the job for 20 years. |
| 1:58.8 | I oversaw the introduction of the very first quality assured anti-doping program in the world |
| 2:09.6 | and then the introduction of the world anti-doping code. |
| 2:13.0 | She now runs a consultancy sporting integrity. |
| 2:17.0 | She's helped to develop anti-drug procedures at most |
... |
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