Drug tests catch Olympic athlete eight years late

It was a heavy blow for Belarus as Ivan Tsikhan, their champion hammer thrower, was withdrawn from the Olympic Games last week after he was found to have used banned substances to win silver in Athens eight years ago.

Drug cheats develop ever more sophisticated ways of avoiding detection while anti-doping authorities hurry to catch up. This game of cat and mouse gives the International Olympics Committee (IOC) reason to maintain an eight-year statute of limitations on drug-related offences.

However, anti-doping technologies may be so far behind that this statute could be extended to 14 years, says Andy Parkinson, chief executive of UK Anti-Doping.

Since Tsikhan won the silver medal in 2004, the IOC has implemented a number of new procedures to test for performance-enhancing substances, the most significant of which was the biological passport. This relies on regular monitoring of an athlete's biological functions to identify any suspicious changes.

There are also improved tests for so-called designer steroids and a class of drugs called CERA, which increase the production of red blood cells. One innovation introduced the week the London games started was an improved detection system for human growth hormone (HGH). The test identifies two biomarkers whose concentration in the body rises when synthetic HGH is present.

Which test caught Tsikhan out has yet to be confirmed.

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