High Levels of Blood Doping in Cross-Country Skiers

More than one-third of elite cross-country skiers in the finals result lists in 2001 Nordic World Ski Championships -- including half of the medal winners -- showed evidence highly suggestive of illegal blood doping, reports a study in the May Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine.

A research team led by Dr. James Stray-Gundersen and colleague Tapio Videman of University of Alberta analyzed blood samples from the top 50 competitors over a total of nine races. Laboratory tests focused on identifying abnormally high levels of erythrocytes and reticulocytes, the oxygen-carrying cells of the blood. Blood doping has been shown to be highly effective in improving competitors' results. In its most modern form, athletes use genetically manufactured hormones called erythropoietins to increase the oxygen-carrying capacity of their blood.

Overall, 36 percent of the skiers among the top 50 finishers had abnormal test results indicating blood doping, and 50 percent of the medal winners had highly abnormal values. Such highly abnormal blood values would be expected to occur in only about 0.3 percent of the population. Of the skiers finishing from fortieth to fiftieth place, only three percent had highly abnormal blood values.

Blood doping has become a major concern in elite athletics. At the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, three cross-country skiers tested positive for blood doping. Alarmingly, newly available erythropoeitin drugs such as darbopoetin alfa--developed for use in patients with kidney failure--have found their way into the hands of athletes only months after their release for medical use.

The researchers conclude that "blood doping is both prevalent and effective in cross-country ski racing, and current testing programs for blood doping are ineffective." Blood doping can enhance performance by up to ten percent--more than enough to turn around the results of elite-level competitions. "When large monetary rewards for a top finish and the efficacy of blood doping are coupled with international sports organizations' ineptitude or unwillingness to deal with this issue, the temptation for athletes is great," Dr. Stray-Gundersen and colleagues write.

The researchers call for effective new approaches to detect and deter the use of blood doping by elite athletes. They believe that such measures are needed not only to ensure competitive fairness in elite athletics, but also to promote safety and "develop higher ethical perspectives for the next generation of competitors."

Blood Doping in Cross-Country Skiers: some questions and answers

Dr. Tapio Videman, co-author of the new Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine study, responds to a few questions about the problem of blood doping in elite cross-country skiing:

Question: How effective is blood doping?Dr. Videman: "Its use can readily move a skier from the bottom 10 to the medal podium in a typical World Cup race."

Question: Can't we detect blood doping using current scientific tests?Dr. Videman: "Doping tests in use today are not able to catch a well-informed athlete who dopes, and top athletes have access to cutting edge doping methods. Since modern doping methods focus on the use of genetically manufactured substances that are identical to those found naturally in humans, the rationale to continue current doping tests in endurance sport based on the identification of foreign substances in the body should be questioned."

Question: How much more prevalent is doping in cross-country skiing compared to other sports?Dr. Videman: "It would be unfair to ski sport to think that blood doping is a problem only in ski races, and that other events where no blood testing has been done would be clean."

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