00:00 File
footage – Olympic Athletes (from Athens Olympics EPK)
File
footage – Tri-Athletes
File
footage – Athens stadium under construction, exterior
File
footage – Athens stadium under construction, interior
Professor
Cowan enters Kings College London Drug Control Centre
C.U.
Sign on entrance door
Guide Voice: In less than 60 days many of the
world’s leading athletes, from a range of sporting
disciplines, will arrive in Athens for the 2004 Olympics.
In the wake of recent revelations about the anabolic steroid
THG, sporting bodies worldwide will be even more alert to the
importance of a full programme of in and out-of-competition
testing.
00:21 SOT: Professor David Cowan, Director of the Drug
Control Centre, King’s College London:
“The main group of substances that are probably most well
known are the anabolic agents. Anabolic steroids represent the
largest finding of prohibited substances misused in sport;
followed, then, by the stimulant drugs, drugs like amphetamine
through to cocaine. There’s also control of cannabis in
sport. Narcotic analgesics are banned. In some sports beta-blockers
are banned. There’s a range of substances that are likely to
enhance performance when used in sport and are also potentially
harmful when misused”.
00:59 Researchers
separating samples – various shots
C.U.
A & B samples
G.V.
Drug Control Centre staff at work – various shots
Guide Voice: For staff at the Drug Control
Centre at King’s College London this is all business as
usual. The Centre is the only International Olympic Committee
(IOC) accredited laboratory in the UK analysing urine samples from
sports competitors. There are only some 30 such laboratories in the
world and as well as being contracted to undertake all the urine
analysis for UK sport’s Anti-Doping Programme it regularly
handles analysis for sports organisations outside the UK.
The Centre will deal with all the pre-games drug testing on the
British team in the run up to the Olympics and Paralympics in
Athens. This is the most comprehensive pre-Games testing
programme ever for the UK Team and there will be at least one drug
test on every member of the British Olympic squad before the start
of the Games.
01:44 SOT: Professor David Cowan –
“In our system we have both an a-sample and a b-sample
and the b-sample remains untouched unless something is found in the
a-sample. So continuing in the a-sample we divide it into a number
of different portions and we carry out a whole range of different
screening tests. Most of the samples will pass all the screening
tests and that’s the end of it, that will then be a negative
result and a report will be issued and that’s the end of that
one. But perhaps 10% of samples will fail one or more screens and
will need to undergo confirmatory testing to see whether a
permitted substance is present or there is a prohibited substance
in the sample. The prohibited substance will be accurately
identified and then we’ll go and repeat the whole process on
another portion of that original a-sample that we’d opened.
Only if that second analysis of that a-sample confirms the first
finding will an adverse report be issued.”
02:40 Wide
– Prof. Cowan enters to discuss test results with
colleague
Prof.
Cowan and researcher discussing test results – various
shots
Guide Voice: If this happens the
‘B’ sample can confirm or refute the finding in the
‘A’ sample and the athlete has the right to be present
during the testing of the B sample.
So is it a constant battle to prevent some athletes from taking
performance enhancing drugs?
02:55 SOT: Prof. David Cowan: “The
science of drug control in sport is one of the things which makes
it particularly interesting for scientists here at King’s.
Scientists naturally want to discover the unknown and if the
competitors happen to be using new materials then yes, that is
interesting from a scientific point of view. From a control point
of view I think because people who misuse drugs keep on misusing
them then it’s quite likely that they are misusing them once
too often and will get caught. Often people think; “well the
scientists are way behind” but that’s not always the
case. For several substances methods have been developed in advance
of them being misused by an athlete”.
03:38 File
footage – pan across interior of Athens Stadium (under
construction).
Wide
of Research Staff at Drug Control Centre
C.U.
and pan along line of test tubes
Guide Voice: For many athletes the Athens
Olympics will be the pinnacle of their sporting career. The staff
at King’s Drug Control Centre are working to ensure that drug
use doesn’t make the few more competitive than the
majority.
03:55
End of cut piece
Additional Material
03:58 Set
of sample bottles
Single
A Sample bottle on counter
Wide
– samples selected for testing
Wide
– Researchers in lab
Athens
Olympics 2004 logo
04:31
End
