Examination of Witnesses (Questions 240-250)
27 APRIL 2004
Mr David Moorcroft, Ms Helen Jacobs, and Mr Mark
Richardson
Q240 Chris Bryant: Do we do enough; or
do we not?
Ms Jacobs: I think you could always
do more.
Mr Moorcroft: Directly, UK Athletics
does not have a great deal to do with gyms. I think you are right,
in terms of the training for gym instructors and working with
some of the big corporate gym enterprises, it would be worth it.
What we try and do now—and probably Mark is a little bit
old for this!—in terms of coach education and the younger
athletes we are trying to create an environment where they are
excited by the prospect of being as good as they possibly can
be without taking drugs; that they see athletics as an exploration
of their abilities and limitations. We are trying to create that
environment and say that you can be the very best in that environment.
They may well go into a different environment which has a different
culture. We can only try and control the athlete through coaches
and clubs, and once they make the British junior team we are trying
to create that environment. I think that is now the prevalent
one; but I do not think it was necessarily in athletics 20 or
30 years ago.
Q241 Chris Bryant: Finally about coaches,
obviously the athlete themselves is the person who most knows
what has gone into their body. If you are a very determined and
pretty successful athlete you may want to go to the best coach
in the world, and it may be that that coach has a stable of people
and has a preponderance for using other means of winning; but
the coach may end up not being punished at all and it is only
the athlete who gets caught. Is that a problem?
Mr Moorcroft: Yes, strict liability
stops with the athlete. Very often, if there is a positive finding,
there is a web of deceit below the athlete. If there was a way
in which we could unravel that web that would be wonderful. It
is not easy, and maybe the case in the States at the moment will
illustrate whether or not that is possible. It becomes incredibly
difficult. There are occasions, I am sure, when athletes cheat
and their coach does not know about it; but equally I am sure
there are occasions when coach, agent, manager and a myriad of
people have been part of that deceit. By "athlete" I
am using the word generically. We always hate the fact that "athlete"
is used to describe sports people, but you know what I mean.
Q242 Mr Flook: If you take two athletes,
same build, same sport, same competition, same mental determination,
and you give one a good diet and the other one a fish and chip,
booze diet, what difference in performance would there be?
Mr Moorcroft: I came from the
fish and chip diet! Seb Coe came from the good diet generation!
Q243 Mr Flook: I was going to ask the
differential between the newer, younger athlete, Mr Richardson,
and the slightly older athlete!
Mr Richardson: To be honest, it
is very difficult to quantify those kinds of things because everyone
has different levels of natural ability. You can get someone who
abuses their body and eats all the wrong kinds of things but they
have so much latent talent that they defy all odds.
Q244 Mr Flook: If they were to then go
on to a first-rate legal diet, with all the right carbohydrates,
would it make a big difference to their ability?
Mr Richardson: You would have
to do some kind of scientific experiment.
Q245 Mr Flook: And that has not been
done?
Mr Moorcroft: Nutrition is a big
element in terms of preparation. If it makes a 1% difference,
that 1% is one second in a hundred seconds so in almost all races
that is significant. We do it for a number of reasons: one is
to minimise body fat, so people are as lean as they possibly can
be; also the better nutrients they have, the more likely that
will contribute towards them not breaking down as a consequence
of training very hard. The analogy nowadays is that an athlete
is seen rather like a Formula One car—if you are going to
treat a Formula One car with kid gloves and make sure that every
element of it you can control is the best possibly, you have to
have the same approach for athletes. The quality of nutritional
advice is much better than it used to be, and I think it does
make a difference but to quantify it is difficult.
Ms Jacobs: There is a huge amount
of research, but there is also an enormous number of factors.
Q246 Mr Flook: Because you have not taken
these drugs, what are your observations of those who do, when
you have spoken to people who have tested positive, as to how
much more of a bang they are looking for, even though they may
have been taking all the right legal things and right carbohydrates?
In their mind was it a big difference; was it a little difference?
If they were taking all the right dietary and legal supplements,
did they expect to do that much more or did they think it would
unnecessarily have an effect?
Mr Moorcroft: The worst elements
of drug abuse in my event, endurance, can increase your oxygen
carrying ability, and that has a very specific performance enhancement;
or, in certain events, increases muscle bulk, and that has a very
definite performance enhancement. You are now talking low levels
of Nandrolone of a bit of Ephedrine or whatever; this is cynical
cheating of the worst kind that has been around for 30 or 40 years
and is decreasing.
Q247 Mr Flook: Staying with that legal
diet, how much do we not know? Are people looking forward and
saying, "Well, if we keep doing this we'll keep tweaking
the Formula One body to a far greater extent and it'll be worth
doing it"? Or do you think we are reaching a ceiling in what
we know about how to enhance the body through legal dietary supplements?
Mr Richardson: Athlete sportsmen
and coaches are always looking for an edge, and science moves
so quickly—and I am talking about completely legal and legitimate
means—it keeps getting more and more advanced, and it will
do. There are new theories coming around. When I was an athlete
high protein was the way forward. They were saying a high protein
diet was really beneficial to people doing explosive events, but
I am sure that has changed now. You get these new fads. Scientific
research always supports these new things. You almost go full
circle, but there is always an advancement and I think it will
continue marching on legitimately.
Q248 Mr Flook: In other words, we do
not know everything that we could know?
Mr Richardson: No, not at the
moment.
Mr Moorcroft: There are some world
records in athletics that are probably beyond reach at the moment,
because of probable abuse in the 1970s. Equally, there are athletes—the
Paula Radcliffes and the Jonathan Edwards, and we can only speak
from a British perspective, and the Colin Jacksons—whom
we know have broken barriers and have raised the performance levels
legitimately. That gives great hope for sport.
Q249 Mr Flook: Moving quickly to the
illegal element—is there an arm's race going on between
you guys catching them up and those guys keeping ahead?
Mr Moorcroft: There will always
be cheating in every aspect of life, I am sure. I am sure it is
true in everything! Therefore, there will always be people who
will deliberately cheat; and there will always be people who will
inadvertently take something inappropriately. I think we are winning.
I think we are getting closer. It always frustrates me when you
hear of a laboratory that is developing a test for human growth
hormone that needs X amount more money, that that money cannot
be made available. I think sport is incredibly wealthy now—the
IAAFs and the IOCs—and there is always a need to invest
more and more in terms of research, as long as that is quality
research, and investing in more and better testing and doing it
not because we think athletes cheat but because they do not cheat
and we want to protect them.
Q250 Mr Flook: A level playing field?
Mr Moorcroft: Yes. It would be
naíve to think you could ever get rid of it.
Chairman: Thank you very much indeed.
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