Athletes competing at the 2008 Beijing Olympics will need to be
wary of positive drugs test when sampling some of China's
chemical-laden foods, a top Chinese doping expert has warned.
Some Chinese food is contaminated with banned drugs such as
anabolic steroids making a positive test a very real possibility,
said Yang Shumin, the former head of China's Olympic doping control
centre and an expert on anabolic steroids.
"Concern about it goes to the top of the Chinese Government,"
said Yang, now a researcher at the doping control centre advising
the government on food safety.
Athletes caught doping rarely confess, and invent dubious
stories about spiked food and drink or medicine that turned out to
contain banned substances.
"Those stories could be true in 2008," Yang said.
In China, food safety is a major issue for all. Many of the
hundreds of millions of China's farmers buy anabolic steroids for
their livestock and antibiotics for their fowl from salesmen
promising better prices for bigger pigs and healthier ducks.
Dangerous pesticides, fertilizers and chemical additives used to
beautify the produce also combine with heavy metals washed into the
food chain through contaminated rivers and streams.
Add to that poor hygiene and food handling, and the recipe for
regular mass food-poisoning outbreaks is complete.
In one recent case that raised alarm bells at BOCOG, 336 people
fell sick in Shanghai in September after eating pork contaminated
with anabolic steroids.
Sales of turbot, a popular flatfish, were also banned in parts
of eastern China this month after discovering they contained
high-levels of carcinogens stemming from antibiotics.
Other food scares have centered on duck eggs dyed with dangerous
chemicals and snails infested by parasites that brought down 90
Beijing diners with meningitis.
Although it is aware of the wider problem, the Chinese
leadership has focused on the Olympics, staking its prestige on
staging a drug-free Olympiad.
"The Chinese Government cares. They don't want to lose face
because of doping. And that does not just apply to Chinese
athletes. It applies to all athletes," said Yang. "So we are doing
our best to prevent any drugs getting into athletes' systems."
The government has issued what it calls a "dead order" - one
that must be obeyed at all costs - on food safety at the Olympic
village where most of the athletes will stay during the August 8-24
games. Any Chinese official caught flouting this rule will meet
with the severest punishment.
A high-tech surveillance system will be used to trace the entire
food supply chain for the athletes, from production and processing
to delivery at the village. However, problems may begin when
athletes step outside the sanitized confines of their temporary
home.
Chinese officials were stunned to hear that athletes taking part
in the World Junior Championships in Beijing in August ate raw meat
on the streets.
"This is very dangerous," he said. "Top athletes are very clear
about this. They won't buy anything they are not sure of."
(China Daily November 30, 2006)