The World Anti-Doping Agency, in uncovering a new designer steroid dubbed Desoxy-Methyl Testosterone or DMT, hopes it is a step ahead of athletes who cheat.
The Canada Border Services Agency, formerly Canada Customs, seized a bottle of the drug at the Canada-U.S. border at Coutts, Alta., in December, 2003. An anonymous e-mailer alerted WADA to the seizure and the organization worked with federal government scientists to determine it was a new form of performance-enhancing steroid.
"We believe that this one, DMT, hasn't been used and that we are, in this case, ahead of the dopers," said Olivier Rabin, director of science for WADA.
International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge, speaking at a news conference in Vancouver, agreed, adding that anti-doping authorities must vigilant against cheaters. "The discovery by WADA is a very good thing," said Rogge. "For me that leads to two conclusions. One, we have to continue to invest heavily into scientific research. Secondly . . . WADA and the Olympic movement have to have more intelligence and have to know what's really going on.
Christiane Ayotte, director of the WADA-accredited blood doping lab in Montreal, said re-tests of stored urine samples taken from athletes in recent months showed no trace of the drug and she believes it was caught before it went into general circulation. Further tests are underway to determine the exact properties and effects of DMT, but the structure of the molecule has been established and dope-testing centres around the world have been alerted to the drug, she added.
THG and Balco DMT appears to be a new generation of steroid from THG, the muscle-building compound discovered in 2003 that sparked a federal inquiry in the United States into the Balco Laboratory, the suspected source of the drug.
"It has been modified obviously to make it undetectable," Ayotte said, although she added it probably would have been caught by drug testers because of its methyl testosterone signature.
However, the complexity of the drug and the process needed to produce it suggests it was made by trained chemists with access to sophisticated lab facilities. "THG was a modification by a simple, one-step chemical reaction," she said. "But in this case, it's a several-step synthesis and they have used chemical reactions that are very dangerous.
"What it tells us is that we have a chemist with a very serious organic chemistry background helping the people who distribute steroids to athletes."
She said it was not known who produced the drug or who in Canada was to receive it, adding it was under investigation by Canadian and U.S. authorities.
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International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge, speaking at a news conference in Vancouver, agreed, adding that anti-doping authorities must vigilant against cheaters. "The discovery by WADA is a very good thing," said Rogge. "For me that leads to two conclusions. One, we have to continue to invest heavily into scientific research. Secondly . . . WADA and the Olympic movement have to have more intelligence and have to know what's really going on.
