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AFL launches war on drug cheats

By Mr Dandalooa

The AFL has stepped up its war on drug cheats and is poised to become the first Australian sports code to test for EPO (glycoprotein hormone erythropoietin), CERA (continuous erythropoietin receptor activators) and HGH (human growth hormone) under a new deal announced with the Australian Sport Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA).

EPO and CERA agents are blood-boosting hormones used to improve aerobic capacity while HGH is a powerful anabolic hormone that is known to increase muscle size and allow fatigued muscles to recover quicker.

Under the league’s expanded anti-doping code, more players will be tested this year than ever before with results held for at least 8 years after the testing, in case technology improves in the future.

In other new anti-doping measures announced this week, AFL football operations manager Adrian Anderson said the AFL would also conduct extensive blood testing and profiling and freeze samples obtained from players for a period of up to eight years.

The AFL, in conjunction with the ASADA, will conduct almost 1000 tests this year for performance enhancing drugs and will ask for every new player to be tested at some point this year too.

Anderson said the new measures were being taken to ensure the integrity of the sport.

“The AFL, through our medical commissioners Dr Peter Harcourt and Dr Harry Unglik, constantly works with ASADA to review our anti-doping strategy, to make sure it is in line with the leading anti-doping trends and work in international sports,” he said.

“Performance-enhancing drugs are a massive threat world-wide to sports and their integrity and we are determined to stay ahead of the game that is why we are entering into this agreement.

“Our commitment is that the AFL competition is conducted on the basis of athletic prowess and natural levels of fitness and development, and to set an example for all participants in Australian football by condemning the use of performance enhancing substances.”

ASADA acting head honcho Richard Ings said the new AFL deal would lead by example in Aussie sports and contained every element his agency had wanted.

“ASADA considers the AFL 2010 anti-doping program to be the gold standard of anti-doping programs in Australian sports,” Ings said.

“We must commend the AFL on the way they have approached the development of their anti-doping program for 2010.

“They wanted to take advantage of every anti-doping tool ASADA has to offer and show the football community and its supporters the investment the AFL is willing to make to achieve pure performance in the sport.”

Samples will be frozen for future testing to give the AFL the ability to retrospectively penalise players who used drugs that were currently unable to be detected, once the testing technology became more advanced in future years.

Anderson said it was possible that the AFL could use that power to strip teams of premiership points or players of honours such as the Brownlow Medal if new evidence surfaced of banned substance use.

The AFL has been applauded for becoming the first sporting code in Australia to test for human growth hormone.

However, other codes like NRL want more evidence that HGH is a danger to rugby before committing to the fight.

Ings said yesterday the AFL was leading the way by agreeing to blood-test its athletes this season and considers the AFL 2010 anti-doping program to be the gold standard of anti-doping programs in Australian sport.

Leading sports doctors say using HGH was a concern with one doctor warning the NRL was naive to think its players would not be using HGH - an anabolic agent used by athletes to enhance performance and recovery from injury - while the players’ union has warned it would block any attempt to introduce testing for it.

ASADA has the power to test for HGH but rarely does because of the cost, while the NRL and its clubs do not look for it at all in any of their additional tests each season.

The strong anti-doping stance comes as Geelong AFL premiership player Mathew Stokes faces the Geelong Magistrates’ Court today on cocaine trafficking and possession charges.

The 25-year-old, who played in the Cats’ 2007 premiership-winning side, was charged along with five other men in a police operation in Geelong last month and has allegedly told police that he bought one gram of cocaine for $500 from a nightclub bouncer for a friend visiting from Darwin.

If convicted of the trafficking charge, Stokes faces a lifetime ban from AFL football under the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) code, to which the AFL is a signatory.

Stokes was charged after raids in Geelong where police seized more than $3,000 in cash and drugs worth an estimated $50,000 and after his name was mentioned in telephone intercepts during the operation.

Stokes, who began playing for Geelong in 2006 and has played 71 games with the club, was suspended until round 8 of the season and has been fined by the Cats $5,000.