An anti-doping sampling strategy utilizing the sewerage systems of sport villages.

It is widely accepted that modern athletics is blighted by the use of performance-enhancing substances that can give athletes a better physical condition and can help them win an important sports competition. A number of well-known athletes have been caught cheating and others, by refusing to undergo tests, raise suspicions about their use of such substances. In recent decades, a number of athletes have had to give back Olympic medals and, generally, the scale of concerns over doping is ruining sports. The World AntiDoping Agency (WADA) was established in 1999 with the mission “to promote, coordinate and monitor the fight against doping in sport in all its forms” (1). WADA regularly publishes updates of the list of prohibited substances, some of which can be detected by blood tests, however the biggest number of antidoping agents are detected by urine analysis (2). In the past, antidoping strategies were based on urine controls directly after a winning performance. However, it became more common for athletes to consume prohibited substances prior to the competition in order to improve their training performance, and to appear “clean” after the sport event. This made the antidoping authorities start random controls, even outside of competitions, but still this has not proven to be sufficient, because of the number of athletes and the fact that many unknown athletes emerge during a big event, making it to difficult to monitor them beforehand. Targeted testing has therefore become a necessary priority for WADA. Athletes that have shown unusually rapid improvement, or athletes associated with a trainer previously involved in doping scandals, are considered priorities (3). Recently, a very interesting study by Schroeder et al. (4) reported for the first time the occurrence of a large number of anabolic doping substances and other drugs (steroids, 2-agonists, stimulants, diuretic agents, and PDE V inhibitors) and selected metabolites in wastewaters. As a part of their study, they monitored wastewaters from a fitness center where the concentrations of these substances were particularly high, but also municipal wastewaters, where the concentrations were diluted, yet still detectable. The link of the aforementioned study with the sports community is that, for the first time, environmental monitoring strategies can help antidoping authorities enhance their targeted testing of athletes before and during major athletic events. The present paper presents a new concept for the construction of sewerage systems of athletic facilities, especially Olympic Villages, which can help in the fight against doping. Proposed Design. The concept of the present paper is that of back-tracking to the sources of prohibited substances that occur in a sewerage system (Figure 1). According to this scheme, an automated sampler (SX in Figure 1) is deployed at the point where effluents from each residence (R1-R8 of Figure 1) are discharged. Another sampler is deployed after every mixing point. The deployment of automated samplers at a number of sites at the sewerage system of a sports center (i.e., Olympic Villages) can help the antidoping authorities identify where the discharges are coming from and give a first indication of a group of athletes that could be involved in the use of prohibited substances. The results published by Schroeder et al. (4) showed prohibited substances can be detected at the wastewater discharges from the fitness center, but also at the municipal wastewater treatment plant, thus highly diluted. This suggests that if there is consumption of prohibited substances, this can be detected in the direct discharges of the athletes’ residence block, but also at a later point of the sewerage system. Thus, once something suspicious is detected at any point of the controlled sewerage system, then, by backanalyzing the various subsamples the controlling authorities can come close to doped athletes. Implications. This sampling strategy is not proposed as a substitution for the existing direct controls of athletes’ urine. It can be a complementary strategy, which if designed properly (bigger sample volumes in the morning or late evening, thus at times when people normally urinate) can increase the effectiveness of antidoping controls. During a major event like the Olympic Games, where thousands of * E-mail: [email protected]. RH ON DA SA UN DE RS Environ. Sci. Technol. 2011, 45, 362–363