|
Definition: "An ergogenic aid is any substance or phenomenon that enhances performance "
|
|
||||||||
08.02.2012 |
|
|
Weird samples
That's impossible of course; the human body produces steroid hormones, whether you like it or not. At the same time they noticed that the sample contained high concentrations of hordenine, a phenol shown below.
Hordenine is found in barley [Hordeum vulgare]. Because beer is made from barley the researchers took another look at the sample, and found that it contained 0.015 percent alcohol by volume. Ergo: the ‘urine sample' was actually alcohol-free beer.
Sample #2 – shown here on the photo – was green. Although green urine is pretty rare, there was nothing wrong with the sample. The athlete had taken methylene blue, a malaria medicine, virus inhibitor and potential medicine for Alzheimer's. Methylene blue colours the urine.
Left and right on the photo you see red urine samples. These had not been tampered with either. The red colour of sample #1 was caused by haemoglobin, the protein that transports oxygen. Doping hunters find this regularly in samples taken from karatekas who've taken large numbers of kicks.
Lastly, Thevis describes four urine samples that did come from official samples taken from the bladders of different athletes. The steroid concentrations in the sample were very similar in all four. So similar that the analysts didn't trust them.
That's why they analysed the samples again, but this time they looked at the DNA. This showed that the four samples all came from one person: the woman at the sports organisation who was in charge of collecting the samples.
Source:
More:
|
|
