An e-mail dialogue Thursday morning reintroduced into my head a hot-button issue that made the media rounds a few years ago: the idea of tainted athletic supplementation.
The basic idea is that some dietary aid companies intentionally or unintentionally “spike” powders and pills with trace amounts of illegal compounds, either to A). Provide a brief marketing buzz about the great results users get, or B). Because factory lines that also manufacture controlled chemicals were cross-contaminated.
An Olympic-accredited lab in Cologne tested 634 supplements in 2000 and 2001: nearly 15% contained an ingredient that would likely cause an alarming cup of urine.
Needless to say, this fact did not go unnoticed by athletes who came up positive for banned substances. It was the perfect face-saving rebuttal: “I don’t use drugs. My protein shake must have had horse steroids in it.”
They could be telling the truth. But it doesn’t matter. They’re still at fault.
Let’s use bare-knuckle boxing great John L. Sullivan as an example. (Why John L. Sullivan? Because you can’t libel a dead person.) Sullivan trains to fight
Fedor Emelianenko. A few weeks before his fight, the state athletic commission says, ”Say, John, would you mind relieving yourself into this cup while we watch?” A few weeks after that, Sullivan is told his urine contains evidence that he’s been using drugs. Sullivan says, “Hey, man, I didn’t do it. Must’ve been my glutamine powder.”
As a highly-paid, highly-visible athlete, Sullivan knows that what he puts into his body is of priority consequence. In the same way athletes pour cups of oatmeal on a food scale to make sure their intake is ounce-accurate, they need to make absolutely certain the supplementation used is free of anything that could vaporize a payday -- or a career.
Sullivan could have stuck with a supplement brand audited by an independent party and confirmed to be free of any suspect ingredients. He also could have lab testing done on a specific factory run and then make sure he ingests only powder or pills from that batch.
Is that an expensive pain in the ass? Sure it is. So is a lengthy appeals process. So is a complete loss of a six or even seven-figure income.
Personal responsibility: let’s hope it catches on.
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