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Ed Yeates ReportingAlready, charges of tainted blood are clouding the games. Labs checking the athletes say now more than ever, it's essential to make sure testing is accurate.
The light of the Olympic Flame, which means so much for the glory of the games, is already dimming for some of the athletes. Zach Lund, with the US team, is out of the competition now because he was using a therapeutic hair restoration pill he thought was acceptable.
At the University of Utah's Sports Medicine and Testing lab, director Dennis Crouch says the compound in that pill was clearly on the list of banned substances.
Dennis Crouch, Director, U of U Sports Medicine & Testing Lab: "Phenanisteride is the compound in question and there's no doubt it has been on the WADA banned list and has been for some time."
Experts here should know. This is one of only two testing centers in the US soon to be credentialed by WADA, or the World Anti-Doping Agency.
This business is getting very serious. In fact, this lab alone in Utah, within another five years, will be testing some 10-thousand samples for athletes. That's 10-thousand per year. Each test must seek out up to 150 separate compounds, double the number on the list from our own 2002 Olympic games.
Was Lund's use of a hair restorer an honest mistake or an attempt to mask the use of something else? This lab, and others like it, are sort of the anti-doping Scotland yard.
Dennis Crouch: "This sophistication ultimately results in more and more costs, and some of our equipment costs 200, 300, 400-thousand dollars for one piece of equipment to do a certain kind of testing."
Crouch says it's getting harder and harder to seek out all the banned substances. And for each one, people here have to be absolutely sure they're accurate.
Dennis Crouch: "That's absolutely our focus, to make sure there are no mistakes."
Genetic doping is where it's going next. This is where subtle, very hard to detect recipes will actually modify the expression of genes to build muscle, speed or endurance.
