In order to ensure that doping does not happen again at the Olympics, scientists are trying hard to stay ahead of steroid-taking sportsmen.

According to a four-decade review by three of the World’s leading experts on doping in sport, steps have already been taken so that performance enhancing drugs do not find any place in the field of sports.

From News-Medical.Net:

“A cardinal feature of doping is that some athletes will experiment with any new substance that might improve their performance” says Professor Don Catlin, Founder and former Director of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) accredited laboratory at the University of California, USA, and CEO of the Anti-Doping Research Institute.

“They do not wait for regulatory approvals. If they can obtain a supply they will try it. This means that scientists need to anticipate and develop tests even before the drug has been misused by athletes.

“Considerable concerns have also been expressed about gene doping, a prohibited spin off of gene manipulation, a medical advance that has been developed to alter a person’s DNA to fight diseases like muscular dystrophy and cystic fibrosis.”

The paper is co-written with two other leading experts - Professor Arne Ljungqvist, Vice President of WADA and Professor Emeritus at the Karolinska Institute, Sweden, and Professor Ken Fitch from the University of Western Australia, who was a sports medicine consultant for the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney.

The most tedious task before the scientists will be to raise the level of awareness among sportsmen about the use of steroids. This is because steroids and sports have became almost inseparable in the recent times leading to conclusions that the possibility of eliminating steroids from sports is next to nil.

The recent attempts to control the use of steroids by sporting confederations and doping bodies have resulted in almost zero results because sportsmen are using steroids that are not possible of being caught.