By Mike McIntyre
Professional tennis has been smeared once again in the media for doping offenses.
Ranked 98th in the world, American Wayne Odesnik pleaded guilty last week to importing Human Growth Hormone (HGH) into Australia in January of this year. The 24 year old journeyman was stopped by customs with eight vials containing 6 milligrams of the substance.
My first question upon hearing this story was what exactly is HGH? It is a substance that has been used by (some) athletes since the 1970s and was banned in 1989 by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Testing for HGH is very difficult and has only become effective during the past decade. It is impervious to urine tests and can only be detected through blood testing that can distinguish between the natural and artificial versions of the substance. Unlike anabolic steroids that build muscle mass, HGH reduces the amount of body fat a person carries as well as providing them with resistance to injury and fatigue. You can see why a tennis player might be tempted to use such a substance, especially one like Odesnik who has been struggling to find his place on tour for years.
My second question in the Odesnik situation was how much HGH was Odesnik carrying on him at the time of his encounter with customs officials? From the research I have done it appears that typical users will take 1-2 International Units (IUs) of the stuff each day. Each milligram of HGH contains 3 IUs. Therefore if Odesnik was stopped with 6 milligrams of HGH, he had 18 IUs with him which would translate into about 9-18 days worth of doses. That would be consistent with the amount of time Odesnik was likely going to be staying in Australia between the tournament in Brisbane and the Australian Open. From this calculation, it is obvious that Odesnik was only carrying enough of the substance for personal use and not to traffic or share with other players.
Now that we have determined the answers to those two preliminary questions, let's see what the reaction was like from Odesnik's co-workers. Fellow American tennis players have been quick to react to the situation and rightly so.
"There's nothing worse than that," Roddick said at the Sony Ericsson Open. "That's just plain cheating, and they should throw him out of tennis. There's just no room for it."
James Blake also weighed in by saying, ""It's the same thing you hear about the criminal next door — he seemed like a nice guy until they found something going on. People look for a way to get ahead, and that's unfortunate. It's something that's frustrating. You want to feel like you're playing on a fair playing field. I'm glad they caught him."
Sam Querrey, offered this reaction, "[Odesnik] messed up there, and he's got to take the consequences,'' he said. "Hopefully he'll learn his lesson. … It's pretty easy to not cheat. I don't know why some guys do. It's pretty easy to put food and water into your body and not inject things.''
In a cut-and-paste statement, the ATP Tour commented by saying, "We are extremely disappointed in the behavior of this individual, which is in no way representative of the sport of tennis."
While most players say that there is not a drug problem within the sport I would have to disagree based on the string of players caught offending within recent memory.
Martina Hingis (cocaine), Guillermo Canas (a dope-masking agent called hydrochlorothiazide), Karol Beck (anabolic steroids), Richard Gasquet (cocaine), Yanina Wickmayer (missed testing), Xavier Malisse (missing testing) have all come under fire for drug-related offenses in recent memory while Andre Agassi admitted to regularly using Crystal Meth during the late 1990s. This list covers Grand Slam winners, child prodigies, journeymen, rising stars - the entire gamut of the men's and women's games.
I still firmly believe that a very high percentage of players are clean, yet these stories happen with enough regularity that they are starting to taint our sport and the perception that the public has towards it.
Even more tarnishing is the amateur-hour manner in which many of these players are dealt with. Agassi's story of accidentally sipping from a friend's spiked soda was accepted at face value. Gasquet's far-fetched fairytale of ingesting a small amount of cocaine from kissing a mystery woman at a Miami night-club is even more preposterous.
The notion that a drug problem has been plaguing the sport is not a new one. During her last appearance at Wimbledon prior to retirement in 2001, France's Nathalie Tauziat had plenty to say about how she viewed the problem.
"I won't name individuals," she said, "but it's clear that doping exists in tennis and needs to be stopped. I have no hard evidence, but all I will say is that you don't have to have a degree in medicine to see that some of the players have transformed themselves almost overnight. It's time people stopped taking us for a bunch of fools. I don't care how much training or gym work you do, there is no way anyone can suddenly become stronger and faster in the space of a couple of months. How is it that some girls disappear for a few weeks, and then return looking totally different?"
So how does the sport of tennis respond adequately to this seemingly growing threat - or are we destined to be constantly dealing with these frequent abuse issues just as cycling and track and field do? That's the tough question that ATP and WTA Tour CEO'S Adam Helfant and Stacy Allastair need to answer.
Certainly the timing of the drug tests needs to be taken into account. Testing for several banned substances, including HGH, need to be done within days of use. Instead of relying on tests taken during the Grand Slam events the International Tennis Federation (ITF) should focus on peak training periods when these drugs are likely being used.
Better co-operation between the ITF and the Court of Arbitration of Sport is also a necessity. While the ITF is responsible for policing the drug policies of the ATP and WTA Tours, the Court of Arbitration of Sport has overturned these decisions on several occasions. These over-rulings only serve (pardon the pun) to make the ITF look unprofessional in their earlier decisions. Let's get both organizations on the same page in terms of their conclusions in order to streamline this process and put an end to the inevitable head-scratching that we are left with when one supersedes the other.
The bottom line here is that professional tennis has hundreds of excellent athletes and officials who are getting their reputation dragged through the mud because of the seemingly growing number of instances of the few players who get caught (and often exonerated). It is time to crack down severely, ridding the sport of these supposed athletes that are tarnishing its reputation and at the same instance make the correct decision the first time around. If players like Canas and Gasquet are innocent, then don't raise suspicions with hasty accusations. If they are guilty then kick them out for good.
I agree with Andy Roddick's assessment of the most recent incident with Odesnik. Send a message and kick this guy out for good. Forget the current two year ban that this blatant cheater faces. Turn the corner and put the doubts and half-way measures aside so that tennis can move forward knowing they are truly doing all that can be done to combat this serious issue.
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The euphoric effects of cocaine have drawn a lot of people to the drug, particularly celebrities and even professional athletes, who can well afford the rather steep street cocaine prices.