The Central American Games are coming up in early March - and Belize is sending scores of athletes. But, for only the second time in Belize's history, they face what's called "out-of-event" testing. That means any athlete can be tested for banned substances before the Games. Usually, only those athletes who win events are tested after the race, but Belize is a signatory to UNESCO Anti-Doping convention, and the significance of that is that increasingly, athletes will have to be ready for year-round testing - even when there's no event on the immediate horizon. In the lead-up to the games, the anti-doping effort is starting out small, only five athletes will be tested, but it could be any five. We found out more from the man in charge of Belize's National Anti-doping Organization today:..
Jules Vasquez reporting
These are the materials that will be used to collect urine samples form 5 Belizean athletes over the next 60 hours
Patrick Henry, Chairman - National Anti-Doping Organization
"None of the athletes from the disciplines identified that will be representing Belize in Costa Rica for the 10th Central American Games have any knowledge of who the athlete will be."
The kits are all serial numbered and sealed from the World Anti-Doping Agency. The samples will be collected in these sealed cups. The A and B samples will then be transferred by the athlete into these glass bottles and sealed under strict supervision of a chaperone and a doctor - and then sent along with copious paperwork to be filled in by a doctor on this doping control form off to the UCLA Olympic Lab in Los Angeles for testing to see if any of these banned substances are present.
Only five samples will be taken but scores of athletes going to the CODICADER Games to be held in March need to be on guard:
Jules Vasquez
"How many athletes will undergo this in the next 48 hours?"
Patrick Henry, Chairman - National Anti-Doping Organization
"5 athletes; 5 random selection, it can be 5 male athletes, it can be 5 female athletes because it is a random selection."
Jules Vasquez
"If I am the person randomly selected?"
Patrick Henry, Chairman - National Anti-Doping Organization
"The chaperone will go and find you. You will be served with a warrant."
Jules Vasquez
"They can wake you up at 6 in the morning if they will."
Patrick Henry, Chairman - National Anti-Doping Organization
"That is the window of the whereabouts. So at 1 minute to midnight; I am saying to the athletes you are to be on alert. At 1 minute to midnight that warrant can ve executed to you."
Jules Vasquez
"But if I don't want to be tested for whatever reason? Soon as I hear you coming I am going to PG to visit my aunt."
Patrick Henry, Chairman - National Anti-Doping Organization
"You will be given 3 opportunities within the testing dates to make yourself available. After the 3rd opportunity and you decide that you will literally dodge the test, you would have been considered to have tested positive. I am saying to the athletes do not miss the test. Whether or not you are on performance enhancer drugs, any ban substances, do not miss the test. Your name automatically will be entered into ADAMS the World Anti-Doping Agency biological passport and that will follow you for the rest of your life."
Dire consequences but the reality of a changed sports landscape:
Jules Vasquez
"You have a lot of substances and stimulants that athletes may take in good faith. We don't have the education to know what substance is a ban. We don't have the infrastructure to have a strict program where someone in there knows every single ban substance and what it may be hidden in. I know for example, you have female athletes who tested; based on something maybe for the suppression of PMS. This has happen internationally. Isn't it unfair to have a strict testing regimen when we don't have the knowledge? People genuinely don't know that there are supplements that have ban substances, over the counter supplements."
Patrick Henry, Chairman - National Anti-Doping Organization
"I agree with you and what we have done we have informed the national federations; we try to give them what is available to us. There is a prohibited list that comes out every October and we share that information with the national federations."
Jules Vasquez
"Athletes from first world countries may in fact be doping but have the availability and the finance; the programs to afford the best masking agents in the world while we don't have the availability or the affordability of masking agents. So we are the ones who get caught. It's not a level playing field by any regards."
Patrick Henry, Chairman - National Anti-Doping Organization
"We have the lance Armstrong situation right now and we can go back to Marion Jones; never failed a test until the technology reaches where the masking agents are and then it comes back."
Jules Vasquez
"But it's unfair."
Patrick Henry, Chairman - National Anti-Doping Organization
"Life will always be unfair, so we have to strike a balance."
Jules Vasquez
"It's a true wisdom; life is not fair, but sports should be fair. In fact that is why there is such a strict anti-doping effort to ensure fair playing sports. But I am saying it's not fair playing when there is no education to go along without the competition testing."
Patrick Henry, Chairman - National Anti-Doping Organization
"There is."
Jules Vasquez
"There is not commensurate amount."
Patrick Henry, Chairman - National Anti-Doping Organization
"Right, but it is given to the national federation associations who are responsible."
Jules Vasquez
"For example we know that due to certain cultural practices there are a fair number of athletes who may occasionally use Marijuana. Is that a ban substance?"
Patrick Henry, Chairman - National Anti-Doping Organization
"In some discipline it is. I can say off hand in cycling, swimming and I would want to say in artery and some other it is a ban substance."
The samples will take a week to come back and until tense everyone's on edge:
Patrick Henry, Chairman - National Anti-Doping Organization
"It is frightening yes. You don't want to be numbered amongst countries that your athletes who are representing you do have adverse and analytical findings. No, you don't want to be there and when we talk about Belize (about 350,000 people), an athlete that is tested positive; the name is out there that is in the world databank into ADAMS. International federations will know that athlete A,B or C tested positive and from what country. It's a frightening experience yes. In fact on 1997 Belize won a Silver medal at the Central American Games in San Pedro Sula and one of the female athletes tested positive for a prohibited substance. The substance was in the Slimfast that she was taking and the country lost the medal, the entire team was stripped of the Silver medal."
Samples will be, or have been taken between 6:00 am this morning and midnight on Saturday. One athlete will be sampled from each of the following disciplines:
Athletics, Football, Softball, Volleyball and Basketball. The samples results will return before the athletes go to the games - except for softball - whose contingent leaves earliest.
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