Sports medicine and drug control programs of the U.S. Olympic Committee

Abstract

The Amateur Sports Act of 1978 reconstituted the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC), giving it new responsibilities and opportunities as a unifying force in amateur sports, including sports medicine. Sports medicine is the sum of attentions that promote and protect the health of the active person. Olympic sports medicine includes attention to the needs of both the elite athlete and the developing athlete. In some instances the attentions are the same; in others they are not. Those in Olympic sports medicine must thereby reduce the increasing array of general concepts and issues to the applicable specifics of the respective occasion, sport, and individual. The USOC Sports Medicine Program is guided by a 15-person volunteer Sports Medicine Council and implemented by a core Sports Medicine Division staff. Services are provided at the Olympic training centers in Colorado Springs and Lade Placid and extended through a budding network of colleagues in the field to clusters of athletes across the nations. Organizationally, the Division is composed of departments of biomechanics, sports physiology, clinical services, and educational services. Special projects are developed as warranted to provide focal attention to sports psychology, nutrition, chronobiology, vision enhancement, and drug control. The USOC Drug Control Program was born at the 1983 Pan American Games in Caracas after a long gestation period. Drug education in sports has been a frequent activity for the past 20 yr, sometimes focusing on illicit drugs (e.g., marijuana and cocaine) and sometimes on sports performance drugs (e.g., amphetamines and anabolic steroids). Until drug testing came of age as a serious threat to the user/athlete, however, it was largely ineffective. The attention given drugs at Caracas reversed the situation. The laboratory technicians demonstrated that they knew how to use the technology that had become available for drug testing. The USOC leadership clearly defined its position by affirming that drug testing will be done at all Olympic trials in the future and that any athlete with a positive test result for a banned substance will be disqualified from representing the United States at the games, as will any physician, coach, or other person knowingly assisting the athlete in such a practice. A budget to implement this and related educational activities followed, as did the International Olympic Committee's certification of the laboratory at the University of California at Los Angeles for drug testing. The program is now operational, and the athlete who is found to have taken an antiasthmatic drug may be subjected to the same penalties as the athlete who was found to have taken anabolic steroids. Some antiasthma drugs are banned, some are not, and some are permitted only if a USOC physician identifies in writing before the athlete's competition the purpose, dosage, frequency, and history of the particular drug used. The physician of an asthmatic athlete who could be tested for drugs should send this information to the USOC Chief Medical Officer, 1750 E. Boulder, Colorado Springs, CO 80909, regardless of the drug being prescribed. This will permit the USOC to protect the athlete's rights fully if the medication is one that is permitted with advance USOC documentation or if it is one that requires change.