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打印
Science & technology
科技板塊
Sport and drugs
運動和藥物
Still doped up
藥勁兒還沒過？
Thousands of athletes at the Tokyo Olympics are likely to be doping. How many will get caught remains to be seen
有數千名參加東京奧運會的運動員可能服用了興奮劑，且等看會抓到多少
As Olympics go, the 2020 games, scheduled to start in Tokyo on July 23rd, are shaping up to be among the strangest in the competition's history. Because of covid-19, even their name is out of date, for they are taking place a year late. And contagion-prevention means most stadiums will be empty of spectators, so events will take place in funereal silence.
隨著奧運會的舉行，定于7月23日在東京開幕的2020年奧運會將成為該賽事歷史上最奇怪的一屆奧運會。由于新冠疫情，該屆奧運會推遲了一年，就連它的名字都過時了。此外，對新冠的預防意味著大多數體育場里都將沒有觀眾出席，所以比賽將在葬禮般的寂靜中進行。
The 2020 games will be unusual in another way, too. They will be the first summer games since 1984's—which were boycotted by the Soviet Union—at which Russia will not be present, at least officially. Though some of its athletes will participate as individuals, under the flag of the Russian Olympic Committee, the national team has been banned in the aftermath of one of the biggest doping scandals in the history of sport. Between 2011 and 2015, and possibly for longer, Russia systematically doped hundreds of athletes. It roped in its spy agencies to subvert the anti-doping tests overseen by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), then fabricated data as part of an attempt to get back into the authorities' good books. A controversial court ruling last year reduced Russia's initial four-year ban to two, which will expire in 2022.
2020年奧運會還有一個與眾不同的地方。這將是自1984年以來俄羅斯首次缺席(至少官方缺席)的夏季奧運會，而1984年的夏季奧運會曾遭到蘇聯的抵制。俄羅斯國家代表隊因體育史上最大的興奮劑丑聞之一而被禁賽，所以某些俄羅斯運動員只能以個人身份參賽。在2011年至2015年間，甚至可能更久，俄羅斯對數百名運動員進行了系統性的興奮劑注射。它誘使其間諜機構破壞由世界反興奮劑機構監管的反興奮劑測試，然后偽造數據，試圖重回當局的懷抱。去年，一項有爭議的法庭裁決將俄羅斯最初的四年禁令縮短為兩年，將于2022年到期。
Stung by a scandal that took place under their noses, officials insist this year's games will be the best-policed ever. The International Olympic Committee says testing in the run-up to them will be the most extensive yet conducted. Sebastian Coe, president of Word Athletics, the international governing body of athletes, has warned that it will be harder than ever to get away with doping.
官員們被發生在自己眼皮子底下的丑聞刺激到了，堅稱今年的奧運會將是有史以來最嚴密的一屆奧運會。國際奧委會表示，賽前將會進行迄今為止最為廣泛的測試。國際運動員管理機構“世界田徑”主席塞巴斯蒂安·科警告稱，使用興奮劑將比以往任何時候都更難逃脫懲罰。
"Harder than ever" is, however, a long way from "impossible". Though new technology and increasingly strict rules have indeed made doping trickier than in the past, thousands of the 11,000-odd athletes at the Tokyo games could nonetheless be cheating. Steroids, erythropoietin (EPO) and newer, less familiar performance-enhancing drugs (PEDS) will have bulked their muscles, enriched their blood and allowed them to train harder than unenhanced humans would find possible. New drugs, clever tactics and institutional indifference or corruption could meanwhile help them outwit testers.
然而，“比以往任何時候都困難”離“不可能”還有很長的路要走。盡管新技術和日益嚴格的規定確實讓興奮劑的使用變得比過去更加棘手，但參加東京奧運會的11,000多名運動員中仍有數千人可能存在作弊行為。類固醇、促紅細胞生成素(EPO)和更新的、不太為人所知的興奮劑(PEDS)能夠讓服用者的肌肉更加強健，血液更加豐富，如此他們就能夠比普通人類更加努力地訓練。新藥、聰明的策略、機構的不做作或腐敗同時也能幫助他們騙過測試人員。
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