The Olympic Games and performance-enhancing drugs
Abstract
The 2012 Olympic Games ended recently in London, with a number of world records having been broken in various events. What did not receive a lot of publicity was how many athletes were disqualified for using performance-enhancing drugs before and during competition. Before the games, three athletes were suspended and charged with doping violations, namely Moroccan 1 500 m runner Amine Laalou, Belarus hammer thrower Ivan Tsikhan, and the Colombian 400 m runner Diego Palomeque, who was provisionally suspended after testing positive for testosterone.1 Immediately after the closing ceremony, Nadzeya Ostapchuk, a Belarus shot putter, was stripped of her gold medal after she tested positive for the anabolic agent metenolone during in-competition testing.
Section
Editorials
By submitting manuscripts to SAFP, authors of original articles are assigning copyright to the South African Academy of Family Physicians. Copyright of review articles are assigned to the Publisher, Medpharm Publications (Pty) Ltd, unless otherwise specified. Authors may use their own work after publication without written permission, provided they acknowledge the original source. Individuals and academic institutions may freely copy and distribute articles published in SAFP for educational and research purposes without obtaining permission.
