The Olympic games, the greatest show on earth, are only a few months away. Lit by the rays of the sun, the Olympic torch will be carried across continents by sporting icons and will light up the flame in the birthplace of the Olympic movement, Athens. Billions of television viewers will watch the games, which have until now embodied all the lofty ideals associated with sports. But now, buffeted by the corrupting influences of modern times, the games seem to have lost their soul. The ideals of honour, fair-play, friendship and national pride are fast giving way to a win-at-any-cost-by-whatever-means attitude.

The recent discovery of a hitherto undetectable designer drug, THG (tetrahydrogestrimone), which took about 8 months of intensive research to isolate and identify, could well be the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Testing retained urine samples for THG netted even some world record-holders and world champions. As an article in the Scientific American aptly notes, “Nature has made thousands of steroids, and chemists can make thousands more, easily.”

THG may never have been discovered had not an anonymous source sent a partly-used syringe to American anti-doping officials. It is anybody’s guess how many more such undetected designer drugs are out there.

The battle for Olympic glory has moved into the labs of rogue scientists. Though anti-doping agencies are chasing sportsmen who cheat by using drugs, they may not be able to put the genie back into the bottle because the users skip nimbly from one designer steroid to another. Also, sports bodies and countries tend to protect potential medal winners for monetary gains and national prestige.

But that’s not the whole story. Looming ominously in the horizon are the “gene jabs”. As a recent press release noted, “Muscle-directed gene transfer of laboratory mice resulted in super mice, with muscles 15 to 30 per cent greater than normal.” Perhaps, with proper exercise regimes, muscle strength could even be doubled. Research on how to detect gene therapy is underway, but the magnitude of the problem is daunting. After gene transfer and the administration of growth hormones, undetectable steroids and EPO (another hormone), an athlete can even launch a javelin or throw a discuss into the stands. A Superman for real!

For the sports lover who knows little more than the fact that drugs enhance performance, I briefly narrate the experience of Stuart Steven, an amateur cyclist who ventured into the world of performance-enhancing drugs and put himself in the care of a doctor who worked with many athletes. His regime started with HGH (human growth hormone). There is still no means of detecting HGH, a protein produced by the pituitary gland which — amongst other things — helps “sexual function, bone strength, energy levels, protein formation and tissue repair”.

Then came testosterone, which produces more protein, and hence more muscles, energy and aggression. This was followed by EPO, a hormone that has amazing endurance-boosting qualities. It “boosts oxygen levels in the blood by prompting the bone marrow to produce more red blood cells”. After Steven had been administered all these drugs, he participated in a 200-mile cycle race, which finishes in about eleven-and-a-half hours. “About 10 hours in,” he writes, “it dawned on me that something was happening. All around me were good, strong riders who looked as worn-out as you’d expect after 10 hours in the saddle. I was tired, but felt curiously strong, annoyingly talkative and fresh — eager to hammer the last 40 miles.”

The next morning, Steven felt that he could easily ride another 200 miles. “I realized that I’d entered another world, the realm of instant recovery.” A month later, when another anabolic steroid was introduced in the mix, the effect was so powerful, fast and difficult to modulate that Steven felt he was “hanging on to a car moving at 60 miles an hour”. Steven lost 6 pounds of fat but gained 12 pounds in muscle. The regime cost him $7,500 — a paltry sum considering the astronomical sums world-class performers earn. But nothing in life is free. If you exploit the body and violate nature’s balance, there is usually a heavy price to be paid.

It is still too early to say that the Olympic movement has come full circle. But it has indeed been hijacked. The Olympic flame and slogan, “Altius, Citius, Fortius”, seems have a hollow ring about it nowadays; bereft of the high esteem in which the principles were held, the slogan is like a firefly in a halogen world.

Yet the magic remains, even though one never knows what is behind a soulstirring perfect ten or an enthralling leap to glory in the long jump. Perfection in sports is intoxicating to watch and sends the spirits soaring. One can only fervently hope that drug cheats, rogue scientists and “gene jabs” are eliminated and the Olympic spirit is revived.