COVID-19 against doping

The Winter Olympic Games 2022 have begun in Beijing, which is already being called the first pharmaceutical Olympiad in sports. The fact is that in addition to the intrigue associated with sudden cases of the COVID-19 virus among athletes and their exclusion from participants in certain types of competitions, there is another farm story. This is the use by a number of countries and their athletes of various drugs that stimulate physical activity and endurance.

Participants of the Beijing Olympic Games have their own ways of fighting for medals. Someone trains hard during the Olympic cycle, relying on their strength and physical fitness. Someone, in addition to this, is counting on the exclusion of competitors from the protocol due to infection with the coronavirus. To do this, countries such as China are placing their athletes in tight isolation in order to avoid cases of infection. To some extent, this is a method of competing for medals when an outbreak of disease and a real epidemic begins in the Olympic village. In such a situation, even the debutant of the hockey Olympic tournament – China – will be able to compete for medals of the highest standard. Someone has very strong substitutes in their reserve, so that in the event of a quarantine among the main team, they have at their disposal a strong reserve team of athletes.
But there are those who have created a hybrid between pure sports and pharmaceuticals. We all remember very well how asthmatics are popular in skiing, who quite legally take drugs to enrich their blood with oxygen, which in such a complex sport as biathlon and cross-country skiing can play a decisive role.
It’s no secret that many athletes have a special love for anabolics. So, for example, the owner of the first gold pedal of the current Olympiad, Teresa Johaug, already has a couple of doping scandals in her biography. Moreover, at the Beijing Winter Olympics 2022, more than 300 athletes in one way or another have ever been involved in one or another doping scandal. And these are only those who officially got caught. And how many of these athletes skillfully hide traces of illegal drugs with the help of national laboratories. It should be noted that when discussing doping at the Olympics, many people remember Russia, it is worth recalling that out of 300 participants in the Beijing Olympics involved in violations, only six are representatives of Russia. Most of the athletes with a murky history are from our Europe.
Against this background, the global COVID-19 epidemic can both greatly confuse doping athletes and play into their hands. Such athletes can simply attribute everything to the fight against the virus, but this is unlikely to save them. In essence, the coronavirus at the Olympics is an X-factor or a real Russian roulette that can negate millions of pharmaceutical investments in unclean sports.