The theory that a Chinese take-out nutritional supplement was behind 11 Greek men and women Olympic weightlifters testing positive for the anabolic steroid methyltrienolone and two other substances has been called into question, especially after the team members on April 9 willingly forfeited their right to have their "B samples" tested.
"The story [presented by team coach Christos Iakovou] goes that the nutritional supplement came from China. If they all took the same supplement, they must all test positive to the same three substances. If they were all doped, but only some test positive for the second and others for the third substance, then the nutritional supplement alibi collapses," Thessaly University Biochemistry Professor Dimitris Kouretas told the Athens News.
"This [methyltrienolone] is a very old drug and no one has tested positive for it in the [recent] past. It is on the banned drugs list. But because it is extremely toxic, especially for the liver, it is not used," Kouretas said. "Those that tested positive are in a sense very lucky because if they continued, they could have died."
Of the three banned substances for which the Greek athletes tested positive, methyltrienolone is the most dangerous. The drug was held responsible for the death of about 200 people, mainly bodybuilders, in the 1960s.
"After three or four weeks of taking it, you get severe liver problems, and if you don't stop, it could lead to death in a few months," Kouretas.
"These substances are so heterogeneous that they have no reason to be in a nutritional supplement. They tell this to the unassuming public," Kouretas said. "I suspect that the person who imported this did not know the steroid was so toxic, but they must have known it was illegal."
Coach Iakovou used a gym-owner named Panayotis Katselos in Larissa, central Greece, to import the nutritional supplement fed to his athletes.
Kouretas suggests that the steroid was imported from China and then mixed with the other two drugs in Greece. "The drastic agent imported from abroad was methyltrienolone The other two substances exist in Greece, and they apparently told the athletes to take them to reduce the side-effects of the anabolic steroid. Obviously, everyone didn't take them, some did and some did not," Kouretas said.
While the Chinese biomedical company that provided the steroid, Auspere Industries, sent importer Katselos a letter apologising for an "error", the company was obliged to alert Greek authorities, including the EOF Greek Medicines Authority, so that those who took the deadly drug could be notified. EOF on April 7 issued a statement saying it is probing how the drug was imported.
"What if the order included strychnine and 100 people died?" says Kouretas.
"The problem is that all these substances fall in the hands of half-educated and ignorant people, who in most cases can do only bad and not good," Kouretas notes.
It appears that not all laboratories that test for anabolic steroids are equipped to detect methyltrienolone, so it may be that the Greek team believed that the Athens lab where they were tested would not detect the substance. The samples were tested at the Athens OAKA anti-doping laboratory.
Buprenorphine, another drug for which some Greek weightlifters tested positive, is an opioid drug. "It is used to reverse the side-effects from heroin withdrawal," Kouretas said.
The biochemistry professor suggests that the combination
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