The dramatic paradoxical perverse effect of anti-doping today is that because of the limits
of testing technology and testing density, we can't go much further than with worry
about rules and things like that. Maybe now in London, they're going to burst into the
rooms in the middle of the night and look for syringes and things like that. We can't
go much further than these type of things. In spite of that, we know, we know that doping
continues. The numbers are one to two percent adverse findings in WADA over the last ten
years and there's nothing that is showing any change. And the other thing is that other
research in human sciences, for example, using all kinds of sophisticated ways of getting
an idea of what the real prevalence is, rather show seven, eight, nine percent. What does
that mean? It means that it is likely that among the winners on the podium are potentially
the best cheaters. And that's very perverse because the real objective of anti-doping
is the celebration of the ideal phenotype and genotype of the human being. And doping
doesn't fit in that. And so now we have created a situation where, unfortunately, you're never
sure. Even if somebody has been tested 150 times in all kinds of moments of his competition
or outside competition life, you can't be sure. Maybe he is just very clever. You can
get away with well-dosed EPO or to point in to make some more red cells, if you do in
the right way. And if you know, of course, how to hide your behavior from everybody around
you. It's not simple. It's very difficult. And there's good reason to believe this. Yes,
from time to time, this is probably happening. And that's very dramatic. That's awful.
It means that athletes at the top are really under tremendous double pressure. From one
side, they know that perhaps the other guy is, you know, maybe cheating a little bit
or you're not sure, damn, I want to be there too. And always this question, shall I, shall
I not, shall I, shall I not? It's very, very difficult. And on the other side, of course,
the pressure of anti-doping that is also very awful, with the real potential of being accused
while you were not doping. A false positive is a real possibility. The more and more we
test, the light-clear, just because of statistics, that one day will accuse somebody who is a
very good athlete without him being doped intentionally. And then, of course, there's
free mistest. It happens from time to time. And among those are perhaps the guys who try
to really be on the border and try to escape because they're doing maybe not things really
according to the rules, but probably also a few from time to time who are just, yeah,
badly organized. I mean, think about it. If I would have to tell my dean three months
in advance where I would be every day of the year at six o'clock in the morning, I mean,
I would get crazy. And my agenda is changing all the time. I was supposed to be with my
Ministry of Health at two o'clock. Well, just one hour before he phoned me, no, won't happen.
So I'm here in the office. Imagine that I had told my dean that I would be at, I mean,
you see, it's quite dramatic. We've come to a situation where we can't exclude that
the dopers are still winning. And we even have people that are really trying very hard
to play the game according to the rules, who may be accused from behavior, which has really
nothing to do with doping behavior. It's, I think it's very dramatic and it won't get
better. It's an unsolvable dilemma. So this is the way society organizes itself by having
rules that the majority of the people will obey to. But of course, in the margins from
time to time, people do not keep to the rules. Well, we can live with that. That's okay.
It's acceptable. In sports, it becomes a little bit difficult with doping, because as I said,
doping has this perverse effect of it's not the margins where doping happens. It's at
the top. And that's what we, of course, we don't want.
