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Why great Olympic feats raise suspicions
'Performance profiling' could help to dispel doubts.
isc]- Ewen Callaway
01 August 2012
L. Neal /AFP / Getty Images
At the Olympics, how fast is too fast? That question has dogged Chinese swimmer Ye Shiwen after the 16-year-old shattered the world record in the women's 400-metre individual medley (400 IM) on Saturday. In the wake of that race, some swimming experts wondered whether Ye’s win was aided by performance-enhancing drugs. She has never tested positive for a banned substance and the International Olympic Committee on Tuesday declared that her post-race test was clean. The resulting debate has been tinged with racial and political undertones, but little science. Nature examines whether and how an athlete's performance history and the limits of human physiology could be used to catch dopers.
奥赛赛场上，多快才是太快了？在叶诗文周六打破400米自由泳世界记录后，这个问题就一直伴随着这个16岁的小将。对于那场比赛，一些游泳专家置疑叶是否借助兴奋剂才赢得比赛。她从未有违禁药物检测阳性并且周二的国际奥委会禁用药物测试阴性证明其赛后药检合格。整个赛后争论充满了种族及政治色彩，但缺乏科学性。自然杂志试图验证运动员的历史成绩与人类生理极限是否可以被用于甄别违禁药物使用者。
Was Ye’s performance anomalous?
Yes. Her time in the 400 IM was more than 7 seconds faster than her time in the same event at a major meet in July. But what really raised eyebrows was her showing in the last 50 metres, which she swam faster than US swimmer Ryan Lochte did when he won gold in the men’s 400 IM on Saturday, with the second-fastest time ever for that event.
叶的表现是否反常？
叶诗文的400米自由泳成绩快于一个月前的一次大型赛事相同项目成绩7秒。但是最让人惊讶是是她在最后50米的表现——她竟然游出了比周六在男子400米自由泳赛美国夺冠选手RYAN LOCHTE还快的水平，其成绩仅次于男子400米自由泳世界记录。
Doesn't a clean drug test during competition rule out the possibility of doping?
现行竞赛规则下的药物检测是否可排队违禁用药？
No, says Ross Tucker, an exercise physiologist at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. Athletes are much more likely to dope while in training, when drug testing tends to be less rigorous. “Everyone will pass at the Olympic games. Hardly anyone fails in competition testing,” Tucker says.
不可以，ROSS TUCKER回应说，其为南非开普敦大学的一名运动生理学家。如果药检不严格的话，运动员多半会在训练时使用药物。TUCKER还说，基本上每个人都能通过奥赛的药检。
Out-of-competition tests are more likely to catch dopers, he says, but it is not feasible to test every elite athlete regularly year-round. Tracking an athlete over time and flagging anomalous performances would help anti-doping authorities to make better use of resources, says Yorck Olaf Schumacher, an exercise physiologist at the Medical University of Freiburg in Germany, who co-authored a 2009 paper proposing that performance profiling be used as an anti-doping tool1. “I think it’s a good way and a cheap way to narrow down a large group of athletes to suspicious ones, because after all, the result of any doping is higher performance,” Schumacher says.
比赛之外的药物检测更可能检测出药物违禁使用者，他说，但是，每年都定期检测所有高水平运动员是很难真正付之实践的。德国FREIBURG医学院的运动生理学家YORCK OLAF SCHUMACHER说，一段时间内跟踪运动员并且记录运动员的反常表现有助于反违禁药物机构更好地利用资源，SCHUMACHER曾于2009年与人合著****提议将运动员表现建立档案用于辅助违禁药物检测。“我认为这是一个好且成本小的方法，可以将涉嫌使用违禁药品的运动员范围大大缩小，因为，使用药物的运动成绩一定会好于未使用的”SCHUMACHER说。
The ‘biological passport’, which measures characteristics of an athlete’s blood to look for physiological evidence of doping, works in a similar way to performance profiling (see 'Racing just to keep up'). After it was introduced in 2008, cycling authorities flagged irregularities in the blood characteristics of Antonio Colom, a Spanish cyclist, and targeted drug tests turned up evidence of the banned blood-boosting hormone erythropoietin (EPO) in 2009.
“生物通行证”可以衡量一个运动员的血液特征，可以找出运动员使用违禁药物的证据，为血液建档类似于为运动员历史成绩建档。“生物通行证”在2008年被引进后，自行车协会就利用此方法发现了一名西班牙自行车选手ANTONIO COLOM的血液异常现象，最后其在2009年药检中补查出服用了EPO。
How would performance be used to nab dopers?
Anti-doping authorities need a better way of flagging anomalous performances or patterns of results, says Schumacher. To do this, sports scientists need to create databases that — sport by sport and event by event — record how athletes improve with age and experience. Longitudinal records of athletes’ performances would then be fed into statistical models to determine the likelihood that they ran or swam too fast, given their past results and the limits of human physiology.
运动员（历史）表现怎样用来甄别违禁药物使用者呢？
Schumacher说，反违禁药物机构需要一种更好地方法来甄别有反常表现的运动员。为了达到以上目的，运动学家需要建立一种数据库—类别包括项目与赛事-记录运动员随着年龄与经验提升而带来的成绩提升。纵向的运动员表现记录将被输入统计模型来判断在给定历史成绩与人类极限的前提下，运动员是否表现反常。
The Olympic biathlon, a winter sport that combines cross-country skiing and target shooting, has dabbled in performance profiling. In a pilot project, scientists at the International Biathlon Union in Salzburg, Austria, and the University of Ferrara in Italy, developed a software program that retroactively analysed blood and performance data from 180 biathletes over six years to identify those most likely to have doped2. The biathlon federation now uses the software to target its athletes for drug testing.
奥赛滑雪射击，该项冬季项目涉及跨国滑雪及射击，曾经采用过运动员历史成绩建档这种方法。在该试行项目中，奥地利SALZBURG的国际滑雪射击协会科学家们与意大利FERRARA大学一起发明了一种软件，该软件被用作对180名滑雪射击运动员的过去6年血液与历史表现进行逆溯分析以确定违禁药使用者。现在滑雪射击协会已经采用这个软件用来确定进行药物检测运动员名单。
Could an athlete then be disciplined simply for performing too well?
“That would be unfair,” says Tucker. “The final verdict is only ever going to be reached by testing. It has to be.” In recent years, cycling authorities have successfully prosecuted athletes for having anomalous blood profiles, even when banned substances such as EPO could not be found. But performance is too far removed from taking a banned substance and influenced by too many outside factors to convict someone of doping, Tucker says. “When we look at this young swimmer from China who breaks a world record, that’s not proof of anything. It asks a question or two.”
运动员会不会（由此）受限定而不敢发挥超常？
“那是不公平的”TUCKER说，“最终的结论只能由药检鉴定，必须得这样”，近几年，自行车协会成功控告了多名运动员，因为其血液检测反常，尽管违禁药物像EPO也未被查到。但是，服用了违禁药物的运动员表现还是远不能用于判定其是否使用违禁药物，况且运动员表现受许多外界因素影响，TUCKER说，“当我们看到打破世界纪录的中国年轻运动员，这不能证明任何事情。（仅）提出了一些问题而已”
Journal name: Nature
DOI: doi:10.1038/nature.2012.11109
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