By Phillip Whitten<\/p>\n
PHOENIX, Ariz., August 12. THE world swimming community was rocked last week when Los Angeles-based Australian investigative reporter Nick Papps charged in the Adelaide-based Advertiser<\/i> that at least two female swimmers on the 2000 US Olympic team had used banned, performance-enhancing drugs. <\/p>\n
The story picked up momentum four days later when highly-respected Australian swimming writer Jacquelin Magnay repeated the charges in The Sydney Morning Herald<\/i>, adding details about an investigation that the IOC apparently is undertaking to look into the accusations. IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies threatened: \u201cIf [the Americans] are shown they should not have been competing [due to the use of performance-enhancing drugs], then the medals can be taken away.\u201d <\/p>\n
A spokeswoman for the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) added: \u201cThis could become a massive issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
The story implied that the IOC, and possibly WADA, would be looking, in particular, at Stanford University-based Misty Hyman, Dara Torres and Jenny Thompson, all gold medalists in Sydney four years ago.<\/p>\n
The threat was a serious one because the IOC has a three-year statute of limitations on retracting medals and prize money. It has never waived that three-year limit, even in the case of the former East German swimmers whose systematic doping by government officials has been meticulously documented.<\/p>\n
Magnay\u2019s story gave the charges \u201clegs,\u201d and it was picked up by newspapers, television and Internet web sites around the world.<\/p>\n
SwimInfo<\/b>, which has always been on the forefront in the fight against performance-enhancing drugs, undertook an immediate and exhaustive investigation. We can now report that the charges are essentially bogus.<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n
SwimInfo<\/b> has been able to reconstruct the sequence of events that led to the serious charges, which threaten to sully the reputations of athletes who, we are convinced, at no time used illegal, performance-enhancing drugs. Furthermore, the implication that Stanford Coach Richard Quick and nutritionist Glen Luepnitz, M.D., provided illegal substances to these and possibly other athletes is entirely without merit. Quick served as the head women\u2019s coach of the 2000 US Olympic team, while Dr. Luepnitz provided advice on supplements for the Stanford team and, unofficially, for the US women\u2019s team in 2000.<\/p>\n
It all appears to have begun when Papps, 32, a respected Australian investigative reporter with nine years experience, looked into the case of Aussie cyclist Sean Eadie, a 2000 Olympic bronze medalist and former world sprint champion. Eadie had been suspended for two years after it was alleged that he imported human growth hormone, specifically MediTropin, from the United States. He appealed his ban twice to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). The first appeal was denied, but the second was successful, leading to Eadie\u2019s reinstatement on the Aussie Olympic cycling team in Athens.<\/p>\n
The case apparently piqued Papps\u2019 curiosity. He wondered: had the same company that allegedly mailed the hGH to Eadie \u2013 US-based Nutraceutics — also supplied the substance to any American athletes?<\/p>\n
In his account, Papps contacted Nutraceutics and spoke with \u201cNutraceutics pharmacologist Jim Jamieson\u201d who told him that \u201cMediTropin was used by \u2018three professional baseball teams and half a dozen Olympic athletes – track and field. "We've had Olympians that used it," Jamieson is quoted as saying. <\/p>\n
Any other Olympic athletes? <\/p>\n
The story goes on: \u201cDrug manufacturer Nutraceutics named Dr Luepnitz as the doctor advising swimmers in their use of the drug.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cLuepnitz.\u201d The name had a familiar ring. <\/p>\n
A search quickly identified Luepnitz as a \u201ccancer specialist and nutritionist\u201d who had advised Quick\u2019s swimmers. Four year-old newspaper reports indicated \u201cthere was controversy surrounding Luepnitz, who claimed he was boosting levels of growth hormone by using massive doses of the amino acid glutamine. He was also recommending a diet of low glycemic index foods to regulate insulin levels in combination with creatine.\u201d<\/p>\n
And who were some of Quick\u2019s swimmers? Well, there was the buff Jenny Thompson. There was 33 year-old Dara Torres, back after a seven-year retirement aand faster than ever. Most intriguing, there was Misty Hyman, who pulled off the biggest upset of the 2000 Games by winning gold in the 200 fly, relegating Australia\u2019s \u201cMadame Butterfly,\u201d Susie O\u2019Neill, to a silver medal.<\/p>\n
Papps called Dr. Luepnitz at his office at Lone Star Oncology in Austin, where the physician is quoted as telling the reporter:<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of the [US swim] team members used [MediTropin] as part of their training". <\/p>\n
Papps goes on: \u201c\u2019It was one or two,\u2019\u201d Dr Luepnitz said. \u2018As far as the people that used them during training, one stopped it basically because they were financially broke and couldn't afford it. The other took it for a shorter period of time – she also stopped because of finances.\u2019 Dr. Luepnitz refused to reveal the swimmers involved but he said they would not be competing in Athens. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe said one of the swimmers used MediTropin until July 2000, four weeks before a US training camp in Pasadena and the other used it up until the camp.
\n\u201c\u2019They took two per day before bedtime – they felt perkier,\u2019 Luepnitz said. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou are helping them to recover – anything you can do to improve recovery." <\/p>\n
\u201cAt the 2000 Olympics, Dr Luepnitz , a cancer specialist and nutrition expert from Texas, admitted he was prescribing supplements to US swimmers including gold medal swimmer Misty Hyman, who beat Australian Susie O'Neil in the 200m butterfly. <\/p>\n
\u201cHyman has denied ever using MediTropin.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr. Luepnitz called Papps\u2019 article \u201cgarbage\u201d and denied making most of the comments attributed to him. \u201cThe things I did say,\u201d he told SwimInfo<\/b>, \u201cwere taken entirely out of context to give them a meaning I never intended, a meaning that is absolutely untrue.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both Hyman and Jamieson made the same assertion, emphasizing that their words were taken out of context and radically changed the meaning of what they had said. <\/p>\n
Nonetheless, Papps told SwimInfo<\/b> that he turned the information he had gleaned over to the IOC, which reportedly has appointed a three-person investigative team that will be seeking an admission from Luepnitz that he told Papps he gave swimmers the growth hormone MediTropin in 2000.<\/p>\n
The investigators will be wasting their time.<\/p>\n
Dr. Luepnitz, who says he will be suing Papps for libel and defamation, is an oncologist, who readily admits he uses MediTropin in his practice. <\/p>\n
\u201cI have bought MediTropin from Nutraceutics in the past, and I still do. It is commonly used in the treatment of cancer, wasting diseases, mononucleosis and so on. Though it is not a growth hormone\u201d \u2013 it is a growth hormone precursor<\/i> — it does stimulate the pituitary to increase growth hormone output a bit and it helps in recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n
SwimInfo<\/b> has learned that in the last five years, Lone Star Oncology \u2013 a four-physician practice \u2013 has ordered a total of 151 boxes of MediTropin, a relatively small amount even for purely medical use.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have never sold or given MediTropin to anyone at Stanford or to anyone on the US Olympic team\u2026or to anyone who was not a patient for a serious medical condition,\u201d Luepnitz categorically told SwimInfo<\/b>.<\/p>\n
SwimInfo<\/b> also consulted several experts who confirmed that MediTropin is not a growth hormone, but a precursor. We have also learned that taking MediTropin orally (it\u2019s a pill) would be \u201ca very inefficient way to introduce hGH into the body.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf someone were interested in cheating, they wouldn\u2019t waste their time or money on MediTropin,\u201d Luepnitz said, a judgment that was confirmed by several specialists.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only way to do it (introduce hGH into the body) effectively is via injection,\u201d we were told. <\/p>\n
For his part, pharmacologist James Jamieson \u2013who is not<\/i> an employee of Nutraceutics, but a consultant who has worked with the company, confirms Dr. Luepnitz\u2019s assertion that the two have never even spoken on the phone, let alone discussed Olympic athletes using performance-enhancing drugs. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never spoken to Luepnitz,\u201d Jamieson told SwimInfo<\/b>. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t know him from Adam if I saw him on the street, and I never supplied MediTropin or anything else to Olympic athletes. If that writer (Papps) says otherwise, he\u2019s lying.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are much better ways to increase growth hormone naturally,\u201d he added, naming \u201cexercise, a high protein diet and deep sleep\u201d as stimulating the pituitary to secrete the hormone.<\/p>\n
Aside from the entirely consistent and very-convincing denials of Papps\u2019 charges by Hyman, Luepnitz and Jamieson, there would be another problem with stripping swimmers of medals for using growth hormone: the IOC and FINA have never established a normal range for the endogenous hormone as they have for other substances, such as testosterone.<\/p>\n
If there is no normal range established by a sports-governing body, logically, no one can be punished for exceeding it. That\u2019s what happened with Italian gold medalist Massi Rosolino. <\/p>\n
Rosolino tested with hGH levels about 20 times the commonly-accepted \u201cnormal\u201d level for the general population just weeks before the Sydney Games, but no action was taken against him because the IOC had not \u2013 and still has not \u2013 defined what is \u201cnormal\u201d for trained athletes.<\/p>\n
But this is just a technicality.<\/p>\n
SwimInfo<\/b> has concluded that the charges levied by Papps are entirely without merit and do a grave disservice to hard-working, clean athletes, a respected Olympic head coach and an innovative nutritionist who never pushed beyond well-defined legal limits.<\/p>\n
For his part, Papps is sticking by his story. When told of Dr. Luepnitz\u2019s impending lawsuit, he commented simply: \u201cBring it on. I stand by everything I wrote.\u201d<\/p>\n
The evidence, however, indicates he not only got the story wrong, but that there was no story to begin with.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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