Things you need to know about supplements

Ever since a spate of nandrolone positives at the turn of the century were attributed to contaminated supplements, much has been written about the potential hazards of using sports supplements and the fact that – no matter what the label claims – there is no guarantee that any such product is free from banned substances.

Yet, the use of supplements has skyrocketed.

And contaminated nutrition supplements continue to be used as an excuse for failed dope tests!

Asafa Powell, Linford Christie, Yohan Blake, Brendan O’Sullivan… all innocent victims of contaminated nutritional supplements.

It seems that nobody intentionally dopes these days!

But they do intentionally take products which claim to improve their performance.  You can barely call yourself an athlete these days if your meals don’t come in powdered form, or your #gohardorgohome session isn’t fuelled by some form of stimulant.

So, just in case the message isn’t getting across, here’s a handy little reminder about sports supplements. Listen up Asafa et al., this may even learn something:

Manufacturers might not tell you the whole story

The main purpose of nutritional supplements is to make a shed load of cash for those who produce and sell them.

Fact!

Many of them don’t work at all.

And some of them do, but not because of their listed ingredients.

Let’s be clear - contamination is a bit of a misnomer. ‘Contamination’ is often intentional (i.e. products included but not declared on the label); the result of being produced in the same factory as products which contain banned substances; or because the product contains ‘natural’ ingredients which could contain just about anything.

Afterall, a manufacturer is not going to say: ‘look at this product; it probably contains banned substances’.

That’s not to say that sort of sale doesn’t happen too, but it’s a little less likely to happen on the high street.

For now at least.

And if you feel like I’m being melodramatic, check out the 2008 review article by Geyer et al. which highlighted the extent to which sports supplements contain products (often steroids) which are not included on the label

Included within that report is a 2005 study which showed that Vitamin C, Multivatimin and Magnesium tablets produced by a German manufacturer for sale in German and Spanish grocery and drug stores, were found to be cross-contaminated with the steroids metandienone and stanozolol (the Ben Johnson drug). It turns out that the company in question - Senesco-Pharma – produced these products on the same production line and at the same time as steroid products.

If it sounds performance enhancing, it may well be…

And not in a legal way!

Asafa Powell claimed, after he tested positive for the banned stimulant oxilofrine in 2013, that the source of the offending substance was a contaminated batch of the ‘legal’ supplement, Epiphany D1. Now, I’m not sure about you, but Epiphany doesn’t sound to me like it’s just an innocent whey power or a carbohydrate drink. It’s not just something that you take to ensure you’re meeting your daily requirements of vitamins and minerals.

Further inspection of the list of things Ephiphany D1 claims to improve (memory, learning ability, energy levels, verbal fluency, motor skills and oxygen supply to the brain, as well as protect brain cells against the effects of aging), and its long list of ingredients, would surely set alarm bells ringing. And at almost €60 for a 15 day supply, you’d almost expect there to be something banned in there.

Either way, with Powell claiming that he didn’t know it was his responsibility to check what his supplements contained and that all ingredients might not be listed on the label, perhaps it doesn’t even do what it claims, especially on the enhanced brain function side of things.

Last week Sport Ireland released details of boxer Michael O'Reilly’s adverse finding from 2016 and shock, horror, Falcon Lab’s Superdrive Testobooster Tech – the product O’Reilly blamed for the failed test – contained an anabolic steroid! Sometimes, when you least expect it, these things do exactly what they say on the tin.

Fat-burners and weight-loss supplements are best avoided

Superdrive Testobooster Tech was not the only Falcon Lab product blamed for a failed drugs test from 2016 – Kerry Gaelic footballer Brendan O’Sullivan claimed that fat-burning supplement Oxyburn Pro Superthermotech - produced by the US-based nutritional supplement company – was responsible for his anti-doping indiscretion.

And if Kolo Toure thought us anything, it’s that fat-burning supplements are best avoided. If they don’t contain banned amphetamines, stimulants or corticosteroids, they are likely to contain diuretics – banned masking agents – or just be a waste of money.

When did a few extra laps of the pitch become so unpopular!

No product is WADA or IOC or approved!

Yes, no matter what a manufacturer might claim, no produce has been approved as risk-free by any governing body. And what’s more, unlike medications, nutritional supplements aren’t even governed by… well, anybody really. They are, pretty much, a money-making free-for-all.

Informed-Sport is a risk-reduction initiative, whereby batches of products are independently batched tested for banned substances on the current WADA list. Athletes who feel the need to take supplements are strongly advised to ensure that anything they are taking is on the Informed Sport list.

But remember, there is still (and never will be) any guarantee that a product is completely safe to use.  Powell and Simpson may have managed to reach an out of court settlement with the manufactures of Epiphany D1 and get their bans reduced, but mere mortals are subject to strict liability and may get up to a four year ban for their stupidity. You are responsible for what’s in your body.

But, the good news is that, despite popular opinion, food doesn’t have to come in powder form

That doesn’t stop athletes tweeting photos of their protein recovery shake every five minutes. But don’t be fooled by the hype. They’re being paid by the manufacturers to advertise these products.

The athletes might even be eating proper meals away from the camera.

But yeah, if you want everything to be banana, strawberry or vanilla flavoured, with a slightly powdery texture, then sure, go ahead. Knock yourself out!

International representation is an honour not a right

Athletes these days seem to think that representing a country on the international stage is a right, not an honour; something that they are entitled to do to the point that the country they represent is no longer important.

Dodgy selections by governing bodies, biases and the money associated with representation go some way to explain, if not justify, an individual seeking representation away from their country of birth, while centuries of migration, increased globalisation, marriage, and historical and geopolitical anomalies blur the lines of what exactly nationality is.

Different rules for different sports also complicate matters, things differ from country to country, that's for sure, and each individual's unique set of circumstances mean that it's often difficult to distinguish the black from the white on such matters. The question of one's nationality definitely isn't always clear-cut.

World class athletes from certain countries or regions - distance runners from East Africa, sprint hurdlers from the USA, rugby players from New Zealand, footballers from Brazil, table tennis players from China, cricketers from the Indian Sub-Continent, will find it close to impossible to make their national team, and you can't but feel for them. But we also can't lose sight of the fact that part of their outstanding ability is due to their being a product of the system (formal or informal) which produces so many other world class performers in their chosen discipline; they benefit every day from the raised bar such high standards and competition for places produces.

So a Kenyan distance runner, born in Kenya and training all their lives in Kenya will always be Kenyan, irrespective of who pays their bills. (Kenyan-born Vivian Jemutai, now known as Yasemin Can, summed the whole farce up nicely when she said in an interview after winning a European title for Turkey, that she "would also be very happy if I could earn gold for my home country Kenya one day."  Turkey, Barain, etc. appear to be a stepping stone to proper international representation it seems - some slap in the face for the not insignificant investment the Turkish government have undoubtedly put into her 'development'.

The Turks and Bahrainis are not the first to exploit the lax rules surrounding nationality, nor indeed the first to exploit the Africans, but that's a whole other story. In 2003 Commonwealth steeplechase champion Stephen Cherono of Kenya became Saif Saaeed Shaheen of Qatar. Cherono was, at the time, the fastest in the world and his place in the Kenyan team was not in question. While initial rumours that he and fellow countryman Albert Chepkurui, who became Ahmad Hassan Abdullah, received $1 million for the switch were denied by the athletes, they did say that they were to receive $1000 per month for the rest of their lives. Cherono went on to win the 2003 and 2005 World Championships and break the world record for his adopted country. And all this from the comfort of his home in Iten, Kenya.

The IAAF, at the time, made an attempt to clamp down on the widescale purchase of athletes but, while Turkey and Bahrain have replaced Qatar as the world's leading market for surplus athletes, the problem remains, more than a decade on.

And that's before we go anywhere near Rugby or Cricket where it seems that you can just pinpoint a point on a map and, subject to demand, sign up for their 'national' team.

***

This August I was seated in the upper tier of the Olympic Stadium in London when the British men's sprint relay team received their World Championship medals. The atmosphere around me was electric. Everyone was on their feet, and, as the Union Jack was raised, even my mum, sitting beside me and relishing her first experience of live athletics at this level, was singing 'God Save the Queen' at the top of her voice.

I could see how such an occasion could raise goose bumps, and could even bring a tear to the eye, how the young hearts of Adam, Chijindu, Danny and Nethaneel must have been bursting with pride, honour and glory. They will, no doubt, have dreamed of this moment. Imagined it in their minds thousands of times. Replayed it over and over.

I could see how this was a moment to be cherished.

If you are British.

I, meanwhile, felt nothing.

This wasn't my flag, my country, my national anthem.

As someone who has never so much as tasted Guinness, who struggles to put together a sentence as Gaeilge, who never went to an Irish dancing class and who has never been to a GAA match, some might argue that on the scale of Irish patriotism I sit somewhere between the late Ian Paisley and the aforementioned God-saved Queen herself.

But I can't pretend to be something that I'm not. And despite spending half of my adult life in the UK, I am not (and never will be) anything but Irish.

And in that moment, the whole argument of national representation seemed crystal clear for me. If you're standing on the top step of that rostrum, the anthem of the country who's colours you're wearing blaring out over the Tannoy, and your heart is not bursting with pride, honour and glory, the hairs on the back of your neck are not standing to dutiful attention, then should you even be there? If there's a flag you'd prefer to see raised, a different country you aspire to represent, a nation you one day want to be good enough to compete for, have you missed the whole point of international sport?

Of course it's not that simple; it never is.

But representing a country should never be a question of convenience. Or indeed, money.

And it should never, ever be about entitlement. Because representing your country, wherever that might be, is an honour, not a right.