Stem cell doping

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Stem cell doping is the postulated practice of enhancing athletic performance through various beneficial effects of stem cells injected into the bloodstream or otherwise introduced into the body. Currently there are no documented cases of stem cell doping, but there are suspicions that the practice may already be emerging. [1] [2]

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Doping may refer to:

Paralympic Games Major international sport event for people with disabilities

The Paralympic Games or Paralympics are a periodic series of international multi-sport events involving athletes with a range of disabilities, including impaired muscle power, impaired passive range of movement, limb deficiency, leg length difference, short stature, hypertonia, ataxia, athetosis, vision impairment and intellectual impairment. There are Winter and Summer Paralympic Games, which since the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, are held almost immediately following the respective Olympic Games. All Paralympic Games are governed by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC).

Tyler Hamilton American cyclist (born 1971)

Tyler Hamilton is an American former professional road bicycle racer. He is the only American rider to win one of the five Monuments of cycling, taking Liège–Bastogne–Liège in 2003. Hamilton became a professional cyclist in 1995 with the US Postal Service cycling team. He was a teammate of Lance Armstrong during the 1999, 2000 and 2001 Tours de France, where Armstrong won the general classification. He was a key asset for Armstrong, being a very good climber as well as time-trialist. Hamilton appeared at the 2000 and 2004 Summer Olympics. In 2004, he won a gold medal at the individual time trial. The first doping test after his Olympic victory gave a positive result, but because the backup sample was frozen, no doping offence could be proven. After he failed further doping tests at the 2004 Vuelta a España, Hamilton was suspended for two years from the sport.

Blood doping is the practice of boosting the number of red blood cells in the bloodstream in order to enhance athletic performance. Because such blood cells carry oxygen from the lungs to the muscles, a higher concentration in the blood can improve an athlete's aerobic capacity (VO2 max) and endurance. Blood doping can be achieved by making the body produce more red blood cells itself using drugs, giving blood transfusions either from another person or back to the same individual, or by using blood substitutes.

This article is about the history of competitors at the Olympic Games using banned athletic performance-enhancing drugs.

Svetlana Sergeyevna Cherkasova is a Russian middle-distance runner. In the 800 metres, she finished eighth at 2006 European Athletics Championships in Gothenburg. She also competed at the 2004 Olympics.

Doping at the 2007 Tour de France

The 2007 Tour de France was affected by a series of scandals and speculations related to doping. By the end of the Tour, two cyclists were dismissed for failing tests and the wearer of the yellow jersey was voluntarily retired by his team for lying about his whereabouts and missing doping tests. A fourth rider was confirmed to having used doping while in a training session prior to the 2007 Tour and a fifth rider failed tests late in the race, with his result being officially announced just after the end of the Tour. During the competition, two teams were asked to withdraw after at least one member was found to have doped.

The use of performance-enhancing drugs in association football is not widely associated with the sport because of lack of evidence, unlike individual sports such as cycling, weight-lifting, and track and field. Like most high-profile team sports, football suffers from recreational drug use, the case of Diego Maradona and cocaine in 1991 being the best known example.

The women's 4 × 100 metres relay event at the 2008 Olympic Games took place on 21 and 22 August at the Beijing Olympic Stadium.

The practice of doping in tennis involves the use of prohibited, performance-enhancing substances listed by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). The practice is considered unsportsmanlike and unethical, with punishments for such offences ranging from official warnings to career bans, depending on the severity of the offence.

Gene doping is the hypothetical non-therapeutic use of gene therapy by athletes in order to improve their performance in those sporting events which prohibit such applications of genetic modification technology, and for reasons other than the treatment of disease. As of April 2015, there is no evidence that gene doping has been used for athletic performance-enhancement in any sporting events. Gene doping would involve the use of gene transfer to increase or decrease gene expression and protein biosynthesis of a specific human protein; this could be done by directly injecting the gene carrier into the person, or by taking cells from the person, transfecting the cells, and administering the cells back to the person.

References

  1. "Beijing Olympics: cell doping already a reality". Agence France-Presse. 2008. Archived from the original on 2007-12-28. Retrieved 2008-08-07.
  2. "Gene doping at the Olympics: be afraid, be very afraid". Steroid Nation. 2008. Retrieved 2008-08-07.