Arguably the biggest and most historically important challenge facing the Federation of Gay Games and Cologne for 2010 is the introduction of the first real across-the-board drug testing ever done at the Gay Games. In the past, drug testing has been limited to a handful of sports (physique, wrestling, and powerlifting).
This go around, the Gay Games wants to flex its muscle to help mainstream sports become not just more accepting of gay athletes, but more accommodating of athletes with chronic medical concerns - especially HIV.
FGG and Games Cologne representatives are formulating a policy that would create a medical commission of experts in the fields of sports medicine, drug testing, and medical care, who would oversee an essentially two-tiered approach in which competitors could apply for a streamlined waiver for medications critical to their well-being.
"The goal is a general testing program following World Anti-Doping Agency procedures, adapted to take into account the health issues of our population of recreational athletes, including many who follow specific long-term treatments," Marc Naimark of Paris, FGG sports officer, told the Bay Area Reporter. "Games Cologne is supported by the German Sports University and the German national doping lab. Discussions are under way for a wide-scale research project with the lab.
"This policy is the result of the intersection of two movements. One is the need for Games Cologne to offer a comprehensive anti-doping policy with a serious testing component. This is something expected by the public and concerned parties throughout Europe," Naimark added. "The other is the desire of the FGG to be more involved in the broader international sports world.
"The FGG with Chicago had its first real success at implementing a testing program in 2006. A particular challenge was the confrontation of the ultra-strict testing of a drug-free bodybuilding competition with the needs of Gay Games competitors: usually recreational athletes, older than the Olympic-level athletes for whom the WADA procedures were designed, and often following various medical treatments."
One doesn't need to know how to spell BALCO to be aware of the role drugs and drug-testing are playing in the marketing and production of the 2008 Olympics - and every other major elite sporting event. Already, Bulgaria has withdrawn its entire weightlifting team from the Olympic Games after 11 lifters on the squad tested positive for methandienon; the Tour de France is under way with most of its past marquee names gone; and the question heading into August is not if, but who and how many, athletes will be banned for doping in Beijing.
Go through any of the materials distributed by the Olympics and WADA and one will find no mention of queers. The only reference they make to AIDS is that athletes should be careful not to get infected. There is no acknowledgment of HIV-positive athletes or indeed any agreed upon approach of how to balance the desire to keep performance enhancing drugs from skewing competition results while encouraging aging recreational athletes to continue to compete while using legitimately prescribed medications.
Gene Dermody of San Francisco, former sports officer and president of the FGG who attended the site visit, said that not only is the accuracy and impartiality of mainstream sports drug testing questionable, but that many "other performance enhancing behaviors are not ever questioned." Examples Dermody gave include the use of beta blocker by musicians to fight anxiety during auditions and performances; eye surgery by athletes such as Tiger Woods to correct vision; high altitude training to promote production of red blood cells; and elective surgery to correct shoulders, knees, and elbows for pitchers and quarterbacks.
"If we are to carry out a policy that involves testing, the FGG needs to become a force for positive change in these procedures by trying to distinguish between a positive test, and an intent to dope," Naimark said. "While the medical commission that Games Cologne will create will have full latitude to make its decision, our goal is that it go beyond the questions that a WADA medical board traditionally looks at, and determine legitimate medical uses of prohibited substances with flexibility and realism.
"We share the issues relating to testing of recreational and older athletes with other organizations, such as the World Masters Games, with which we are in frequent contact as they struggle with the same kind of problems. Our common goal is to no longer merely try to adapt to testing regimes imposed from on high, but to become a partner in developing testing procedures that are better suited for our participants. We want to have a broad anti-doping policy, where a concern for fairness is allied with the goal of raising awareness of the health issues related to doping.
"Doping is a social problem, a public health issue, and a matter for questioning one's own behavior. For Gay Games athletes, the Gay Games should be a time to reaffirm their commitment to positive values of sports, of a healthy lifestyle, of constructive behavior. The goal of the anti-doping policy is not repression, but promotion of healthy lifestyles and fair competition, without which our value of 'inclusion' cannot truly be respected."
Many AIDS caregivers cite the value of sports and physical activity for the health and mental strength of their patients. Although who will sit on the medical commission and what its exact powers will be are still being discussed by Cologne and the FGG, representatives have already discussed their intentions with numerous leading health and sports officials as well as discussed the outline with stakeholders in the sports that will present the toughest challenge to provide tests that will allow inclusion while also accommodating safety, sanctioning, and competitive fairness: wrestling, powerlifting, and physique. Physique will present a particular challenge because it is a sport entirely dependent on judging appearance, and treatments for AIDS symptoms such as facial wasting would have an undeniable competitive impact.
Hence the urgency behind the discussions.
"So far we've been surprised by the excitement and enthusiasm the question of an anti-doping policy has raised among specialists in the field," Naimark said. "For the sports world, doping in recreational sport is a major issue, and we have the opportunity to be in the forefront with those who seek an effective policy for competitors for whom sport is not their whole life, but an important part of their life."