Minos Kyriakou, president of the Hellenic Olympic committee (HOC), believes that the 15 Greek athletes who were caught doping before and during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, as was shown in anti-doping tests, were part of an organized doping program. All 15 athletes including swimmer Ioannis Drymonakos, sprinter Tassos Gousis, 400-meter runner Dimitrios Regas, and former 400-meter hurdles champion Fani Halkia tested positive for the same banned substance—the anabolic steroid methyltrienolone. Also among the fifteen Greek athletes were eleven unidentified weightlifters.

Minos Kyriakou told the Associated Press that it was the “strangest thing” that 15 people would test positive for the same substance, leading to the conclusion that it was an organized effort. Kyriakou added that “there is an organized crime” because it seems that there was a lot of profit and money involved. While Kyriakou believes that organized doping was to be blamed for the incident, he was careful to deflect suggestions that it was “systematic doping.” He said that “it’s not systematic.” He said there are some people who know the sources of the doping and that the state needs to take care of uncovering that. He further said that, at the end, those responsible should be punished by the state.

In some cases, “systematic doping” and “organized doping” are used interchangeably. However, systematic doping has been largely associated with state-sponsored doping programs such as what happened in previous Olympics when East German and Russian athletes were involved in doping programs sponsored by the state. Kyriakou made the distinction so as not to implicate the state regarding allegations that they were behind the doping program.

Earlier, it seems that the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) had suspicions of systematic doping by the state because of a cover-up incident that happened at the WADA-approved anti-doping laboratory in Athens; WADA chose to test the samples at a lab in Germany instead. There are several unexplained aspects of the case which suggests that WADA had suspicions of state-sponsored systematic doping in Greece such as when samples from Greek athletes were tested in Cologne, Germany instead of in Athens, which is one of the world’s most advanced anti-doping laboratories. A leading expert on doping and anti-doping, Don Actlin, said that he was surprised WADA had not chosen to follow the normal procedures of examining samples within the country involved.

Kyriakou did not mention any names that he thought was behind the organized effort but a lot of blame has been put on weightlifting coach Christos Iakovou, who claimed to have imported supplements that may have been contaminated with methyltrienolone from a Chinese company, Auspere Technology.

Patrick Arnold, former steroid chemist or Ergopharm who has since put the BALCO scandal behind him, says that during his stint, several athletes used methyltrienolone during the 1990s and successfully evaded testing positive for anti-doping tests. The drug tests during that time were not sensitive enough to detect the trace particles of the steroid which only requires small quantities for its performance enhancing effects to take place. He was surprised that methyltrienolone was detected in the Olympics suggesting that anti-doping testing methods have improved in recent years.

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