It started with the arrest of a football player who was in possession of banned substances and allegedly distributes these anabolic steroids and HGH to athletes in different universities. Other football players were also arrested. The University of Waterloo put the entire football team on mandatory steroid test and when the result came out, the University decided to suspend the entire football team this season. The main reason is the large number of players who turned positive or confessed for using anabolic steroids.

The action of UW is plausible because they have to protect the interest of the student athletes and the same time the name of the school. However, others say that the move is too late. They should have prevented the rampant use of performance enhancing drugs if they have strictly monitored their students and implemented comprehensive policies on doping. The university is not alone in the blame, the CIS (Canadian Interuniversity Sport) and the CCES (Canada Center for Ethics and Sports) were also part of the problem because of weak anti-doping policies. They have existing anti-doping policies but experts say that the implementation was not good enough to deter athletes from using anabolic steroids and other banned substances.

Marg McGregor, the CEO of CIS said in an interview that they are keen in determining the extent of the steroid problem in universities across the country but admitted that it will take time. “Certainly the CIS is not taking the view that this is an isolated incident. Our historical track record of positive infractions would show that there are other schools over the years that have had positive doping infractions. So it would be naive of us to simply dismiss this a couple of bad apples at Waterloo,” she said.

The president and chief executive officer of the CCES, Paul Mella also expressed his concern on the issue. He agreed that it is a wake up call for the authorities to review their policies and implementation of the anti-doping programs. “I think it’s definitely a wake-up call. It will force us at the CCES to look at how we apply the limited resources we have for university sports and it’s going to require a rethink on what’s the most effective way to reduce the use of performance-enhancing drugs,” he said.

He also added that the incident in University of Waterloo could damage the integrity of the sport. “We came off the Vancouver Olympics and it was a wonderful experience. We won medals and celebrated exuberantly because no medal-winning, Canadian athletes were caught cheating but like what happened with Ben Johnson, it feels this university situation is reminiscent of just how much damage a few athletes can do to sports and how we feel about it,” Mella said.

Sports authorities should adopt the standards used by WADA and intensify its testing of students athletes for anabolic steroids, human growth hormones and other performance enhancing drugs. In order to deter students from taking supplements, they should implement not just random testing but in and out of competition tests as well.

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