THE BIG INTERVIEW: DON CATLIN

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published 6 November 2008

Behind Lance Armstrong and Bill Clinton on that stage in New York where the seven-time Tour winner announced his return to the sport sat an inconspicuous figure.

His name is Don Catlin, he is the leading name in anti-doping in the United States, and at Armstrong?s request he will be running a dope-testing regime like no other on the American icon.

Don?t for a minute think Catlin is a stooge drafted in to give Armstrong some credence. Catlin is a dope-cheat hunter by profession and instinct. He began his career by being asked to set up the testing laboratory at UCLA for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and since then his list of achievements is astounding. His UCLA lab has been, until recently, the only WADA-accredited lab in the US, and Catlin discovered and cracked ?designer? steroids.

DC: I really don?t know. I have been involved in doping control in the US ever since its start. I developed the first anti-doping laboratory which was at that time an IOC-accredited lab. I did that at UCLA, and I have just been going after dopers ever since. I thought at the beginning, back in 1982, that I would just do the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles and then go back to being a physician, but I got caught up in the whole idea. I just couldn?t understand why athletes would take drugs.

DC: I?ve known them for years but I?ve had very little converse with them, perhaps the occasional call over the years for the background on something, or a technical matter that I might know. Obviously, as the director of the only sports testing lab in America for many years, my lab did all the testing that Lance had while he was in the US. So he?s been through my lab in that sense many, many times. But since samples don?t come with labels you never know who you are working with. Otherwise I really haven?t had any real contact with him.

I will obviously be testing him for EPO, and if things go well we will put his electropherograms out on the web. One of the real reasons I am involved is because of the enormous educational aspect of this programme. We are literally going to put this information out on the web and that?s going to bring in lots of questions. So it?s an opportunity to teach people about doping and what these ratios in people?s blood values mean. I?m expecting people to write in and say:

DC: I have carte blanche. We have not signed any agreement. The lawyers haven?t even started to look at that sort of stuff, but we?ve spoken enough to know that he?s not going to put any limitations on this, there?s no reason to. In his current position, where he?s got so much going for him, and so much involvement with the cancer campaign, and appearances with Bill Clinton and so forth, he?d be stupid to walk in with a positive drug test. And I have an understanding that I will just put the information out there for the UCI and everybody to see and I hope to make it work.

DC: I don?t know exactly the basis of how we?ll take the samples. Somebody asked me if it is going to be daily, I said no, he hasn?t got enough blood! It?s really not necessary to do it every day. There are lots of markers and ways to know what?s going on, but we will have a schedule that is more designed around the quality of the testing and being able to say that we have cut off any avenue for doping that I know of, and I know a lot of them.

DC: I don?t think so, but we?ll learn, that?s part of what we?ll look at. But I don?t think so, I really don?t, and I?ve thought a lot about this very issue. And I think the power of the long-term, longitudinal analysis stops that. People with a high testosterone/epitestosterone ratio have a potential advantage, but it?s almost impossible to do that artificially on your own, and sooner or later you make a mistake and your key ratio changes and you get caught out.

So we are concerned about things like that, and that?s one of the reasons why we have asked, and Lance has agreed for his samples to be set aside and frozen forever. That?s pretty powerful. So I?m trying to cover all the bases so that nobody can say that there?s so many loopholes that it?s worthless. But I am also aware after running a lab for 25 years that people get by me all the time and it doesn?t make me happy.