Fans of Major League Baseball (MLB) may have noticed a lot of hoopla about a new steroid responsible for several recent suspensions – dehydrochlormethyltestosterone or Oral Turinabol. The steroid itself isn’t new. It’s almost 50 years old. But two players – Toronto Blue Jays first baseman Chris Colabello and Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Daniel Stumpf – were busted this spring for it and several additional suspensions involving this drug are allegedly pending. Why so many players using Oral Turinabol? And why have they been caught this spring?
We all know an athlete won’t necessarily stop taking anabolic steroids or performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) just because they participate in a sport that has adopted a strict anti-doping policy. The extensive drug testing doesn’t act as a deterrent in the way it was intended. Of course, it deters athletes from using certain PEDs that will result in a failed drug tests. But it also encourages athletes to switch to drugs that are not so easily detectable.
Recreational and competitive bodybuilders may enjoy quite a bit of success with long-acting injectable steroids like testosterone enanthate and Deca Durabolin. But these are strictly forbidden among drug-tested athletes. These types of esterified steroids remain in the system for an extended period of time due to their long half-lives. Drug-tested athletes will turn to fast-acting (and fast-clearing) alternatives such as testosterone creams and patches as well as oral steroids instead.
Orally-active steroids often have an advantage in that their short half-live – which is often merely a matter of hours as opposed to the several days and even weeks seen with many injectable steroids – permits the drug to clear the system relatively quickly.
Oral Turinabol was one such drug that several athletes had apparently been using with success up until recently. They could use it, stop taking it for a few days, take a piss for the doping control officer and the results came back clean. But little did they know that some German and Russian anti-doping researchers quietly made a breakthrough in drug-detection technology in 2013.
ARD German public television broadcaster announced the discovery to the world via WDR Cologne’s “Sport Inside” show on November 18, 2013. The new Oral Turinabol test was highly effective and helped detect Oral Turinabol (and Winstrol) in hundreds of samples in which it was previously undetectable.
Grigory Rodchenko, head of the Mosow control laboratory, claimed the more sensitive anti-doping screen accomplished this by increasing the window of detection from a few days to “six months or more”.
MLB players apparently didn’t get the memo that they should add Oral Turinabol to the easily-detectable-drugs-to-avoid list. Or maybe they just dismissed because no one was getting by the MLB doping controls even though many were using Oral Turinabol.
This meant one of two things. Either the alleged sensitive of the new Oral Turinabol test was bullshit or the new test had yet to be included in the MLB anti-doping protocol.
Daniel Eichner, the president of the Sports Medicine Research and Testing Laboratory (SMRTL), confirmed the latter to be true.
“The window of detection has moved out to, typically, several weeks, and in some rare circumstances up to months after administration,” said Eichner.
And now that MLB is using the new Oral Turinabol screen, players like Colabello and Stumpf aren’t too happy. The two players may represent the first two of many players to be suspended for Oral Turinabol as a result.
It serves as a clear warning to all other MLB players who have been using Oral Turinabol: Stop using Oral Turinabol immediately and pray that your number won’t be called for random testing any time soon.
Drug-tested athletes should add Oral Turinabol to their list of other easily detectable steroids to avoid such as Deca Durabolin (nandrolone decanoate) and Winstrol (stanozolol).