Freeman Diet Risks Positive Drugs Test: Asda Warns

Sydney Morning Herald

Friday November 15, 2002

Jacquelin Magnay

Australian Sports Drug Agency officials say athletes face a ``significant" risk of testing positive if they continue taking nutritional supplements.

The warning follows a Herald story yesterday in which Australia's most prominent athlete, 400m Sydney Olympic gold medallist Cathy Freeman, revealed her psychological dependency on nutritional supplements.

Freeman said that six months' supply of her supplements, comprising 30 different types of vitamins and minerals and protein powders, had been recently confiscated. Freeman spends about $200 a week on the supplements.

``I don't think anybody training every single day like a crazy animal can get everything they need in food alone," she said. ``I've been taking a whole bunch of them [supplements] but I have never tested positive and obviously I have never taken drugs before."

But ASDA officials believe Freeman was tempting fate by taking unregulated substances. An International Olympic Committee study this year showed that 94 nutritional products out of 634 tested contained substances that were not listed on the label and which would have resulted in a positive drug test.

``We cannot guarantee the status of supplements because they are not subject to the same regulatory scrutiny as registered pharmaceutical products," an ASDA spokesman said yesterday.

``There is significant risk that the supplements contain impurities and Australian athletes are well aware of that because we have educational sessions about it all the time and it is in our handbook and on our hotline."

Yesterday the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service said it would be releasing Freeman's supplements to her after being satisfied the whey components did not pose a high risk.

Freeman has also had to complete a permit application because she was importing 58kg of whey products, well above the 10kg size considered for personal use.