Half of World Cup Under-17 Soccer Players Fail Drug Test Re

[Exile]

Oct. 18 (Bloomberg) -- More than half of 208 players screened at the Under-17 World Cup in Mexico failed a drug test for banned stimulant clenbuterol, soccer ruling body FIFA said in an e-mail.

Zurich-based FIFA said last week there's "compelling" evidence from the tournament held in June and July of Mexican meat being contaminated with the drug. Farmers sometimes use clenbuterol illegally to bulk up cattle.
In an e-mail, FIFA said 109 of 208 players tested had traces of clenbuterol in their urine.

Alberto Contador is blaming a failed test for clenbuterol in winning last year's Tour de France on meat bought in Spain. Contador was acquitted in February by the Spanish cycling federation, although cycling's ruling body, Union Cycliste Internationale, and the World Anti-Doping Agency are appealing the decision at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The top sports tribunal has scheduled a four-day hearing into Contador's case starting Nov. 21.

On Oct. 12, citing FIFA's research, the Montreal-based anti-doping agency withdrew an appeal against five Mexican soccer players who tested positive for clenbuterol at the Concacaf Gold Cup in June.

Athletes travelling to Mexico should "exercise extreme caution" about what they eat and try to eat together in large numbers, the agency said in a statement.



--Editors: Tim Farrand, Peter Woodifield

To contact the reporters on this story: Alex Duff in Madrid aduff4@bloomberg.net.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...#ixzz1b9teeBVx

[Exile]

Over 100 players test positive for banned drug clenbuterol at Fifa Under-17 World Cup in Mexico this summer

More than 100 players at the FIFA Under-17 World Cup in Mexico this summer tested positive for banned drug clenbuterol due to contaminated meat, the world governing body has revealed.



By Telegraph staff and agencies

7:12AM BST 18 Oct 2011


Fifa's chief medical officer Jiri Dvorak revealed last night that players from 19 of the 24 squads involved, in roughly equal numbers, had shown traces of the substance after analysis of urine samples.

However, Dvorak insisted there had been no harm to the players exposed to the contaminated food in June.

Dvorak would not say whether England's Under-17 squad was one of those involved.

He said: ''Fifa was very alarmed and it was highly surprising to see something like this – I had not seen anything like it in my 20 years in this post.

''My first question was, 'Could any harm have been done to the players?' and I was assured by the different medical specialists the answer is no.''

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Dvorak said that as early as April the German anti-doping organisation had issued a warning that athletes should exercise caution in Mexico and China because of adverse analytical findings due to meat contamination.
Fifa ordered meat samples to be collected from team hotels and 30 per cent of these showed the presence of clenbuterol.
The Mexican government have made a number of arrests and closed down several slaughterhouses in recent weeks after being alerted to the issue, according to Mikel Arriola, an official from Mexico's health ministry.
Mexico's victorious Under-17 team did not have a single adverse finding; after the positive tests for the senior players they were only allowed to eat fish and vegetables.
Positive tests for five players from the senior Mexico squad had alerted Fifa to a possible issue, and when four more positive tests emerged from the youth tournament the governing body decided to reanalyse all the 208 urine samples taken.
A laboratory in Cologne discovered the presence of the steroid in 109 of those samples – 52.4 per cent.
Clenbuterol is banned in farming in most countries but is used to speed up growth and increase muscle mass in cattle.
In cycling, Tour de France champion Alberto Contador is going to the Court of Arbitration for Sport claiming his positive doping test for clenbuterol is due to a contaminated steak from a butcher in Spain.

[Jangle]

"Dvorak would not say whether England's Under-17 squad was one of those involved."

Why withhold this information about the England team? The Pan Am Games is currently going on in MexTico. With the zero tolerance of banned substances, this is one to watch. An athlete might want a Taco or a burger intstead of the food served at the hotel......Is the banned substance only found in beef? What about their chicken?

[Gamma]

well in addition to "don't drink the water in mexico" we have to add "don't eat the food"!

[Karl]

...eat together in large numbers

Zurich-based FIFA said last week there's "compelling" evidence from the tournament held in June and July of Mexican meat being contaminated with the drug. Farmers sometimes use clenbuterol illegally to bulk up cattle.
In an e-mail, FIFA said 109 of 208 players tested had traces of clenbuterol in their urine.

Alberto Contador is blaming a failed test for clenbuterol in winning last year's Tour de France on meat bought in Spain. Contador was acquitted in February by the Spanish cycling federation, although cycling's ruling body, Union Cycliste Internationale, and the World Anti-Doping Agency are appealing the decision at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The top sports tribunal has scheduled a four-day hearing into Contador's case starting Nov. 21.

On Oct. 12, citing FIFA's research, the Montreal-based anti-doping agency withdrew an appeal against five Mexican soccer players who tested positive for clenbuterol at the Concacaf Gold Cup in June.

Athletes travelling to Mexico should "exercise extreme caution" about what they eat and try to eat together in large numbers, the agency said in a statement.
.

Why?
If true large numbers will test positive