DRUGS IN SPORT: Medicines confiscated by the FBI during their search at the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (Balco) have revealed that athletes are turning to drugs first used in communist countries to try to gain an extra edge.

Victor Conte, founder and owner of Balco, was allegedly giving two of these drugs, long gone out of fashion among athletes, as part of a cocktail to elite sprinters and gridiron players to boost performances.

One was piracetam, a prescription drug used to treat, among other things, Down's syndrome. The other was mazindol, a prescription appetite suppressant that has similar biological effects to amphetamines. Under medical supervision the drugs are not believed to be dangerous but no real research has been done into their abuse.

"The Russians and East Germans were using those drugs," said Prof Christiane Ayotte, head of the World Anti-Doping Agency-accredited testing laboratory in Montreal.

Conte allegedly started experimenting with the two drugs after the 2000 Olympics but not until 2003 did he start administering them to athletes along with the designer anabolic steroid tetrahydrogestrinone (THG) to help them run harder and longer.

Research has indicated that piracetam increases red blood cells and gives users more strength and stamina and better mental focus. Amazingly, Wada has not banned the drug.

Mazindol is banned but only in competition and Wada admits it is unsure how widespread its use is among elite competitors. Conte had begun to experiment with it as a replacement for modafinil, a medication used to treat narcolepsy that is banned.

In 2003 several of Conte's clients tested positive for modafinil, most notably Kelli White who was stripped of the gold medals she won in the 100 and 200 metres at the 2003 world championships in Paris.

"As the testing gets better funded and more comprehensive, the common stuff becomes more risky, so people start looking for this sort of thing," said one drug tester. "Essentially the dopers are experimenting and using themselves as 'lab rats'. THG and the whole designer steroid thing is one offshoot of that. These other substances represent the same strategy."

The revelations will come as no surprise to Dr Don Catlin, the man who identified and devised a test for THG. He had first been alerted to the possibility that rogue scientists were studying old medical literature when he discovered a steroid called norbolethone, invented 40 years ago and believed obsolete, in the urine of an American cyclist he tested.

Catlin, a University of California professor of molecular and medical pharmacology who is head of the testing laboratory in Los Angeles, has said in past interviews that it was easy to create designer steroids.

"It's not hard to design a designer steroid. Some of them could be made in a week or two. Others may take six months to a year," he has said.

Michelle Collins has lodged an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne against her eight-year ban imposed last month by US anti-doping officials investigating the Balco scandal. Collins, who has never tested positive for drugs, has been stripped of her 2003 world and US 200m indoor titles.