Bob Peale
angeli ribelli
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August 10, 2001
Chess struggles with idea of drug testing
By JUSTIN POPE
Associated Press
FRAMINGHAM, Mass. (AP) — There's a fight going on at the U.S. Open Chess Championship this week, and it isn't over pawns, rooks and kings.
It's over plastic cups.
The Federation Internationale des Echecs, the world's leading chess federation, is pushing for the " sport" to be included in the Olympic Games. To have a chance, it must comply with the International Olympic Committee's anti-doping rules, which means regular urine tests for steroids and other banned substances.
Steroids? Chess?
Players are the first to laugh at the idea of bulging brains.
" What, human-growth hormones so we can bang the clock harder?" says Jim Leade, a U.S. representative to FIDE who thinks the organization, which has begun testing, is being too strict. " It absolutely registers as ridiculous."
Ridiculous or not, the question is on the agenda Saturday at the U.S. Chess Federation's annual meeting here, which coincides with the end of the 102nd U.S. Open. Some U.S. Chess Federation members want to ban testing in the United States, protesting a practice they call a logistical headache and a logical absurdity.
Others say it's a hoop the game has to jump through, and even a good idea.
" At first I was making jokes, too," said Dr. Stephen Press, a New Jersey physician who sits on FIDE's medical commission. " My initial reaction was, unless we've got a Bulgarian weightlifter who's playing chess, we're probably not going to catch anybody."
But Press changed his mind after reading the conclusions of Dutch researchers on substances that can enhance brain performance, and hearing that chess players from Cuba and eastern bloc countries had once physically exercised to train.
" The East Germans apparently found that if a chess player is highly trained physically, they have an advantage over a player who is a sedentary couch potato," Press said, adding there's no evidence they used banned substances. " It's not unreasonable to believe that if people are physically training for this mental sport, that they're using steroids."
FIDE began testing at a youth tournament in Argentina last month, despite some grumbling from players. It exercised an option not to test for alcohol and marijuana, but otherwise tested for all of IOC's banned substances, including amphetamines, steroids and beta blockers, which can calm the nerves, Press said.
The tests were all negative, but Press says he believes some top international players do use banned substances.
Joel Benjamin, the reigning U.S. champion, disputes that claim and calls drug-testing " an extra expense and an invasion of privacy." The tests cost $300-$500 each.
" In sports like weightlifting and track there is a great sense that many people are chemically cheating," he said this week, standing outside the suburban hotel ballroom where more than 500 players were facing each other across rows of tables. " There's never been that feeling in chess. We'd have to invent it as an excuse to start this. Why put it into people's heads?"
George DeFeis, the USCF executive director, admits critics of testing " largely have a point," but says Olympic glory is worth the inconvenience, and even the ridicule.
" The first step is to show our desire to get into the Olympics," he said.
The IOC in 1999 recognized FIDE as the official federation of chess, the first official step to Olympic recognition. The bid now is making its way through the alphabet soup of agencies, commissions and federations that make up the Olympic bureaucracy. An IOC committee will decide whether it should be added.
IOC spokeswoman Emmanuelle Moreau said the proposal is under consideration. She would not discuss the difference between a " mind" game or an athletic sport but said the IOC committee has broad discretion.
FIDE claims it has Olympic-scale appeal, with 156 members federations and 5 million registered players.
But there is no room at the Olympic inn. The Summer Games have reached their cap of 10,000 athletes, and Moreau said there is no possibility of adding chess for the 2004 games in Athens. She said Olympic officials will not add sports to future games unless others drop out.
And Press said he knows chess is competing against about a dozen other sports, including fin swimming, surfing and billiards, that also want to become Olympic events.
There's also the question of whether chess is a sport.
The Olympic Charter includes guidelines to ensure only widely popular sports are included in the Olympics, such as requiring participation in 75 countries and at least four continents. But other than banning sports that use motors, the IOC has discretion to determine what constitutes a sport.
Chess could try for the Winter Olympics, perhaps finding an " apres-ski" niche, but Winter Olympics rules allow only sports played on ice or snow.
" We always thought that sport should involve some element of physical skill," said Dick Pound, an IOC member from Canada. He said chess had little chance of becoming an Olympic sport.
Chess federation delegate Allen Hinshaw of Midlothian, Va., said he wants to see chess become an Olympic sport, but sounded dumbfounded by the drug controversy. He recalled watching a tournament played in a bank vault in West Virginia some years ago, when a leading contender sat down to play with a jug of moonshine by his side.
" He had an excellent opening, a slightly faulty middle, and by the end of the game he was completely out of it," Hinshaw said. " Anybody who tries to drink or use any drugs to play chess, it just doesn't help."
Chess struggles with idea of drug testing
By JUSTIN POPE
Associated Press
FRAMINGHAM, Mass. (AP) — There's a fight going on at the U.S. Open Chess Championship this week, and it isn't over pawns, rooks and kings.
It's over plastic cups.
The Federation Internationale des Echecs, the world's leading chess federation, is pushing for the " sport" to be included in the Olympic Games. To have a chance, it must comply with the International Olympic Committee's anti-doping rules, which means regular urine tests for steroids and other banned substances.
Steroids? Chess?
Players are the first to laugh at the idea of bulging brains.
" What, human-growth hormones so we can bang the clock harder?" says Jim Leade, a U.S. representative to FIDE who thinks the organization, which has begun testing, is being too strict. " It absolutely registers as ridiculous."
Ridiculous or not, the question is on the agenda Saturday at the U.S. Chess Federation's annual meeting here, which coincides with the end of the 102nd U.S. Open. Some U.S. Chess Federation members want to ban testing in the United States, protesting a practice they call a logistical headache and a logical absurdity.
Others say it's a hoop the game has to jump through, and even a good idea.
" At first I was making jokes, too," said Dr. Stephen Press, a New Jersey physician who sits on FIDE's medical commission. " My initial reaction was, unless we've got a Bulgarian weightlifter who's playing chess, we're probably not going to catch anybody."
But Press changed his mind after reading the conclusions of Dutch researchers on substances that can enhance brain performance, and hearing that chess players from Cuba and eastern bloc countries had once physically exercised to train.
" The East Germans apparently found that if a chess player is highly trained physically, they have an advantage over a player who is a sedentary couch potato," Press said, adding there's no evidence they used banned substances. " It's not unreasonable to believe that if people are physically training for this mental sport, that they're using steroids."
FIDE began testing at a youth tournament in Argentina last month, despite some grumbling from players. It exercised an option not to test for alcohol and marijuana, but otherwise tested for all of IOC's banned substances, including amphetamines, steroids and beta blockers, which can calm the nerves, Press said.
The tests were all negative, but Press says he believes some top international players do use banned substances.
Joel Benjamin, the reigning U.S. champion, disputes that claim and calls drug-testing " an extra expense and an invasion of privacy." The tests cost $300-$500 each.
" In sports like weightlifting and track there is a great sense that many people are chemically cheating," he said this week, standing outside the suburban hotel ballroom where more than 500 players were facing each other across rows of tables. " There's never been that feeling in chess. We'd have to invent it as an excuse to start this. Why put it into people's heads?"
George DeFeis, the USCF executive director, admits critics of testing " largely have a point," but says Olympic glory is worth the inconvenience, and even the ridicule.
" The first step is to show our desire to get into the Olympics," he said.
The IOC in 1999 recognized FIDE as the official federation of chess, the first official step to Olympic recognition. The bid now is making its way through the alphabet soup of agencies, commissions and federations that make up the Olympic bureaucracy. An IOC committee will decide whether it should be added.
IOC spokeswoman Emmanuelle Moreau said the proposal is under consideration. She would not discuss the difference between a " mind" game or an athletic sport but said the IOC committee has broad discretion.
FIDE claims it has Olympic-scale appeal, with 156 members federations and 5 million registered players.
But there is no room at the Olympic inn. The Summer Games have reached their cap of 10,000 athletes, and Moreau said there is no possibility of adding chess for the 2004 games in Athens. She said Olympic officials will not add sports to future games unless others drop out.
And Press said he knows chess is competing against about a dozen other sports, including fin swimming, surfing and billiards, that also want to become Olympic events.
There's also the question of whether chess is a sport.
The Olympic Charter includes guidelines to ensure only widely popular sports are included in the Olympics, such as requiring participation in 75 countries and at least four continents. But other than banning sports that use motors, the IOC has discretion to determine what constitutes a sport.
Chess could try for the Winter Olympics, perhaps finding an " apres-ski" niche, but Winter Olympics rules allow only sports played on ice or snow.
" We always thought that sport should involve some element of physical skill," said Dick Pound, an IOC member from Canada. He said chess had little chance of becoming an Olympic sport.
Chess federation delegate Allen Hinshaw of Midlothian, Va., said he wants to see chess become an Olympic sport, but sounded dumbfounded by the drug controversy. He recalled watching a tournament played in a bank vault in West Virginia some years ago, when a leading contender sat down to play with a jug of moonshine by his side.
" He had an excellent opening, a slightly faulty middle, and by the end of the game he was completely out of it," Hinshaw said. " Anybody who tries to drink or use any drugs to play chess, it just doesn't help."
