biathletes are always at the center of looking for new drugs says former us lab chief sports of the timescreditrichard heathcotegetty imagesfeb 6 2014krasnaya polyana russia when don catlin the former head of the ucla olympic analytical laboratory heard that three biathletes had tested positive for a nonspecific substance about a week before the olympics i could hear him sigh over the phoneim not surprised he said youve got to wonder if its the tip of the icebergcatlin had a good reason to be grim about the possibility that more biathletes were doping which in this most recent case involved a designer version of the enduranceboosting drug epo according to two scientists with knowledge of the matter he told me that biathletes were always at the center of looking for new drugshe would know twelve years ago catlin led the team of scientists at the salt lake city games that discovered three positives for a new epolike drug darbepoetin on the final day of those games the athletes two russians and a spaniard who failed that test were from crosscountry skiing a sport that makes up half of the biathlon the other half of biathlon is shootingcatlin last week admitted publicly for the first time that those three positive tests at the salt lake games were only the tip of the iceberg of the positive tests for darbepoetin in salt lake city he told me that two biathletes from those games had also tested positive for the drug on the final day but that he and the international olympic committee president at the time jacques rogge had decided against pursuing their cases because it would raise a huge stink around the world it also could have created major legal problems catlin and rogge suspected that the first three athletes who tested positive for darbepoetin would challenge those cases at the court of arbitration for sport they would question the science the paperwork and the procedures for catlin and the ioc it would require putting together three complex but airtight legal cases preparing two extra cases catlin said seemed untenableif you lose in cas you got a lot of egg on your face so jacques asked me one question can you win the cas case catlin said of the initial three positives i said yes but it will take a lot of work just for these three so we decided to stop there we couldnt risk taking on all five lose just one of those and your credibility on the issue is shotso the two biathletes who were never identified publicly got lucky thats such an outrageous notion that i had catlin repeat it to me several timesthe ioc should have pushed forward with those cases to bury them was wrong but the flood of positive tests during the sports biggest event was a testament to how far biathlon had fallen last week biathlon stumbled yet again when three biathletes two russians and a lithuanian were suspended i still believe that