General practitioner at the Olympic Games.

Healthcare challenges at an Olympic Games.

Athletes and their support staff, International Olympic Committee (IOC) family, technical staff, contractors, volunteers, sponsors, media and spectators all are essential participants in the biggest festival of sport in the world. They all need healthcare, but the priority for the IOC and any organising committee of an Olympic Games (OCOG) is protecting the health of athletes. The demands of at...

Medical care delivery at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

BACKGROUND Beijing successfully hosted the 2008 Olympic Games, and the services including medical services were widely appreciated by both participants and visitors. We retrospectively analyzed the quality of the medical services provided to athletes, spectators, VIPs, and the workforce during the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. The information thus gathered would be useful for planning strategies ...

Drug analysis at the 1988 Olympic Winter Games in Calgary.

A comprehensive drug testing program was carried out during the 16 days of the 1988 Olympic Winter Games in Calgary, Canada. State-of-the-art technology was applied, involving high-resolution gas chromatography, high-performance liquid chromatography, gas chromatography/mass spectrometry, fluorescence polarization immunoassay, and radioimmunoassay. Samples from selected athletes were screened f...

History of mass spectrometry at the Olympic Games.

Mass spectrometry has played a decisive role in doping analysis and doping control in human sport for almost 40 years. The standard of qualitative and quantitative determinations in body fluids has always attracted maximum attention from scientists. With its unique sensitivity and selectivity properties, mass spectrometry provides state-of-the-art technology in analytical chemistry. Both anti-d...

Lessons learnt at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games.