Like many Mexicans living in the north of the country, Verde is a fan of grilling beef every weekend. He stopped doing so months ago to protect himself from an invisible enemy of Mexican athletes who will go to the 2024 Paris Olympics: clenbuterol.
No one can blame the boxer from the northwestern state of Sinaloa and gold medalist at the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games for taking extra precautions when consuming red meat.
Since the last decade, some Mexican cattle breeders have been using clenbuterol to fatten their cattle. When the substance is consumed by an athlete, it could lead to a positive result in anti-doping controls.
“When I’m in my state, my municipality, I’ve never had any problems. I always eat my carne asada tacos. But I’m limiting that a little bit now,” Verde told The Associated Press. “I’m a fan of being there with my family making that carne asada, but not right now.”
Although the practice of injecting clenbuterol into cattle is prohibited in Mexico and there are increasingly strict controls, the risks remain.
The National Service for Health, Safety and Food Quality (SENASICA) constantly carries out random inspections of livestock farms to carry out controls.
However, an athlete who will compete in the Paris Olympics tested positive for the substance last year. She preferred not to reveal her identity for fear of a scandal days before the Games.
When a second test was carried out, the result was negative, but while that was being decided, the fear of an adverse outcome from consuming contaminated meat was real.
“I train at the CNAR (National High Performance Center) and all the food there is clean, but I try not to eat (red meat) anyway, just in case it’s the bad kind,” diver Osmar Olvera told AP. “A few days before the Games I try to eat as healthy as possible, that food is delicious, but I try to avoid it. When I come back, I will eat as many tacos as possible.”
The problem for athletes due to consumption of meat contaminated with clenbuterol in Mexico reached its highest peak in 2011, prior to the Gold Cup, when five footballers tested positive, including goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa.
In October of that year, FIFA reported that 109 players from 298 countries of 24 countries tested positive after consuming red meat during the U-17 World Cup held in Mexico.
The governing body of world football then dismissed the positive tests of the Mexican national team and the players who participated in the World Cup, determining that they were due to consumption of contaminated meat.
More recently, in 2018, boxer Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez also tested positive for the substance and was suspended for six months by the Nevada Athletic Commission.
“Sadly, it is still a problem in Mexico and I don’t think it will go away,” Alvarez said in an interview with AP. “I have been buying certified meat ever since I had that problem.”
Problem that spreads:
Other athletes have been affected by the problem. In 2016, then-Houston Texans player Duane Brown tested positive for the substance, which is banned by the NFL, after spending a week in Los Cabos, in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur, where he ate meat.
Brown was able to prove his claims with food receipts and avoided a suspension from the league, which later warned players about the risks of eating red meat on trips south of the border.
According to Juan Manuel Herrera, director of Medicine and Applied Sciences for Sport at the National Commission for Physical Culture and Sport (CONADE), tests have been carried out on all athletes who have already qualified for the Olympic Games and none have tested positive.
And no one will want to be the first.
“For now I just cut out the meat and that’s it,” Verde said. “There are only a few more days left and then I can enjoy it with my family.”
Just like the rest of the Mexican athletes.
Source: AP