A South African sprinter says she was injected with a blood-boosting drug without her knowledge in the latest scandal to rock the country's beleaguered athletics federation. Commonwealth Games 100m silver medalist Geraldine Pillay told Talk Radio 702 Thursday she thought the substance administered by a team doctor in 2008 was a vitamin cocktail. The substance turned out to be Actovegin, a calf's blood derivative which can also mask other substances. Pillay says the drug was administered on the advice of Ekkart Arbeit, a former East German coach. She said she is considering legal action. Ramagole claimed she also did not know what the substance was because labels on the bottles “were written in German,” according to radio reports, and said Arbeit asked her to give it to Pillay. South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee board member Ray Mali, the temporary administrator in charge of ASA, told The Associated Press Thursday: “At the moment these are just allegations,” and chose not to comment further. However, Mali said elections for eight places on the ASA board, to replace officials who resigned, would go ahead this weekend despite the scandal. Initial details emerged in the Citizen newspaper, which quoted a report ordered by South Africa's Olympic committee into wider mismanagement by Athletics South Africa officials. One of the athletes under Arbeit's charge, shot-putter Heidi Krieger, claimed she was given so many anabolic steroids by Arbeit that she was forced to undergo a sex-change operation and now lives as a man. ‘Tests should detect hematide' Doping tests should be able to detect hematide, the latest form of banned blood-booster erythropoietin (EPO), before the end of the year, a scientific advisor to the French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD) said in Paris Thursday. “Hematide is a form of EPO that I believe is being widely used,” Michel Rieu told a media conference at AFLD headquarters. “The World Anti-Doping Agency first had to come to an agreement with the laboratory (developing hematide) so that the molecule can be provided to the (anti-doping) laboratories so that a testing method could be implemented.” The two laboratories involved were the Lausanne (Switzerland) and Chatenay-Malabry (France), he added. “There is a very good chance that hematide will be detectable this year,” he said. Hematide is a synthetic peptide which is not protein based and is therefore more stable. It does not need to be cooled down to five degrees Celsius but can be stored at room temperature.
