Last year, at the NABBA Belgian bodybuilding championships, 22 of 29 steroid tests came up positive. This year, on Sunday, May 17, 2009, twenty bodybuilders competing in that same event beat a hasty retreat when steroid testers arrived at the Arsenaal theater in Vlissingen.
The competition was being held in Holland, instead of Brussels, where it had been held last year, seemingly to avoid the Belgian doping officials. However, they were still able to obtain the necessary documents to inspect the competition and athletes at their new venue in Vlissingen.
“I have never seen anything like it and hope never to see anything like it again,” said Hans Cooman, an anti-doping official, adding “In the bodybuilding world doping control is necessary because we know that there is a lot of doping going on. The results prove this again and again.”
“Sometimes sports federations take the initiative and invite us to come by, like the cycling union does. But we have never had an invitation like this from bodybuilders.”
The mass exodus left Cooman saying that he had no choice but to conclude that all of the competitors were using steroids.
There was a similar roundup of American bodybuilders earlier this year, in which several top amateurs and professionals were arrested by Oklahoma law enforcement officials.
