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Mark Stuart, BPharm PGDipCDDS DipBotMed MRPharmS
Maria Skouroliakou, Director of Pharmacy, Athens 2004 Olympic Games
Published in the Pharmaceutical Journal UK, 2004

The Polyclinic Pharmacy in the Athens Olympic Village opened on July 30 to provide the pharmacy requirements of over 17 000 athletes, team officials and technical officials from 202 countries. The Pharmacy provided medicines to residents of the Olympic Village and acted as a central point of organisation, coordination and distribution of drugs to the satellite pharmacies at each of the Olympic sporting venues. Pharmacists worked alongside other medical experts in a closely-knit environment to provide a world class level of medical care to the ‘Olympic Family’.

In addition to the pharmacy, the Polyclinic also contained a comprehensive range of medical services and specialties which included: sports medicine, medical imaging, podiatry, physiotherapy, dentistry, physiotherapy, pathology, eye services including opticians and ophthalmologists, orthopaedics, and gynaecology. With its contemporary design, brand new high-tech medical equipment and marble floors throughout, the Polyclinic functioned as a complete luxury hospital and state-of-the-art sports medicine clinic.

Mark Stuart
Published in the Pharmaceutical Journal UK 2004.

The ruthless desire to compete and win is as old as humankind. Ancient Greek Olympians are known to have used stimulating potions and high protein diets to improve athletic performance and Greek gladiators were doped to make their fights more vigorous and bloody for the spectators. It seems doping in sport has gone full-circle, with Greece having just undertaken the largest and one of the most successful Olympic doping-control operations ever.

In the year preceding the Athens Games, the war on drugs in sport was well underway. The sporting world was rocked by a number of positive drug tests and allegations of drug use by elite athletes. Britain’s favourite for a gold medal in Athens, sprinter Dwain Chambers was suspended for 2 years following detection of the ‘designer’ steroid THG. Another British Olympic hopeful, cyclist David Millar withdrew from the British team only weeks before the Games after admitting to a French judge he had used EPO. Vials of the drug were found by police in a raid of his home just prior to the Tour de France. He was to compete in at least three Olympic events: the time trial, road race and team pursuit.