UK Sport denies wrongdoing after energy-boosting drink claims from paper

LONDON - UK Sport has denied any wrongdoing after claims that the government agency gave British Olympians an energy-boosting drink to test in a bid to enhance their performance at the 2012 London Games.

According to an investigation by the Mail on Sunday newspaper, 91 elite-level sportspeople across eight Olympic sports were given the product - an energy-boosting drink branded DeltaG then at the first stage of in-competition testing in humans.

It is said that the substance, a synthetic version of a naturally occurring body acid called ketones, had been developed for US Special Forces.

"The so-called 'novel nutritional intervention' was fed to medal hopefuls during competition despite only being available for use in 'research', and there being no guarantees it wouldn't breach anti-doping rules or that it was free of side-effects," said the paper.

UK Sport, which funds Olympic and Paralympic sport in Britain, insisted that they would never seek to win medals at any cost.

A statement released on Sunday read: "UK Sport does not fund research projects aimed at giving our national teams a performance advantage at the expense of athlete welfare."

The organization claimed they had consulted the UK Anti-Doping and World Anti-Doping Agency before the study.

"The Ketone Ester project received independent ethical approval from the Research Advisory Group in January 2012. Additionally, UK Anti-Doping confirmed in writing, after seeking clarification from the World Anti-Doping Agency, that WADA had 'no reason to consider such substances as banned under the 2011 List of Prohibited Substances and Methods.'

"From the outset, this study stated it 'complies, and at all times will comply, with the Declaration of Helsinki developed by the World Medical Association as a statement of ethical principles to provide guidance to physicians and other participants in medical research to promote and safeguard the health of the people involved. It declares that the well-being of the human subject should take precedence over the interests of science and society. Ketone had been tested since 2008, 3 years before the UK Sport funded research project," the statement explained in detail.