I would say test the top 10 in each age-group, or at least the same amount of athletes / AG as there are slots and the next 3-4 people. Those 3-4 might have a roll-down slot and you can't dot he test the day after because the results could be useless as traces of certain drugs might have dissapeared.

If WTC would ask you the question when entering "are you racing to qualify for a WC-slot ?". If the Question is "Yes", add 20$ or so to pay for the test. More people will be aiming for the slot then people people ending up with one. If you say "no", you don't get tested, but you sign-off the right to receive one. Easy money-maker and it would show they are serious about racing clean and at least it would assure that those who qulaified where clean when they did. It reduces the chances of the athletes doping at the championhips.

I've age'd up in 2014 into 40-44 and in my first IM in September I qualified for a slot. In August, I wasn't at the ceremony in the 70.3 in Wiesbaden where I had qualified for the 70.3. Based on these results and the above rules, I would have been tested 2x and I would (or at least should have) have returned negative. I only started triathlons 4yrs ago with my first 70.3 only 2 years ago and I only got faster because of better structured and more volume training. Some would say I "popped-up", but I've been always been an endurance-sport junky, doing loads of MTB-marathons in the years before. I'm living proof that people do pop-up in the tri-scene and it does happen. Though, I'm sure there are a few suspicious pop-ups around. People of whom you know that haven't been doing extraordinarily well or involved in anything related to sport and suddenly, they put you on a lap in an endurance event. It's going to be either a hidden talent or the POD's inside them that makes them so fast. We have no way of knowing unless we are tested after qualifying.

S.

I agree with your point but I think that there is a slightly better way of doing it.
I feel that a better strategy would be to absorb the cost of a simple drugs test into the current entry fee for the Worlds. Worlds entry fees are pretty expensive for a race that is considered a privilege/reward to race in. I refuse to believe that when each athlete pays ~$850 (Kona) to take part in a race that they had to earn a place in, that the WTC can't afford to cover the cost of a drugs test. Especially with all the corporate sponsorship that the event receives.

That way everybody who qualifies will be tested, but nobody who fails to qualify for whatever reason will have any undue expense.

That would indeed be good the race in Kona where everyone get's tested: IM Legacy, IM Lottery, sponsor-slot's, Pro's and AG's. However, with your proposal, you can't perform thet test untill the day after the event which can be too late for certain types of POD's. That was the reason why I would propose to test the X-nr of people + the following 3-4 immediately after the race. Most IM races have only a small group of waves and if there are waves, they are AG-based. It shouldn't be too hard for the organization to identify at the finish that you are nr X of Y people we will be testing in your AG. Please report to the tent within time Z to donate some urine. ;)

Heck, one of my biggest gripes with IM-races so far is that as soon as you cross the line, you don't know exactly where you rank inside your AG (or at least, it was invisible to me at my finishes so far in all my 70.3's & single 140.6). If they can tell you that, they can identify their test-pool themselves since the slot-allocation is know beforehand.

Even the cost is more or less known and your can even allocate costs / region (i.e. Europe, AsiaPac, NA, ...).
Let's assume a race with 50 slots and a price of 100$ / test (don't know the real-world expense). 50-slots + 100 people (for the 3-4 people/AG above slot) => 15k$. Since regional championship-races give more slots, you're looking at 25k$ (double amount of slots). Since I would assume that at each race only 30% /ag would opt for the "qualify" choice, you would need to divide the costs amongst those 30%. So on average 1750 participants is approx 525 people paying for the "slot-based testing". That would bring the individual cost down to approx. 30$/person. This is rough nr's and unless the costs of testing is dramatically higher, WTC can probably create a profit on it. On top of that, they'll get a nice reputation boost for assuring that all athletes in slot's are clean and that would even improve their marketing-image. Because "Yes, You can Do it, but No, You can't Dope". Once caught, they can't forbid you to participate, but they could hand you a life-time ban to qualify for slot's. It's their race, they hand out the slots so they call the shots...

I know I would pay 30$ on top in assurance I was competing against a clean field with equal arms (apart from talent, persistance to train more and better equipment).

S.

Indeed. Not necessarily cost prohibitive either; they could take mandatory samples from everyone in top-10 say (in the big AGs), and those are tested randomly. Puts more risk on those who would break the rules in the pursuit of KQ. I'd say the deterrent effect vs the cost would be worth it.

But Ironman have to have the appetite for it.

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29 years and counting

I'd love for it to happen too, from a purely curiosity based point of view.

In the real world though, I can't really see the point of testing the bloke who came 12th in his AG when only 2 or 3 guys qualified for worlds.
He cheated and yet was beaten fairly comfortably, so is a bit of a nobody, and money spent testing him could be spent elsewhere.
In the amateur world, I'm only bothered about testing competitors whose results may have unfairly stopped a clean athlete from progressing to Worlds. Let's not lose perspective that most of us here are really just committed hobbyists when it comes to these races.

I can't see the point of testing anybody for a hobby.

I can't see the point of cheating for a hobby but it happens. So there should be countermeasures in place.

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

In principle, neither can I. But reaching Worlds is a big deal for an AGer and clean athletes shouldn't be denied that as a result of others cheating.

I'll be pushing for a KQ at Wales in September, and I'd be livid if I was pipped to a spot by a doper.

Do you like to win? And do you like people you're competing against to follow the same rules as you?

I like the approach and would certainly pay the fee for this type of testing. The issue I see, however, is the out of competition doping during all the training leading up to the race. This is certainly much harder (and more expensive) to test for. Outside of the professional level it is not something the current structure really deals with as far as I know.

A very good point.

The human body can absorb a f**k tonne of extra work with the aid of certain PEDs. A smart cheater could fairly easily use them through the winter to build a solid base of fitness to carry into the season (where they would train and race clean).
I read something a while ago that was discussing the influx of convicted dopers from cycling making the transition in to tri. Some pros (M Carfrae included, IIRC) were calling for doping bans to be made longer due to fact that the effects of fitness gains made whilst doping wouldn't have been completely negated by the end of the current ban.

Yep, that's why I suggested the top-10 in the big AGs. Your average Ironman has what, 8-9 slots in the biggest AGs? The Continental championships normally have >20 slots in M40-44 & 45-49.

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29 years and counting

Paging Antonio.

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29 years and counting

A quick note: this study has two categories of doping: physical doping and "cognitive" doping. Caffeine qualifies for the latter. Your usual cocktail of anabolics, hgh, and EPO are in the former.... which is still 13% of responders.

This "study" made the rounds a while back - at least a year or so ago. Not sure why it's resurfacing.

Many want, full scale testing for age-group racing, but at a number of levels this is fraught with all manner of challenges! It works with Pros/Elites, because for the most part it's a clearly defined group and set of athletes. Part of the challenge in the age-group ranks is . . . where do you draw the line on who is "serious" and not!

That being said, if you hypothetically tested all 2500 athletes assembled in Kona last October, I am sure the findings would be rather interesting.

Many would test clean. A moderately large group would test positive for something taken in-inadvertently . . cold medication, tainted supplements etc . . . Another somewhat related group would be those completely ignorant and oblivious to everything (or so they claim!), and then there would be the purposeful ones, who knew what they were doing, and were using some form of PED's to gain an advantage.

Total positives could be as high as a 1/4 of the whole race field . . maybe higher!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

With the amount of flying around he does, I'm *more* impressed with his ability to train. It's much easier to settle into a routine when you're working a steady 9-5 job. My opinion of course.

lmao yea but that's just money like monetary bs that they don't need and i do agree i hate seeing people riding tt bikes on base bars like what are you doing??!?!!? lol but these people are literally going through the trouble of lying to their doctors etc to get hormones to straight up inject into their butts daily and jacking up all their lh, fsh levels, etc and they're still getting pissed on like fuck that must be embarrassing roflmao