Behan wrote:
I know your question was targeted at the U.S. audience but after the Belgian U23 cyclocross champion was busted a few months back for motorised doping I sent a number of emails to Ironman officials asking if they had a plan/intention to deal with the issue. The response was...silence...not a thing. I found that pretty disappointing but maybe I shouldn't have been surprised.
Niall
Honestly, I expect Ironman will address motorized doping. Whether they can effectively stop it, I'd be skeptical, but I expect they'll come up with some process that at least acknowledges awareness of the issue and educates RDs and officials on the inspection or confiscation process. They have 150+ events that are "big-time", ie 2000-3000 athletes, and they can put together a process that applies to all. What I'm thinking more about are the individual races, the small RD and 500 racers with maybe two USAT officials, or even the totally unsanctioned events. In the real world, how do the small events go about this. We know that in the real world that these small events turn a blind eye to doping and don't worry about it, putting the onus on USADA who would never test small events like these, so is the same "it's an honor system because we won't even try to catch you" approach taken for motorized doping? Is there any other real-world option?