If the sport wanted to clean up, they would have targeted and tested those that 'curiously' finished way down along with the podium. You do that several times, at lower tier unexpected races, especially those within a couple weeks of state races, unannounced, you probably bust some people, and go a long way to cleaning up. Also, if any strong guys curiously decide not to start or dnf, you test those, too. It's not that hard to test and catch people, but then again sport governing bodies don't want to bust the paying membership.

This is just a layman's perspective, but the process for urine only is that (going back 11 years, not sure how it is done now) once you are finished the race an official is with you, hands you a sealed bottle of water and escorts you to a hotel room. From the point of "contact" with the official you are only allowed to drink water, and only from a sealed bottle that the official hands you.

I am not sure if this step is needed now, I have heard of races where they simply post a list post race of who needs to report to doping control.

After that you are brought to the room, talk to an official at the desk and are handed your 100ml sealed container for your "A" sample. You pop the lid and are then escorted to the bathroom by either a Male or Female volunteer. They then watch you pull it out and stare at your stuff while you fill your "A" to 100ml (Having someone watch you pee is by far the weirdest or sort of "most uncomfortable" part of the process)

Once the "A" is full you go to a desk and the official asks you to poor 25 ml into your "B" sample (again sealed) you (the athlete) re-seal both A and B, fill out the paper work and you are on your way…..Oh, they usually give you a free T-shirt.

From start to finish, the athlete is the only person who handles the sample.

In this regard, because the athlete is the only one who handles the sample, my opinion is that you don't need doctors or nurses present. You just need skilled volunteers who are versed in the process, perhaps they take an anti doping course? You just need people to witness everything to make sure due process, transparency and protocol were followed.

With blood sampling, it would take much longer and you would need nurses, and perhaps a doctor present.

My thoughts were that, with simply just the cost of a hotel room and "skilled" volunteers, you could run 6-10 people per hour through control. Compared to blood plus urine which might take up to 30 minutes and would require medical professionals, and in the case of blood likely a much more complex system around handling and splitting and testing A and B samples.

I am also not sure if by not testing blood samples (and here we are not talking pros, just AG) what substances would be missed. My understanding is that even EPO can be detected in urine now.

BTW, these are just my opinions, I am not an expert….I was just thinking if for the same dollar value if they couldn't increase the sampling frequency. IMO even just the threat of constant exposure to testing would deter a lot of people.

Maurice

I think there's another option, that she deliberately took something not knowing or checking to see if it was on the banned list.

For someone who's at the front end of her age group, I don't believe there's any excuse for that. You don't get to the top of the sport, even on an AG level, without being obsessed about all aspects of it. At a minimum, someone at that level at least knows that some substances are prohibited. They may not know which ones, other than the biggies, but they know it's an issue. Not checking every presecription or substance, dor someone like that, is at best grossly negligent or reckless.

I think it's different for a middle or back of the pack, where it's more about participation and completing a triathlon than competing against others. Someone there might not be as invested in the sport where a plea of ignorance is undertandable and perhaps expected.

> Heck, half the guys i race with are RN's, MD's, PA's etc who all know how these systems work.

You make some valid points, but you're trying too hard. Half the guys you race against aren't RN's, MD's, or PA's. You're exaggerating for rhetorical effect.

Maybe making AGers aware that they'll be ridiculed by the ST community would be deterrent enough! We need a wall of shame here on ST...maybe just a thread that gets updated constantly with AGers that have tested positive. ;)

I don't know about testing those that had an off day. Just make the testing random, something like 50% of testing allocated to the top 20% of AGs and the other 50% to the other 80%.

 

>BTW, these are just my opinions, I am not an expert….I was just thinking if for the same dollar value if they couldn't increase the sampling frequency. IMO even just the threat of constant exposure to testing would deter a lot of people.

Those are some good ideas, but I'm not sure how well they'd hold up under a high powered lawsuit from someone who got busted. Volunteers!

I really agree on your second point there, that you don't need comprehensive testing. Just a sparse combination of random and targeted testing is enough to make me happy. If in my cycling district they just did, say, 10 targeted tests and 20 random tests at 2 random events over the course of the whole year, I'd be good with that. And keep what's being tested random and secret. Maybe only 5 of those tests are the full WADA ~$2000 test, while others are just $200 tests for T, etc. Just enough to catch the total obvious, d-bags and make the rest of the dopers uncomfortable and having either roll the dice or "cycle" or whatever.

Amortized over all the races covered, that'd be <$1 per entry additional.

This is the key to your argument really - it is so easy to get around the doping tests that it would be a total waste of money. Unless you were racing every weekend and being tested every weekend, it is easy to simply dope and not race within a week or so of taking whatever you're taking. And you don't need to be an MD or RN to understand this stuff. Just start by reading Tyler Hamilton's book and few other resources.

That's why these threads end up going nowhere with a bunch of silly theories about how to tackle AG doping. The only practical way to reduce it is to have some kind of random testing, but the economics simply don't support it. You also need AGers to be happy with random testers appearing at the door at 6pm and asking them to pee into a cup. Ain't gonna happen.

No, the practical way is to simply start testing more at races, which is far simpler than showing up at someone's door.

Always interesting in "these threads" is how easily some people will throw up their hands and call it a lost cause. I'd rather see some effort than none.

If you started testing at a few races of course you would catch a few people, but only if it was a surprise and therefore, effectively 'random'. But as soon as word got out that there was testing at certain races, AG dopers would just have to be slightly more careful with the timing of their PED use relative to their race calendar. That's why only random testing works effectively over any meaningful time frame, unless you just want to pop a couple of guy/gals and feel good about that.

if that were true then nobody would get popped at nats, and that's obviously not the case.

http://omicsonline.org/...000148.pdf?aid=32505

A quote from the study:

What the above results indicate is that by using current statistics it
would seem that the likelihood of being caught doping is somewhere
between 0.1 and 10% in a single test. To put this in perspective, the
most complete and considered official current statistics pertaining to
adverse analytical findings are provided by the World Anti-Doping
Agency [54]. These findings, per sport, range anywhere from 0 to about
18% [41]. This would seem to indicate that given the findings of this
research, the extent to which doping occurs is very high. Theoretically,
using these figures, if one were to assume that 100% of athletes dope,
because of the limited window of detection, low test sensitivity and
infrequent testing, it is likely to have result in 2.9% of adverse findings
only. To elaborate, according to the calculations, if W= 0.29 (48hours),
S = 0.4, D=1 and T=0.25, one obtains a 2.9% chance of doping detection
in a single test. Therefore if one was to then again refer to the statistics
available from WADA a sport with an adverse analytical finding of 2.9%
(such as is closely the case with darts) would seem to indicate that given
these conditions a vast majority of athletes in that sport were engaged
in doping. Assuming tests were completely random and every athlete
doped regularly, then the percentage of positive test findings (adverse
analytical findings) would be low, roughly corresponding to actual data
published by WADA.

I was curious as to "qualifications" here is a link to CCES (canadian centre for ethics in sport)

http://www.cces.ca/en/scp

Basically a DCO or doping control officer is a "casual employee" who likely gets a stipend. A "chaperone" is more of a volunteer which follows you around and witnesses the "collection".

Neither have super strict requirements, outside of criminal record check etc. IE you don't have to be a doctor, or medical professional if it is urine only. Although they say that often DCO's are retired Law enforcement, or have a medical or health care back ground.

Maurice

And I'll point you to Kenny, Meeker, LeDuc, Cannel, Sorensen and Robertson who were popped at masters nats and didn't rob deserving (hopefully) clean riders. And let's not set aside the riders popped at the NY GF a couple years ago...

Like the saying saying goes: "to fail a dope test is to fail an intelligence test." Unfortunately there are a lot of nitwits out there.

Look, I'm all for testing and keeping the sport clean, but be realistic. Over what time frame have those guys been busted at Nats? And that's six people, who, as you say, are nitwits (polite version). It's great that they were dumb enough to get popped, but you know that in all likelihood there are a ton of guys at the top of the amateur ranks who are doping but doing it with an ounce of intelligence.

And the guy(s) popped at the GF were again popped because it was essentially a random test. No-one expected it. So let's keep it real. The only way to really clean up AG racing (apart from catching the occasional dumbass) is to randomly test, and that's not happening now, and won't happen in the future.

>Like the saying saying goes: "to fail a dope test is to fail an intelligence test." Unfortunately there are a lot of nitwits out there.

I'd be more nuanced than calling it an intelligence test. It's more like a personality test. I don't think they're dumb, generally, they just have an exaggerated, irrational sense of entitlement.

>But as soon as word got out that there was testing at certain races, AG dopers would just have to be slightly more careful with the timing of their PED use relative to their race calendar. That's why only random testing works effectively over any meaningful time >frame, unless you just want to pop a couple of guy/gals and feel good about that.

Simple solution to that. Test random races. That's what USAC/RaceClean actually does. So, theoretically, dopers can't time races. They can only roll the dice. The race directors and USAC don't know which races. USADA just rolls up on race day morning.

Cost-effective. Hard to game with 100% reliability.

I've been eagerly waiting to see this in person in my district just to see who suddenly starts packing up when USADA rolls up.

Every year for the past 5 or so, someone (or more than one) has been popped.

Random testing at races would probably be the best way forward for triathlon too. As far as I know it's only the podium placeres at USAT Nats that ever get tested, which is hardly random.

It would make for some interesting WTC Worlds slot allocations and much deeper roll downs if USADA suddenly turned up and said "you want a Kona/70.3 slot? pee in this cup first!"

Nope. For the pros that may apply because it is easy to time doping cycles to beat IC testing. It does not apply to amateurs because there is essentially no testing. There is no need to be careful. Those guys did not fail an intelligence test; they failed a surprise test.

Guys like Moats and LeDuc were probably doping for decades. That would back up the conclusions of the study I posted. There is a section in there that builds a model where an athlete could dope once a week and the chance of getting popped over the course of a career would be one in six.

All of the guys Carl named were popped at Master's nationals and it was known that there would be testing. It was announced long in advance, was part of the race announcement and they had tested in previous years.

LeDuc tested positive at nationals in 2013, Meeker in 2012 at nationals, Robertson in 2013 at nationals (he was a random due to his previous positive), etc. All of these guys had been to nationals multiple times and knew that there was testing at nationals. None of them should have been surprised to be tested.

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Kevin

http://kevinmetcalfe.dreamhosters.com
My Strava

Not really. They likely got away with it because there wasn't testing for many years. Then there was and they didn't catch up, thus failing an intelligence test. There's no surprise about controls at any national championship.

Hi Dev

We are acutally tested quite often here in SA. Obviously not the small local races, but if you win your AG at any of the big events (IM, 70.3, 5150s, provincial and national champs, etc) chances are you will be called to go pee in cup as they hand you your finishers medal...

I'm friends with another top AG female (not the one busted!) and she gets tested most big races if she wins.

An interesting thing happened to another friend of mine at Kona this year.


She was involved in a bike accident three weeks out from Kona and broke her collar bone, so obvioulsy could not race. As everything was already paid for and she had arranged a holiday with friends in Hawaii, she went over anyway to watch the race. She went to registration to inform the race officials that she would not be racing but wanted to collect her race pack.


After explaining that she was not racing because of her broken collar bone, she was immediately whisked away by WTC / USADA officials and made to sit for over hour in a small room and then subjected to a whole long drug testing procedure, pee in a cup, etc. Even after explaing that she was not racing at all she was tested.


Apparently the explanation from WTC was that they have a concern that one of the main reasons people pull out of Kona last minute is because they think they will be busted for doping, and therefore as a matter of course they test all those that pull out of the race that they can.


The whole scenario was a bit rediculous, but I think it is good that they are doing "random" testing like this and sending out this message.

So someone would be dumb enough to pull out of Kona, but still show up to get their swag, but had been doping.

Sounds like they are trying to do a Moats.

.

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Dave Campbell | Facebook | @DaveECampbell | h2ofun@h2ofun.net

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