"Physical" doping with drugs listed requires a physician does it not?

This sport is already crazy expensive at the IM level.

What is the cost typical, timing for key races, cadence of Doctors Visits/Blood Tests of "Physical Doping" - Is it effective unless you are under a physicians care? Probably very dangerous if not....

In my AG I still give everyone the benefit of the doubt as I try to get to know most of my competition more personally, some would almost say I am a stalker but enjoy learning about people as it is one of the fun aspects of this lifestyle.

I wish I was fast enough to even be CONSIDERED for a drug test. lol :)

Yes, to #1 and yes to #2. I see what you mean about showing up for awards though...as it does sometimes take a while to have those results up; and people have to get back to work. One thing that could work though is to have the samples taken for the top X number and give them the option to 'opt out' for personal, religious, or whatever reason. If you are doing testing, this would maximize return on investment in terms of problem elimination.

Stephen J

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I believe my local reality has been violated.
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Happiness = Results / (Expectations)^2

This idea may work long term but short term it would suck. May take several AG category's being eliminated to eventually deter the scumbags from doping. Other thing is the sample may be too diluted by the "clean" athletes urine and be rendered negative or trace positive. I just like the idea of a watchdog group in the Tri community that is give the power and ability to watch , scan, and research athletes and test randomly and directly by red flags. Computers are great at looking for trends etc......there could be pre set triggers that flag an athlete. For instance......guys doing half for a few years....averaging in the 4:35-4:50 range as a 40 -50 year old guy, the bam! he runs a 422 and shortly after runs a 4:30. That guy needs to piss in a cup. Maybe he was not training hard for the first few years and now has, but that should be a red flag. I ran my first IM and got top 10. I would expect to be pissing in a cup as well. If I was doing roids, EPO, HGH, or T they could catch me now....and do it before I go to Texas and get a Kona spot and screw over a clean athlete who deserves it.

Justify it however you like, but that sounds like an uninvited intrusion into another athlete's personal life.

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Proud Representative of Slowtwitch Anti-Atheists Society.

As a compromise of these...do the pissing cup/ pooled blood (or whatever) and do the testing; and then make those results very public. Let the problem air in the open so that those who want to do something about it can. In terms of dilution...that is not a big problem for a properly designed test (I develop next generation diagnostic technology) and it would put it all out there so that suspicious things in the public record could be scrutinized for inconsistent data. This would satisfy me as a competitor (i.e. to know if I were playing on a level field or not).

Stephen J

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I believe my local reality has been violated.
____________________________________________
Happiness = Results / (Expectations)^2

If a cheater or (unfortunately ) a clean athlete "in the pointy end) of competition wants to get on the podium, they should expect and understand the intrusions .....I personally welcome it. I don't enjoy having my blood drawn or pissing in cups but knowing it is being done to ensure a fair race and sport, them I'm all for it. I know dopers, roid heads , and losers getting hgh and T just for performance gains will not like this at all and that is a very good thing.......

Unfortunately at this time you can't do "group" sampling and collection. A bunch of issues surrounding due process and collection, dilution of samples, and privacy etc.

The process is intended to be standardized across the globe, by WADA. IE a 5-6 step process that goes from notifying the athlete -> sampling and collection -> testing the sample and then appeal process if required.

Also if you group tested say 10 athletes in Kona and it goes positive then 4-8 weeks later when the results come through you could potentially have to contact 10 athletes and NGB's from 10 different countries in order to re-test. The only situations where we generally hear of almost immediate results are from large events like Olympics, TDF or IAAF worlds where they have mobile "accredited" labs on sight.

For example an AG or Pro tested at Tremblant could be positive and still race Kona if the results haven't been processed yet.

Maurice

I believe last year that Antonio Colom appeared in Kona, mysteriously did not race, and has not been seen in triathlon yet again. A very mysterious and abrupt disappearance from the fastest AGer out there.

Are all positives and suspensions made public? Or could he have popped and have some agreement that it does not become public and he does not contest the results or something like that? Is it dependent on country whether a positive is made public?

I've wondered the same thing. How is it possible that 1 in 7 triathletes are doping (which IMO seems very high, but maybe I'm just naive) and no age groupers have been busted and/or DQ'd at Kona with all the testing that has been done there in recent years. I can imagine that WTC would prefer the illusion that their testing keeps cheaters away than publish the names of people caught.

All positive test results are published by USADA. You can see who's been tested here.

http://www.usada.org/testing/results/athlete-test-history/


Pretty sure the red font indicates that the athlete is in the OOC testing pool.

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Kevin

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you just answered your own question... think about it.

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“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

OK, I thought about it, but don't know if I came to the correct answer. If you're implying that everyone knows that they test at Kona, so they show up clean (whether or not they are clean throughout the season), I'm still surprised that nobody has slipped up and been busted. Then again, maybe most of the cheating is focused on qualifying races. With little hope of actually placing high in Kona, no point in cheating.

Am I missing something?

Obviously, yes, the testing does not catch everybody.

I, personally, do not believe that 1 in 7 are doping. I know that won't be a popular sentiment around these parts, but it's not like even the top amateur performances are superhuman and inconceivable without drugs.

Now, back to Colom. I still find it strange that he dominated in 2014, paid to race at Kona and even showed up, but then did not toe the starting line and has not raced since. Honestly, the turnaround time is too fast for him to have been tested Kona week and then come back positive and prohibited from racing, plus he doesn't show on the USADA list. But, could the WADA testing agency for Spain have tested him OOC early and only notified him of a positive the week of Kona, and then no public news ever? Now that sounds like a stretch, and I'm sure there is some other, totally benign reason for him attending but not starting Kona 2014 and never racing again, but it's never come up.

 It's a logic problem.

1. They're not testing
2. They're testing but not releasing results
3. They're testing but not catching anyone because it's easy to evade
4. They're testing but not catching anyone because everyone is clean

I see two possible options based on original assumptions that they are testing and 15% dope

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

He started but DNF'd by about mile 40 of the bike, as for the rest yes - he's been MIA since as best I can tell.

   
But everyone gave him such a warm welcome in the the sport. Can't imagine why he'd turn away from that open hospitality.

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Yup. The tests are not very effective, and most doping takes place during training not during racing.

I don't know what people are expected to be using right before getting tested. Who is going to fly into Hawaii with EPO in hand, take it through TSA, and inject it a few days before the race instead of using it in the final two to three weeks in their training, stopping a week before the race, and enjoying the effects for the next few weeks?

I apologize for the misinformation. For over a year now I'd been under the impression that he was a DNS.

Dumb people need to be caught also.

Sure you can figure out when the stuff will be out of your system, but do you really know that? This sort of testing will also keep the smart dopers from going so full gas. It adds another layer of complexity to doping, so it does increase the chance of someone screwing up. It needs to be done in combination with out of competition testing, but I am betting this testing is cheaper than the out of competition testing.

With no intent in starting a pissing match or argument (more curious than anything), do you have any stats/math to show that it would work to pool samples? Even at n=5. My intuition tells me you'd need an exquisitely sensitive and selective test for the marker in question, and that would entirely eliminate and sort of multifactorial analysis due to confounding. But intuition isn't usually the right approach when dealing with complex problems. :)

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The question of who is right and who is wrong has seemed to me always too small to be worth a moment's thought, while the question of what is right and what is wrong has seemed all-important.

-Albert J. Nock

I can only answer that with an answer of 'yes'; but I cant provide data that I can share in a public forum. This can be done for protein, small molecules, or even expression levels (which would provide an interesting profile of what is going on invivo...although this would be not very informative on a pooled sample). It is all about sample prep. which is often overlooked. Of course, with this said I currently work on the pointy end of things where we figure out how to make things work...this is different than putting something in a box for sale.

Stephen J

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I believe my local reality has been violated.
____________________________________________
Happiness = Results / (Expectations)^2

I would actually agree and say that it is close to at least 50% AG PED use here in the states.

All the local coffeeshops had lines out the door and plenty of athletes were drinking caffeinated coffee on race morning at IMWI this year. According to the German survey that would be considered a PED, so plenty of offenders here in Madison.

I guess i use PED's too. Ban me for life.

Haha, I work (err, pretend to move forward in my Ph.D) in sample prep for a diagnostic platform. I'm not truly on the bio side of the world, so clearly my understanding of what's possible is limited.

Totally understand a huge portion of this stuff is proprietary

This was more my point--I couldn't see how you'd do any kind of test once you stop looking at the exogenous molecules, which seems a large basis for the whole blood passport. If you're going for the glow period, or with a more sensitive test, extending the glow period, then I can understand.

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The question of who is right and who is wrong has seemed to me always too small to be worth a moment's thought, while the question of what is right and what is wrong has seemed all-important.

-Albert J. Nock

You are right...I was thinking more of unique molecular signatures of some chemical byproduct as opposed to changed levels of endogenous biomolecules. Good catch.

Stephen J

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I believe my local reality has been violated.
____________________________________________
Happiness = Results / (Expectations)^2