A 2-up sprint in a total 6-person race... Cat 3? Maybe Masters Cat 3.

I suspect the proliferation of "life extension" medicine is far more prevalent in the Masters ranks. I've considered it, but I also hung up my competitive career a while ago.

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Some are born to move the world to live their fantasies...

https://triomultisport.com/
http://www.mjolnircycles.com/

I'm glad to see signs of life out of RaceClean. I thought USAC had pretty much packed it in due to financial pressures, lack of interest by the new leadership.

Why they picked this little race in Arizona, is beyond me.

It was the state championship race....not some small race.

Also, I have been told he has a pacemaker. Not sure that has anything to do with it. If he has a pacemaker would he be on prescription medicine as well?

Not trying to defend him but just curious.

I'm being elitist, but the AZ state championship is a small race....at least in numbers. The fields were tiny.

Fair enough!

I edited to not sound too dickish...I just mean the fields were all tiny. I was at races this year where every field was packed with 50+ guys. Lots of 50 year-olds who came out of COVID looking like they had a great time putting on muscle mass. No USADA in sight.

No such thing. Either your race Juniors, Seniors (Cat 1/2/3/4) or Masters.

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No coasting in running and no crying in baseball

I've been playing around with the idea of trying to get some Testosterone since I'm oldish and focusing on putting on muscle in the gym. It wouldn't stop me from jumping into a race if there was one nearby (there isn't). Whatever level I'd be competing at would be meaningless. If they came to drug test me, I'd just have a good laugh and go home. Hell even now I'd to that, none of their business what drugs I might have in my system. Whatever they might be I'm not taking them to get one up on the other local washed up cyclists.

You can't have it both ways. It's really hard to put on (or maintain) muscle when old, and having good, fast-recovering, muscle mass is a huge competitive advantage. What you describe is cheating. You're signing your name to an entry form contract that says you agree to the rules of the competition, and then what you describe is willfully ignoring those rules.

I have no problem if you were to join some event that doesn't have an explicit anti-doping policy as a condition of entry.

We had a master's rider get popped through this program a couple years ago. He did only single speed cyclocross races as a sanctioned event so he probably only raced a dozen times a year. It seems like a huge waste of money.

I wonder how they decide on who will be tested?

I'd guess I'd just be a cheat then.

Been a while since I did any USAC/USCF racing. I know back then they often ran Master's 4/5's separately in my area -- Pacific NW. At the AZ state level, who knows, maybe they run Master's 3's separately. [not doubting you, I'm just saying my comment was out of ignorance. Thanks for setting me straight.]

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Some are born to move the world to live their fantasies...

https://triomultisport.com/
http://www.mjolnircycles.com/

i think it is hard to be absolute on recreational athletes getting tested and banned as i suspect (based on my years as a pharmacist) that a decent number of those joggers at the back of any local 5k just trying to get a bit of weight off and break 30 minutes would unknowingly test positive for something on the WADA list. i think we know intentional cheating when we see it though.

At my current age (56) even though i am still competitive i don't think i would care about what PEDs others in the race could be taking - unless they become bad winners and gloat about how great they are.

There for a while they were getting 1 amateur per month banned. IIRC that streak went on for 14-16 mo.

I wish more NGBs did stuff like race clean (cough cough USAT) but sadly most NGBs (cough cough USAT) don't care enough about clean racing.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

If you were tested, or refused to be tested, USADA would put out a press release about your doping violation and your four year ban. Cycling websites would write articles about you. Whenever someone googles your name, 10 results about you being a cheater and officially banned from sports would be the first things they see. If they did not try to test you, you would still be a cheater competing against better men - and I'm not referring to their cycling ability.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

i wish more people would see in advance the ramifications of this. what it tells the world - not the cycling world, but the world - is that you don't think rules (or presumably laws) matter to you. if you were a firefighter, policeman, schoolteacher, church pastor, would you "laugh it off" when folks outside of sport find out? if your spouse sees your cavalier attitude toward rules and fidelity, what other rules might he or she think you obey when it's convenient, but not when you have a competing agenda?

i understand when men my age choose testosterone. believe me! your ability to recover goes to heck. but in this case it's just much better to either not race, or make sure whatever "race" you do is not sanctioned by any federation. even one-day sanctioning adheres you to both safesport and anti-doping governance, at least for what goes on during the time the event is covered by the sanction.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

USADA may have more lenient criteria to get a TUE for testosterone if you are a recreational athlete. If you must do this, I would suggest doing it the right way. Testosterone is a game changer. By my understanding, you’d still need a valid medical diagnosis to get a TUE for testosterone. And if you are a pro, no chance you will get a TUE for this.

https://www.wsj.com/...exemption-1461365753

Running races are a bit different because most of the people participating do not take it that seriously and running competitively is likely not a large part of their identity. I don't think anyone really cares about TRT in the guy finishing a 5k in 29 minutes, but if random testing caught him, he would probably very much regret it. But even mediocre recreational competitive runners care about their placement and take pride in their times. Last time I ran a large running race which I do not do very often was back in 2014 when I ran a somewhat pathetic 1:28 in both the NYC and Brooklyn half marathons (at 44 I've improved my running a fair bit since then). I finished like 629th - but that is also the top 2.4%. Even though I was not sniffing any podiums, I would want to know my placement was legit and there weren't 40 dudes on T in front of me.

Cycling is a different animal. Even in a Cat 5 race, all those guys and gals are taking it seriously, need to get a license, have been training, spent lots of money, etc. It's not nearly as casual as a running race. Every single one of them really needs to take doping rules seriously.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

In the races I've done where they were at, there was a bulletin board near the finish line with race #s of people who had to show up at the USADA tent. It was all podium finishers.

They also test people they get tips on, but I'm not sure if that comes out of the RaceClean pot of money, or just the general USADA fund.

To get a recreational TUE, in the last 25 years, you cannot have been on almost any age group podium in any sport, you cannot have qualified for worlds (even AG). So if you ever got on your 55-59 AG podium at your local sprint race when there were only 4 people in your age group (or if you did the same thing 23 years ago when you were in 30-34) then you cannot get a RCTUE. The rules:

Recreational Competitor: For the purposes of the USADA TUE Policy, a Non-National Athlete who is not
classifi ed as a professional Athlete and who within the last 25 years (1) has not been in the USADA Registered
Testing Pool or the Registered Testing Pool of an International Federation; (2) has not represented the United
States in an International Event; (3) has not won a national or regional level Competition in any sport; (4) has not
fi nished fi rst, second or third in an age group category of any Event sanctioned by an NGB in which fi fty (50) or
more competitors have been entered in that category in the sport in which they are presently competing; and (5)
has not won more than fi ve hundred dollars (500.00 USD) in prize money in an Event in the sport in which they are
presently competing.

Recreational Competitor TUE (or “RCTUE”): A Therapeutic Use Exemption for use by a Recreational
Competitor for substances and/or methods prohibited at all times or in Competitions where USADA anti-doping
rules apply as defi ned by the USADA Protocol for Olympic and Paralympic Movement Testing, the USADA TUE
Policy and as limited by the terms set forth in the certifi cate provided to an individual who has been granted an
RCTUE.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

Or you could not be a cheat; and not race...because taking those compounds and competing is cheating.
Just curious; why would you choose to cheat rather than play according to the rules, or play a different game where you were not cheating? Serious question.

Stephen J

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

No sorry I was not specific enough, this guy was popped in and out of competition random test where they knocked on his door.

I'm not sure if the protocol used with race clean is actually the same as the one you're outlining above.

Part of what irks me about the race clean program is they funded it by jacking up the price of an international UCI license to $200. For me that was just too much money and it cut off the opportunity for racing up in Canada which was a real shame.

Drug testing is quite costly. The federation instituted the program because they claimed that members noted that concerns about Masters athletes doping was a big deal to them. I guess the question for me is how much would riders be willing to pay to have random drug testing at a race. I assume it would probably double or triple the cost of the entry fee. I wouldn't pay two cents myself and I raced through the 1990s against lots and lots of guys who got popped over the years.

Are we talking about the same guy? I'm talking about the guy who's the subject of this thread, Matt McWhirter.

He was tested at the race he won. Per USADA, "McWhirter, 49, who placed first in the Men’s Cat 3 at Bike the Bluff on June 19, 2021, tested positive for an anabolic agent as the result of an in-competition drug test at that event."

He was also tested as a part of RaceClean, "McWhirter was subject to testing due to his membership in USA Cycling, which maintains the RaceClean Program..."


Oh it is. RaceClean predominantly tests podium finishers at amateur cycling events. They certainly have the authority to pull random people from the field for testing, but I've never heard of them doing that.