I just read the following on Desiree Fickers’ website blog
“Really makes you wonder what is going on in our sport though. I wish they would start testing blood in Hawaii, it makes no sense with all the money and sponsor opportunity on the line that they don’t.”
Do they not test for doping of any sort at Hawaii? How did Kraft get caught?
They test the top finishers and I think a couple random as well.
Kraft got caught cause she got first place so therefore it was mandatory testing. Obviously she needs better sponsors to be able to afford better masking 
I think she may be referring to actual blood tests vs. urine tests that are used today to check for EPO, Steroids etc… Blood doping (injecting blood Tyler Hamilton style) requires a blood test to detect.
Absolutely agree with Desiree - it’s so obvious that there is a way(s) to avoid positive test using drugs - just think of Rasmusen case - 17 tests at 17 stages of the Tour, all negative and only accidentally someone spotted him in Italy…
There was NO drag test at Ironman Canada this year - what should I think of preparing for this race, what can I expect???
Check Roth results (mind you Lothar EPO test this summer) - from 7:50’s to 8:19/8:10/8:17/8.11 in 2000/2001/2002/2003 when EPO test was issued and now we back to sub 8 - it it new staff?
Many to say
…it makes no sense with all the money and sponsor opportunity on the line that they don’t."
may-be it makes sense to the private company not to deal with drug scandals and loose sponsors, never mind athletes lives and health problems. And pros are forced to spend good % of small $ they make to this staff to stay competitive knowing that other may use drugs since no good tests available
For triathlon’s sake, I sure as hell hope they don’t handle doping as poorly as the UCI has. Making it a huge ridiculous deal complete with leaking tests to the press and using shoddy labs to do poor labwork is no way to protect the health of your sport.
Look at how baseball and football handle it here in the U.S. For instance, I know in baseball a first offender is told that he has been caught, quietly, and that he is now under greater scrutiny for a year. Then, and only then, if they catch him a second time, he’s booted for a reasonable amount of time.
Just because there may be doping in your sport doesn’t mean that you need to destroy your sport in public.
And, just remember: drinking water in endurance running used to be considered cheating.
Look at how baseball and football handle it here in the U.S. For instance,
You Got To be kidding
Just because there may be doping in your sport doesn’t mean that you need to destroy your sport in public.
are you talking in general or you mean me or Desiree? I could poorly explain my thoughts, cause English is not my original language, please let me know what (if) I wrote to destroy Triathlon in public. I didn’t mean it… Ironman is great! WTC doing awesome job, it’s just human nature, i guess, to speak about problems more then about how lucky we are to have what we have (with the reason of making it even better, I hope, not just criticize someone for own pleasure)
Oh, in general. I’m not attacking you or Desiree. 
Triathlete mag. interviewed Stadler in this months issue, with one of the questions being doping related:
Triathlete: In light of all that happened at the Tour de France, is triathlon being looked at by potential sponsors as a more pure sport, making it perhaps easier to get sponsors?
Stadler: We have one of the best drug-tested systems for triathlon in Germany. In Germany, we are one of the most tested sports. There’s not much other popular sport around except cycling, and cycling is dying right now, and the next biggest endurance sport is triathlon. It’s getting bigger and bigger every year. And every marathon and triathlon in Germany is sold out; Frankfurt was sold out in eight hours.
-This is interesting, considering what happened to T-Mobile this year during the Tour. The next question actually pertained to Stadler and his association with the T-Mobile team doctor Lothar Heinrich.-
Triathlete: I understand some people are trying to tie in your association with the team to the dismissal of T-Mobile team doctor Lothar Heinrich, who was accused of giving EPO to pro cyclist Jan Ullrich at the 1996 Tour de France.
Stadler: Yes. He was a friend of mine the last 15 years when I started triathlon, in Freibourg, which was my university. People were talking about, “Oh, Normann knows this guy.” Yes, I know him and still like him as a friend. But he never - ever - offered me anything. If you want to dope, you ask. If you’re weak, you ask someone to give you something. But they will never offer you something, and he never offered me anything. My new team, we spent about $100,000 euros to do our own team testing. So we get extra testing.
-From the previous posts link to Badmann, and this reference to Stadler, it definitely begs the question on what is being done to improve testing within the sport. Is Germany or any “one” else for that matter doing enough? Maybe it is still one
woman/man’s word against another?-
thanks for the article Peter. Germany in deed doing good in that matter, I’ve had drug tested there at the race most never heard of here (Kulmbach IM distance - ?) back in 2002, but it reminded me another topic on the drug testing - in US drug tests performed by national agency in US - USADA as a part of international WADA (world anti doping agency) Never heard of them testing Foreigner Ironman Pro in US, according to private talk with some officials they care first about Olympic Athletes, second - about USA athletes, no time or money left for Euro/NZ-AU training in US, definitely not for out of competition test. Do they realize how many of them (us, actually) training in Boulder/San Diego (Germans)/elsewhere in US, especially before Kona, far away from National ADAs… look how poorly US IM athletes perform here - is that because they can’t do what others can??
humm…baseball football… do you realise there is about no controle in these sport and it s most likely the dirtyest sport on the planet…way way way way worse than cycling… but fans dont want to know about it…
in baseball and football they make sure to not adress the problem and just keep in on the downlow…
and for a resonable amount of time, i m not sure but as anyone been suspended for 2 or 4 years in baseball/football/hockey/basketball? maybe someone know more than me? all the suspention i heard of are for a few weeks or months… so nothing really…
Is Germany or any “one” else for that matter doing enough? Maybe it is still one woman/man’s word against another?-
With regards to testing of long distance triathletes, my guess is that it varies from country to country. From what I can tell in Germany they seem to have a system where ALL elite level triathletes are involved in a testing program - both in competition and out. However, I know that in other countries this is not the case. For example in Canada, the only athletes that are part of an on-going, in and out of competition testing program are those racing on the ITU circuit -on the National Team and the Developmental Team that travels to the World Cups, World Chamionships and possibly the Olympic Games. If you are a long course specialist and only race IM distance races ( WTC and NAS events), you fall into a bit of a gray area. You can go all year, place in high profile IM races, win some decent money and NEVER get tested in or out of competition.
For example in Canada, the only athletes that are part of an on-going, in and out of competition testing program are those racing on the ITU circuit -on the National Team and the Developmental Team that travels to the World Cups, World Championships and possibly the Olympic Games. If you are a long course specialist and only race IM distance races ( WTC and NAS events), you fall into a bit of a gray area. You can go all year, place in high profile IM races, win some decent money and NEVER get tested in or out of competition.
I’m moving to Canada But really I shouldn’t - would never know “who” I’m racing to 
Looks like we lucky that money is “decent” but not more that that - I was complaining few days ago that Ironman price $ are the same for about 15 years (in Canada it even went down to 12k for the first vs 14 - should I say spread out deeper) with all the prices up, inflation, etc… but now I thought from the opposite: we lucky to have this much, it prevents us from big drugs in our Iron lack of control, really there is no reason to spend hundreds of thousands for really good “staff” and make tens ))))