you are completely wrong in AGers. Quite a few AGers get tested at WT races, and if you’re taking something not allowed, either you have a TUE in advance or you have to apply for one retroactively not to be DQ’d. Just because you’re not good enough to get tested doesn’t mean this doesn’t exist.
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Here’s the current International Standard for Therapeutic Use Exemptions (ISTUE)(2023):
https://www.wada-ama.org/sites/default/files/2022-09/international_standard_for_therapeutic_use_exemptions_istue_2023.pdf
“Therapeutic” Definition: Of or relating to the treatment of a medical condition by remedial agents or methods; or providing or assisting in a cure.
“Therapeutic Use Exemption Committee” - panel who consider applications for TUEs
4.2 [Edited, p11 of 23 in the ISTUE linked above]
An Athlete may be granted a TUE if (and only if) they can show that [all] of the following conditions are met:
- a) needed to treat a diagnosed medical condition supported by relevant clinical evidence.
- b) will not, on the balance of probabilities, produce any additional enhancement of performance
- c) is an indicated treatment for the medical condition, and there is no reasonable permitted Therapeutic alternative.
I can see the panel’s rationale for denying McCauley her treatment - on the basis of the three criteria above. I would cut a woman trying to conceive some slack, footnote that infertility is to be considered a “medical condition” and write that in as an exception to the second criterion. I am, of course delighted she’s succeeded and suitably impressed she travelled to Taupo and raced.
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I agree, and looking at the language alone, I do think an infertility treatment would fall under “treating a condition”. Even if it doesn’t make the patient any “more fertile” but just deals with the consequences. Treating symptoms, even without addressing the causes, is still treatment.
I was guessing the denial of a TUE was based on the performance enhancing properties some hormonal cocktail Jocelyn was going to take, but it seems the guess was off.
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You’re using quite a few to do some heavy lifting and you top it off with throwing some shade as if that matters.
Let’s say there are 200,000 AGers, how many get tested? What number would be “quite a few”? Interestingly, we both used similar non specific verbiage (me: very rarely, you: quite a few).
I’m curious about you telling me I’m “completely wrong”. How many need to be tested for it to be completely wrong that X/200,000 = very rare vs quite a few.
Indeed the meaning of the word few, would suggest not that many. So literally I’d agree that there’s quite few that get tested. But you seem to imply there’s a lot. In any case you also seem to imply most of that 60 are AGers, soley on the logic of some of them being tested, that’s very rare in overall proportion. But surely the motive for a pro to use a banned substance is greater and the number of times the pro field is tested it’s orders of magnitude greater so the point I was making is whatever reasonable rationale you apply to AGers even more applies to pros.
For every continental or world championship there should be at least 15-20 people tested. I’m not sure why it matters what % they are?
I find it more likely that is an AGer to require a TUE, as they have a different background and medical situation than a Pro athlete. I think it’s more probable that an average joe is in need of a medication regularly than a pro.
You’re starting from the assumption that everyone’s trying to game the system.
I have kept digging! And actually there are clear guidelines on this (ie getting a TUE for infertility)!
TUE Physician Guidelines - Female Infertility
https://www.wada-ama.org/sites/default/files/2025-12/tue_physician_guidelines_female_infertility_-_version_2.0_-_january_2026.pdf
3.a. note: “There is no scientific evidence to support adjuvant androgenic supplements such as testosterone or DHEA in IVF or other female fertility-related treatments.”
The medication ‘Denied’ in the ITA Triathlon data - the line McCauley self-identifies - was for:
S1.1 Anabolic Androgenic Steroids (AAS) - Prasterone (dehydroepiandrosterone, DHEA)
I infer (iana-medic) that the note above meant that the drug one of her doctors sold her as a good idea was not evidence-based, as well as falling foul of the ‘not performance enhancing’ criterion.
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Since when do AGs require TUEs? To my knowledge you only have to adhere to the TUE system when you are in a test pool. AGs etc have to get a prescription and in case of a doping test retroactively apply for it. So all the TUEs should be from test pool athletes or am I wrong?
you can apply retroactively (which is something pros can’t do), but nobody’s stopping you from filing it in advance, the criteria are the same.
I love it when someone does actual work I’m too lazy to do and my hot take turns into “likely true”!
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No, you have to adhere to the TUE system whatever your status: pro in RTP, pro not in any test pool or amateur.
In this circumstance, as an amateur once notified of an AAF, applies retrospectively.
It may be denied and an ADRV declared with subsequent results management.
That application will appear in the data. We have no idea how many of the 78 are amateur - prophylactic or retrospective.
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And, for clarity, you as an age grouper can indeed avail yourself of the TUE system in advance.
Source: guy who did it in 2018 typing this response.
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And most of those will get denied, just like most of the pre race ones do. Unfortunately a lot of AG’ers think that a doc’s script is all they need, which of course are given out like water. The “real” bar for TUE is very, very high. If you actually care about the system in place, you get it ahead of time. The retroactive are either for something minor, or getting caught red handed with one of the biggies..
Based on what TUEs pop up, your most common ones are inhalers, ADHD meds, and then a short-term steroid.
Yes I would expect those are the ones that actually get through. It would be interesting to see the % of T requests that actually get through. I know so many folks with their doctors scripts who think they are good to go because of that. But not many actually apply for the TUE, probably because someone like me tells them they will probably lose their case…
That’s what that dashboard is telling you, though – most of the ones actually requested either get withdrawn (by the athlete) or they get approved.
Based on the number of athletes who are definitely on some type of TRT in transition at a given race, there’s a whole lot of people who would be in trouble if they got tested. But I also have a sneaking suspicion that most of those athletes aren’t the ones we need to worry about for WC slots, as almost all of the WC contending athletes know about the system and what it takes.
I’m noodling whether to write up a full opinion piece on the matter of disclosures and whatnot because there’s a whole lot of bad ideas getting tossed out there.
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Coming back to the PTN podcast (as opposed to the wider TUE discussion),I think there’s merit in the idea that Mark threw out that if you’re getting a TUE for steroids or HGH it should come with a time-out clause.
I keep coming back on this discussion to the Starky incident and how if you were that sick that you needed a powerful steroid to keep your long-term health, you shouldn’t have been racing anyway. The TUE process exists for a reason (to make sure you’re able to access health measures usually unavailable to athletes under the WADA code when you need them).
But if you’re taking things that are true class A performance enhancers to overcome an illness or injury, then you should be not racing anyway. The example here is Henri Schoeman being terribly sick the days before Rio, gets a TUE, and then comes out with bronze. Maybe he shouldn’t have been racing, if that was the case.
Long-term chronic ailments may or may not be a different story, at least for pros - though Mark does have a point, that a certain point, maybe pro sports aren’t for you. (And this is where it would be more fine for amateurs for meds to treat chronic ailments)
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I absolutely agree. But just as the hypothetical pregnant athlete in the prior discussion has an incentive to keep doing whatever they can to keep getting paid while pursuing personal tangential goals to competition, so too does the pro athlete. They want to keep their name out there for current and future sponsors and continue possibility collecting prize money, bonuses, etc. It’s the other side of the coin in the previous conversation.
But I also think this is at least a better way to approach it than it currently is. Keep training if you must, but competition against others while you have some degree of performance enhancer (or ped obfuscator) should not be permissible.
and you are suprised that not more females want to do the sport , and excuse my language, with a..holes like you in the sport who in like every 7th post conveys a negative female message.
and its not that I cant see your argument ,ie should one compete when on a tue to deal with not life long issues ( its a valid point to raise) but you are constantly negative about females in sport ( ironman qualification slots , NCAA and here, there is always something wrong for you with them as you feel they taking away from the males. Why should it be harder for a female pro to be a parent than a male pro ?
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Females represent over 50% of the population. I’ve also been hard on Scott Derue. It might just be that you are looking through a lens that I am not as you interpret everyone around you as an enemy. You might not feel that way, but let’s remember who is calling the other person a name as if that means anything to me other than a reflection of you being too emotionally invested to words on a screen. Take a breath, or better yet just go work out.
Ps in this case it’s not taking anything from the males. If a female athlete prefers to keep her TUE application secret so she can secure sponsor or federation support and then (hopefully) get pregnant and bail, that’s a lost opportunity for a female who will stay the course for the next several years.
So again, take a look at why you have your hackles raised against me and are ready for battle with the lens that you evaluate others (and likely life?) through.
Breaking news @Lurker4 and no need for that “lens” of yours: in plain sight.
Trying to get pregnant, being successful, going to term, having a babe, nurturing it while getting back into training, in due course returning to competition is NOT “bailing”. Mercifully most sponsors/partners are alongside the idea that female athletes may wish to have a child or children and nearly all nat feds and relevant bodies have a policy reflecting the current decade.
If they didn’t and in your ideal world athletes in this position would be outed in this intent and immediately lose support, that’s a lost opportunity for this proven pro who will, after months relatively few, or none if infertility treatment unsucessful, “will stay the course for the next several years”.
Loads of examples, but here’s a last 6 years list to which you can no doubt add:
Sodaro,
Learmonth
Lawrence
Pallant-Browne
Coldwell/Evans
now Gentle
now McCauley
(Note: I am not suggesting that any of these athletes had meds to help or got a TUE. Quite rightly I and the world have no idea, and if they did, we absolutely haven’t the Lurker’s Law Right to Know.)
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