Now there are some who have pointed out recently that many aspects of anti-doping have become a PR exercise, rather than a “catching cheats” exercise. It’s the perception that each country has of being clean, whilst catching a few “bad eggs”, rather than stopping higher level (systematic?) doping and, heaven forbid, having your country look like a bunch of cheats.

There is certainly a difference between ‘doing’ a good job and ‘appearing’ to do a good job. Much like when statistics within areas such as law enforcement or a company’s pollution can be misleading. Is there a possibility that testing figures follow a similar pattern?

WADA report

Firstly, one thing that is made clear on WADA’s report on the figures, although not really reported in the press, is that these are testing figures and positive tests, but these do not necessarily mean an Anti-Doping Rule Violation (ADRV) has taken place. It could be that a TUE is in place for the substance and it’s not until 2018 that we see the ADRV report for 2016, once all the cases have been, rightly, heard.

There are also all those unfortunate cases where athletes were passionately kissing girlfriends, who just so happened to be eating contaminated Chinese beef that they stole from the Olympic Village in Beijing. These are in the testing figures, but obviously, this is no fault of the athlete, like when you leave all your cocaine in your wash bag before a tennis tournament.

Updated banned list

The other report published by WADA in October each year is the updated banned list. It outlines the new naughty drugs and ones that we previously thought might be helpful, but are actually now determined to be useless.

This year alcohol, not really helpful in any racing situation, and glycerol, which was considered to help with hyper-hydration, were removed, although thankfully The International Federations of Air Sports, Archery, Automobile, and Powerboating will still have the authority to decide on those ones themselves.

You could try to look at both the 2017 and 2018 lists and try to figure out what’s in and what’s out, but fortunately, WADA provides a summary of the modifications made.

Even athletes of the calibre of Maria Sharapova forget to check what’s changed and get their wrists slapped when their heart medication is listed as a banned performance-enhancing substance. So are we doing enough to publicise these changes to athletes and coaches?

IV infusions

The other interesting change in the 2018 WADA code is with regards to the use of intravenous (IV) infusions. Here’s the wording of WADA’s Summary:

“M2.2: the permitted volume and timing of intravenous infusions were changed from infusions of no more than 50 mL per 6-hour period to no more than a total of 100 mL per 12-hour period in order to allow greater flexibility for the safe administration of non-prohibited therapeutic substances, for example, iron.”

Now, I may have received a U (later upgraded to an E after retests) at AS Maths, but 50mL per 6 hour period actually allows for 100mL per 12 hour period. So what’s going on here? Apparently, it’s “in order to allow greater flexibility for the safe administration of non-prohibited therapeutic substances, for example, iron”.

Now we all know as athletes that not being able to inject our 100mls of iron in one go is a major pain… oh wait, no! How many athletes do you know that are regularly injecting supplements in large enough doses as to be inconvenienced by this? Is this what elite sport is these days?

If cycling has taught us anything (other than that biceps are basically unnecessary) it’s that injections becoming normality is a slippery slope. Many a doping story within cycling’s annals starts with the regular vitamin injections, legal infusions to just ‘level the playing field’.

There are athletes that need TUEs for medical grounds and certain circumstances where IVs of greater than 100ml per 12 hours are needed e.g. “except for those legitimately received in the course of hospital treatment, surgical procedures, or clinical diagnostic investigations”. Aside from this, do we really need to be widening the possibilities of benefiting from injected supplements and infusions? Are we not increasing the grey area, rather than making the rules easier to enforce?

Timing is everything

The only cases where the timing and numbers of infusions have arisen recently was in the FBI’s investigation into Alberto Salazar’s coaching methods, and the parliamentary culture, media and sport select committee, chaired by MP Damian Collins when discussing one of Salazar’s British athletes receiving unknown levels of infusions of L-Carnitine.

It’s quite a coincidence that whilst these investigations are ongoing, one of the major areas in which foul play is suspected is being changed.

This rule change may actually prevent doping figures from increasing, by making something that was once illegal, legal, but will it reduce doping in sport?

In the long term could relaxation of these rules lead to more athletes becoming comfortable with regular needles and that particular pathway from the grey area to outright cheating?

Is Anti-doping becoming a PR exercise in the battle against cheats? Considering that convincing the next generation of athletes that they can win clean is vital to progression, after scandals with regards to Russia and, now, China, is this the only path left?

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The allegations, made by the former Chinese athletics team doctor Xue Yinxian to German broadcaster ARD, speak of the involvement of athletes across a wide range of sports including “football, volleyball, basketball, table tennis, badminton, athletics, swimming, diving, gymnastics and weightlifting”  in a systematic doping programme.

The 79-year-old Xue, who fled China two years ago to seek political asylum in Germany, said in the interview that “in the 1980s and 90s, Chinese athletes on the national teams made extensive use of doping substances” and all medals won during that time were “showered in doping”. Xue also claimed that “if you refused to dope, you had to leave the team,” and that athletes as young as 11-years-old were given banned substances.

In response, WADA has said in a statement that its “independent intelligence and investigations team” will investigate the allegations of systematic doping in China, however, it may be difficult to prosecute cases more than 30 years old. Th World Anti Doping Code came into existence on 2003, and the statute of limitations for prosecuting code violations is 10 years.

The allegations are not new and were first made first made in 2012 by the same doctor. The former head of Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission, Renee-Anne Shirley, has been quick to criticise WADA’s slow response.

Shirley wrote Twitter: “Dr Xue made these accusations in 2012 but Wada did nothing about them then. Guess they only move when ARD TV does a documentary?”

In regards to Irish interest in the matter, Sonia O’Sullivan missed out on two gold medals at the 1993 Wolrd Championships to Chinese athletes. O’Sullivan had to settle for fourth place behind the trio of Qu Yunxia, Zhang Linli and Zhang Lirong in the 3000m and silver in the 1500m behind Liu Dong.

WADA’s full statement is below
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has seen the 21 October documentary by German broadcaster ARD alleging systematic doping in China during the 1980s and 1990s; and, questioning whether such a system may have prevailed beyond these decades. The allegations were brought forward by former Chinese physician, Xue Yinxian, who is said to have looked after several national teams in China during the decades in question.

While WADA was only formed in November 1999 as the international, independent, agency tasked with combatting doping in sport, the Agency will ensure that, if action is warranted and feasible under the World Anti-Doping Code (Code), the necessary and appropriate steps will be taken.  As a first step, the Agency has asked its independent Intelligence and Investigations (I&I) team to initiate an investigative process in order to collect and analyze available information in coordination with external partners.

The Code, which first came into being in 2003, is the core document that harmonizes anti-doping policies, rules and regulations across sports organizations and countries around the world. Prior to the Code, anti-doping efforts were disjointed and uncoordinated across sports and countries.

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