On Anti-Doping

October 1, 2012

I've been writing, trashing, rewriting, retrashing, what comes below for some weeks now, in the hope that when this week arrived I'd have something helpful to say to you about USADA on the eve of the "Armstrong file's" delivery to the UCI. I feel it's best to publish this now rather than after USADA's coda on the Armstrong case, because nothing we hear this week should change our minds about USADA and our approach to it. I don't see the profit in allowing events to bend the trajectory of an anti-doping strategy viewed from 30,000 feet.

In a companion installment I wrote about the moral imperatives of doping. I don't think I could express my own views any better than did Travis Tygart, CEO of USADA, when he replied to a question of mine with, "It's simple: Don't use drugs. That's the duty."

We could say that about our broader, national war on drugs as well, but as we have seen it's not quite that simple. Yes, I think more than half the battle is won just by raising our children, coaching our children, and expressing to those in our circles that this ethic is not fungible, it is not elastic. Still, there are those who'll dope. What is our battle plan to catch them, to dissuade them, and how can we as stakeholders improve it?

Via federal statute we have one clearinghouse for anti-doping efforts, prosecution, adjudication. It's USADA, the United States Anti-Doping Agency (if you live in another country, chances are you have your own National Anti-Doping Agency, or NADO).

In the wake of the Armstrong case many have called for USADA's abolition. This is silly. If we abolished USADA we'd have to replace it with something analogous. Furthermore, much or most of what USADA does is good, efficient, laudable, practical, and workable. We do not need to defang USADA, rather we need to supercharge it. It is likewise impractical to push for a dual track of races—those under the federation umbrella and those not—for the purpose of getting around anti-doping efforts. How is this helpful? It’s not that I think a non-sanctioning is bad; there may be valid reasons for a race not to seek a sanction. However, best if these races were still subject to our anti-doping efforts.

Our national sportwide discussion on this has also featured a set of ideas at least as nonsensical. Just as its silly to blindly, blithely support your favorite cyclist, triathlete, baseball player in the face of evidence to the contrary, it is silly to choose USADA out of all organs of government and say that this organization alone is immune to criticism or ideas for improvement. This is especially the case because, of all government-sponsored organizations, USADA appears to me among the least subject to regular government oversight. I cannot find evidence of any robust, transparent, check-and-balance there.

The remedy is not to water down its processes, rather for USADA to use this national spotlight to both demonstrate its utility and capability, and to widen the aperture through which qualified outside input seeks to enter.

I have seen at close quarters organizations that appear heavily board-driven, and I have seen those ruled by an executive strongman. I am not on the inside of USADA, but from the outside looking in it seems to me to be in that latter category. I hope that a new set of board members, just seated, cause USADA to strike a proper balance between executive power and board supervision.

That's as granular as I’m going to get about USADA because I and others have already suggested certain changes that could be considered that might short circuit the procedure-specific criticisms it now faces.

What I will say is that USADA views its oversight into our sport as voluntary: you and I have voluntarily chosen to enter into commercial arbitration, and we do so when we sign the waiver. I think this is a mistake, and it is fiction. If you don’t like what you read on Slowtwitch, we want your (civil) input. Your input bends our trajectory, but, if we do not change in the ways you like there are alternatives for you. Not so in sport. If you do not like the idea of commercial arbitration and so choose not to sign the waiver, you are free to—race where, exactly?

We therefore have no choice but to raise our civil voices to express to USADA how we feel it may best serve us. USADA sees us as individual stakeholders in millions of one-on-one commercial agreements with USADA. I, however, see it as millions of stakeholders—each of us a holder of one share, but in the aggregate holders of millions of shares—in the organization.

As such—and because this is an organ of government, funded by the government, empowered through federal statute, controlled by congressional committees—we not only have a right but a responsibility to advocate for USADA and to advocate for proper stewardship of it. But all of this should be viewed just like we view our other organs of government. If you don’t like the EPA, or the FDA, or the Post Office, or the DMV, do you really feel that abolishing, defanging, defunding them is in our best communal interest?

Now, what about triathlon? And what about you? Let's take the former question. Triathlon faces a problem. As I understand it, USADA is going to take the money the U.S. Government gives it, and deploy that money toward testing of Olympic athletes, that is, toward events and athletes that are on an Olympic path. USADA is also there to be used as a contractor for sports and athletes that are not on that path.

Non-ITU triathlon is one such path. This includes Ironman racing, and it's unlikely that you'll find USADA using its own funds to test at a Challenge race, a Rev3 race, at a Tristar race, a Life Time race, an XTerra race, the Wildflower Triathlon, St. Croix and so forth. It's also unlikely that many of the athletes racing these races are going to be chosen by USADA for an out-of-competition (OOC) pool.

What the World Triathlon Corporation (WTC) has done is set up its own drug testing program that heavily relies on USADA as a contractor. The WTC acts in some ways as a race organizer funding its own testing, but it also acts as an "IF-equivalent," i.e., it acts a little bit as would an international federations, like the ITU or the UCI. It has the power to accept and adjudicate TUE requests (therapeutic use exemptions). It can decide where testing takes place and who is in its OOC pool.

Here is the problem. What about all these other races and organizations, like IMG's Escape to Alcatraz, or HyVee? Furthermore, I don't have any knowledge, yet, whether WTC pays money to fund this program beyond the $750 per year each WTC athlete pays (a fund which might reach $600,00 annually). Accordingly, it may well be that no racing organization pays any money for any drug testing, and if that's the case then I think we ought to ask ourselves whether there's a better way.

Here is a non-exclusive list following stakeholders in triathlon: race directors, sponsors, age-group athletes, media, event services providers, pro athletes, world and national governing bodies, industry organizations, retailers, manufacturers. Out of this group, and maybe with a little help from USADA as well, there is some sharing of the burden that might be workable, so that WTC and its athletes do not shoulder all of the burden, and maybe we can pass the hat ‘round and double, triple, quadruple the money now funding non-ITU anti-doping efforts. I'm engaged in this (what might be a fool's) errand right now, to see if that's possible.

If it is possible, I do not see this as something we do apart from USADA. Rather, it's in partnership with USADA, using it as our vendor, paying money into it, to increase the good work the WTC has started. I might finally add that this is my idea, my initiative, not WTC's initiative, WTC is learning about it just as you all are. They may well not need or want my big buttinsky efforts at all. That's the beauty of opinions: everybody's got one and with the advent of the internet boy do we all get the pleasure of hearing them, including my opinion you're reading right now.

Which leaves you, the age-group athlete. Through the prism of the moral imperative outlined in Part-1 of this thesis, what are the mechanics of anti-doping for you? If it's me, it's easy. I have no health-related need to take anything on the banned list. WADA.org hosts the banned list. On Slowtwitch.com we regularly update the changes on the banned list, from year to year. For me, anti-doping is pretty easy. I don't dope. i don't overmuch worry about inadvertent ingestion.

But, as to that latter subject, WADA tested about 600 non-androgenic supplements in 2002. About 100 came back testing positive for androgenic aids (yeah, frightening, I know). Our science editor has made it a little easier for you to know how to separate the trustworthy supplements from those that might be less trustworthy. Still, this makes it more than just a very rare circumstance that you'd test positive, unless you eschew everything in a can, maybe even fluid replacement, and I don't think that's realistic. Fortunately, it seems to me that USADA is going to be less stringent on age-grouper inadvertent ingestion than when that occurs to a pro. However, there are no guidelines. USADA's mantra is, "Each case is individual." That's all the comfort you're going to get.

If you think you're facing a legitimate health issue that requires the possibility of a needing a TUE, there are two approaches to this. You can apply for a TUE proactively, however, it is my experience when reading the many emails I get from people in this situation that TUEs are not any more likely to be granted for an age-grouper than for a pro with a similar set of medical metrics. However, there are, for age-group racers only, the possibilities of retroactive TUEs, however you must apply for this at the point of testing, not at the point of an adverse finding.

It is my experience that retroactive TUEs tend to be more forgiving than proactive TUEs and I'm willing to hear from USADA that my n="not too many" is not representative of the truth. In any case, the downside of a retroactive TUE is that it may not be granted, in which case you're rolling the dice if you rely on that tactic. If you don't get that retroactive TUE, you're facing some sort of a sanction and it's going to be made public.

If you're going after a proactive TUE, you have a couple of options: USADA or WTC. If it were me, I'd go the route of WTC which, as a WADA signatory, is equivalent to any IF. So, if you got your TUE through WTC it would have to be honored by USADA and all other NADOs and testing authorities. This, unless the situation has changed since last I checked. I say this not because WTC is less stringent, because its program is administered by an old USADA hand. Rather, I just suspect the flood of proactive TUEs into WTC is more like a trickle, and your case might be handled with more individual care. Just a guess on my part.

Nothing I've written in either of these opinion pieces is new, that is, every thought, every line, every scribble, is a rehash of what I've already written on Slowtwitch. It seemed appropriate to aggregate these thoughts in one place, so that there is no misunderstanding where I come down on these issues, and so they might serve as a template for how it is you want to find resonance in your own approach to performance enhancing drugs, should you so choose.