Drug Testing

UCI testing info can be found here - http://www.uci.ch/templates/UCI/UCI1/la ... Q&LangId=1

Q & A on the biological passport - http://www.uci.ch/templates/UCI/UCI2/la ... Y&LangId=1

frenchfighter wrote:

You should be able to find some info/discussion here:
viewtopic.php?f=40002&t=12885414

Eg/.

Is the percentage of competitors?

frenchfighter wrote:

Amount of people tested then % of those tests that were positive.

ta

and football is?

frenchfighter wrote:

You should be able to find some info/discussion here:
viewtopic.php?f=40002&t=12885414

Eg/.

Why would anyone need to take performance enhancing drugs for bridge the card game?

Extra strong caffeine to stay awake ?

If you do some searching about the sad death of Surrey cricketer Tom Maynard last year I think you'll find some good stats about how little drug testing is performed in cricket. At the time there was apparently a lot of talk about a drink and drug culture at Surrey. Hair samples on Maynard indicated use of cocaine practically every day for at least the previous six months. Given the frequency of cricket games he would've presumably tested positive had he been tested and in fact had he been caught he could still be alive today. Personally I see it as a great example of where drug testing is not just clearly inadequate to catch cheats but could also be a life saver if properly implemented.

A funny one in football (a few years ago mind you) was when FIFA said they wouldn't perform blood testing at the World Cup because it was too expensive!

Another one I found interesting from a few years ago was the Balco guy (Victor Conte). He apparently told the US authorities that testing of Olympic athletes in competition was pointless and that they actually needed to focus their testing during the off season, as that is where a lot of the worst stuff goes on. If you do some searches on the net I'm sure you'll find something about it. Anyway, from memory I think he said they did increase testing during the winter period (and caught more people as a result), but the winter before the next Olympics they reduced the amount of testing to a significant degree. His inference being that they didn't want to catch people before the Olympics and that getting big results (i.e. medals) was more important than catching cheats.

UK sport tests 2003-2008Source – Daily Telegraph 15 April 2008, sport13 – Brendan Gallagher
This is from a slide in a wider presentation, so sorry about the formatting, but in essence the first number is the number of positives and the second is the number of people disciplined.
Sport/ Number of Positives/ Number Disciplined
Rugby Union 62 48
Football (only 4 named) 54 38
Rugby League 48 30
Powerlifting 41 35
Weightlifting 19 13
Basketball 18 15
Athletics 14 4
Boxing 13 11
Cycling 11 5
Judo 7 6
Cricket 6 3
Snooker 6 3
Swimming 6 2
Body Building 5 4
Equestrian 5 2
Short Track Skating 5 0

UK sport tests 2003-2008Source – Daily Telegraph 15 April 2008, sport13 – Brendan Gallagher

If it was for your PhD I'd go to the source and check out the methodology etc. If it is for a public speaking competition, I'd just parrot out the worst examples and bang the table emphatically!

WADA's most up to date & comprehensive list is from 2011 - http://www.wada-ama.org/Documents/Resou ... igures.pdf

Gives breakdowns of olympic vrs none olympic sports, by sport, by banned substance etc so can get a lot of info out of it

Strictly speaking tennis hasn't adopted the bio passport yet. Because of very vocal pressure from most notably Federer and Murray the ITF had to bow to growing pressure to announce that they will adopt it. However speeches given by the ITF president show they're doing so in the manner of kids being made to go on a visit somewhere when they'd really rather be left to play in their back garden.

It takes months to build up the athletes profiles and as of this moment this process hasn't yet begun, nor has the ITF released any details of how and when they're going to start the exercise.

If you're interested, take a look at the Tennishasasteroidproblem blog

There's a pretty good article on doping in football here:
http://www.4dfoot.com/2013/02/09/doping ... -evidence/

Some of the claims are a little thin, but there are some astounding standout points - especially regarding the late 90s Juventus team.

The independent ran an article on the original trial here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 56776.html

There were a series of appeals, which resulted in the original criminal convictions being allowed to stand, but no punishment whatsoever being handed out.

David Foot wrote:

The Cassation court – the highest in the land – came to a final decision in March 2007. It was a classic Italian judicial compromise, satisfying nobody. In the first place the sentences absolving both (Juve president) Giraudo and (club doctor) Agricola were quashed. But the statute of limitations meant that nobody could any longer be convicted for the crimes of ‘sporting fraud’ and doping. So, in short, the judges had upheld the original sentence (guilty) but, in practice, everybody walked free without a mark on their criminal record.

http://thelongballtactic.wordpress.com/tag/agricola/

You can see if any of your audience that are so sure football doesn't have a problem have even heard about it. You could show them the Juventus wikipedia entry here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juventus and ask them to find the mention of it. The supreme best team in the world in the nineties was systematically doping and 99.9% of the people who can still name a number of their players never heard about it.

If you're on twitter then follow https://twitter.com/Giggs_Boson for plenty more.

knedlicky wrote:

,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/8761856/Eight-clubs-fined-for-doping-offences-by-FA.html

The first Telegraph link doesn’t name the 8 clubs involved but supposedly two were Arsenal and Chelsea.

Have you got any more on that? Wenger has been pretty outspoken about doping, so it surprises me. I'm also an Arsenal fan....

knedlicky wrote:

No tA Doctor wrote:

knedlicky wrote:

,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/8761856/Eight-clubs-fined-for-doping-offences-by-FA.html
The first Telegraph link doesn’t name the 8 clubs involved but supposedly two were Arsenal and Chelsea.

Have you got any more on that? Wenger has been pretty outspoken about doping, so it surprises me. I'm also an Arsenal fan....

Yes I know about Wenger’s attitude. And on reflection I think I’ve made a mistake in what I wrote above, by getting mixed up between the Telegraph report and newspaper reports from a few years earlier in the Guardian and/or Observer (for which I have no links).

Those earlier reports stated that the FA had penalised both Arsenal and Chelsea for some failings in their internal doping control programmes, without being specific exactly what the failings were.

Cheers.

I was actually under the impression that clubs weren't allowed to test their players, as it could be used to hide players with +ve tests by withdrawing them from training/matches (that was when there was no testing outside those times).

ozzzyosborn206 wrote:

if i were you i would use operation puerto as am example. It can't be a coincidence that the spanish are top of football, f1 and tennis yet they brush evidence like that under the carpet. I would bet my bike that Nadal is on the gear, probably the reason Murry and Federer want more testing?

Me too, the Tennishasasteroidproblem blog covers it well here:

http://tennishasasteroidproblem.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/curious-case-of-rafael-nadal.html

Anyone who goes on an injury break with no previous evidence of an injury, then comes back serving faster than before is a little suspicious in my mind.