Norman Brook, Chief Executive of the British Triathlon Federation, reports on proposals by WADA to harmonise out of competition, testing aligning the UK and other nation’s systems, and ensuring that all violations are dealt with under the same rules.

He also suggests that other National Federations should learn from the UK experience and not underestimate what needs to be done if athletes are to avoid infringing the regulations on whereabouts information and missed test violation.

WADA proposals

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) was formed in 1999 with the aim of harmonising anti-doping programmes across nations and sports organisations. (www.wada-ama.org)

WADA sought to achieve harmonisation through the establishment of the World Anti-Doping Code (the code) and a set of international standards. Adoption of the code and standards being mandatory for all organisations signed up to the code. Application of the code was through rules established by the International Sports Federations and each nation’s National Anti-Doping Organisation (NADO).

Recently, WADA published new international standards for out of competition testing (visit www.wada.org) for consultation. These incorporate mandatory conditions for the filing of whereabouts information, the conduct of no advance notice out of competition testing, and the results management of missed test and whereabouts information filing failures.

Should these standards come into effect in 2008, with no significant change to the current draft, the rest of the world will need to become aligned with the current requirements for providing whereabouts information and for conducting out of competition testing that was introduced in Great Britain in 2005 by UK Sport, the UK’s NADO.

UK Sport’s system of recording an athlete’s whereabouts information and using this information to implement no advance notice out of competition tests is internationally unique. Its implementation has resulted in British sportsmen and women having to comply with a more stringent system than previously existed and one different from that used by other nations.

It was clear from the numbers of sportsmen and women in Great Britain recording missed tests after the system’s introduction, that the importance of compliance was not at first fully understood by all parties. The level of understanding and commitment to adhering to the rules increased dramatically when athletes, who failed to keep their information current, were subjected to disciplinary action following three missed anti-doping tests.

An evident lack of harmonisation in respect of athlete whereabouts information filing and missed out of competition tests was further highlighted as athletes in Great Britain faced disciplinary action for this new anti-doping violation.

As not all International Sports Federations had adopted the model rules set out by WADA, the management of whereabouts information – missed tests and the penalties available to Appeal Panels appointed under their National Federation’s rules to conduct disciplinary hearings, varied considerably. International Federation rules were code compliant, but they were far from being harmonised.

The fact that athletes from different sports in the UK have faced different penalties for similar offences highlights this lack of harmonisation. By incorporating the conditions for whereabouts information filing, the conduct of tests, and the management of missed tests, into the international standards, WADA will make the penalties for offences uniform and mandatory. This will avoid the current situation where these are open to interpretation by different nations and sports organisations.

The proposals contained in the new international standards take and strengthen the current system being used in the UK and apply them worldwide.

Current UK system

It is widely accepted that the most effective means of deterring the use of drugs in sport is through out of competition testing. To be effective, such testing is conducted without the athlete being given any notice of the test. Giving notice of a test would allow an athlete, who was taking performance enhancing drugs, to use an agent, or method, to mask these drugs and avoid detection.

Athletes are highly mobile and busy people, so it would be impossible to know where they are all the time to conduct out of competition tests without giving them notice. For this reason, UK Sport requires athletes in the national registered testing pool to provide details, for five days of each week of a location they will be at for a period of one hour. The athlete is expected to be at that location, in case they are required for an out of competition test. The athlete has no idea when they will be required for testing and the frequency of tests varies. If for any reason an athlete cannot be at the location they have given, during those hour slots, they can change their details online, by phone or by test message, up to a minute before the allotted hour.

If an athlete is required for an out of competition test and can not be found at the location given, they record a possible missed test. They are then given an opportunity to explain their absence, but are required to provide compelling justification to have a missed test rescinded. Athletes recording three missed tests in eighteen months are considered to have a case to answer for a missed test violation and will face a disciplinary hearing. Provisional suspension ahead of a hearing is not mandatory. If the offence is confirmed by the tribunal conducting the hearing, currently the athlete faces a suspension from sport which can vary from 3 months to two years*.

* Under IAAF rules applied to the sport of athletics, an athlete faces a missed test violation if they record three missed tests in five years, provisional suspension is mandatory when there is a case to answer, and the minimum penalty for such an offence is one year. Whilst being code compliant, IAAF rules greatly contrast with the recently published draft international standard by WADA.

Proposed WADA system

WADA is proposing to set common international standards for out of competition testing. These standards will harmonise the filing of whereabouts information, the conduct of no advance notice out of competition testing and the management of whereabouts information and missed test violations.

All athletes in national and international registered testing pools across all sports and countries will be required to record their whereabouts using the online system ADAMS, and will be required to provide one location for each day of the week at which they will be available, if required, for a no advance notice out of competition test. They will also be required to file every quarter details of their whereabouts for the next three months.

All anti-doping agencies conducting out of competition tests will be required to conduct no advance notice tests. Unlike at present, they will now not be able to telephone the athlete or to trawl round training venues looking for them. If the athlete is not at the location given in their whereabouts information, they will record a missed test.

Athletes will also record a filing failure if they fail, after receiving a warning, to provide information on their whereabouts.

Provisional suspension will remain optional, but an athlete convicted of a whereabouts violation will lose any titles, medals and prize money received in the period between the date of being informed of the case to answer and the date of the hearing.

This violation will become three missed tests in an eighteen month period for all sports, the same as currently operates for Triathlon but not all sports.

The penalty for a first offence will become one to two years.

Learning from the UK experience

It is likely that British sportsmen and women having experience of the UK Sport system will sit up and take notice of the changes being proposed by WADA. In particular, they will recognise the significance of the increase in the minimum penalty for a first offence from three months to one year.

British athletes will find the new ADAMS online system similar to that currently used by UK Sport. They are already filing information three months in advance, and providing ‘one hour location’ information for five days per week. So the increase to providing a ‘one hour location’ seven days per week should be relatively easy for them to comply with.

British athletes, having had two years of experience of UK Sport’s no advance notice out of competition testing, will be used to the procedure WADA proposes that all nations and sports organisations adopt.

Athletes in other nations will not have the advantage of the UK experience and would be well advised to learn from our experience to avoid some of the problems we have faced.

When the WADA whereabouts information filing system and no advance notice out of competition tests come into being, the National Anti-Doping Organisations, International and National Sports Federations will need to ensure that they run a concurrent athlete education programme.

It is clear that when the British system was introduced, athletes took a long time to understand the system fully as well as the consequences of non -compliance. This occurred despite inductions into the whereabouts information filing system and being provided with considerable information on the system and the rules regarding the new whereabouts information and missed test violation.

It will be essential that athletes are able to understand the terminology used as well as the implications of all parts of the code. They must also be competent in using the computer based online system ADAMS to record their whereabouts. I would suggest this is something that needs to be confirmed by demonstration, and repeated if necessary, we should not assume that all athletes are computer literate.

It is also essential that athletes understand that:

• they have to provide information on their whereabouts each quarter year for the next three months;
• the information they file has to include where they will be for one hour each day for the purpose of out of competition testing, if so required.

Athletes should also know how they can change that information especially if their arrangements change at the last minute and they cannot get online.

They need to understand that the doping control officers will not call them or look for them if they are not at the location they have given.

They will need to understand that if they miss three tests or fail to file their whereabouts information on three separate occasions, they will be facing a one year ban from all sport.

Ensuring that each athlete is competent in using the whereabouts information filing system, that they understand the whereabouts information and missed test rules, and that they understand their responsibilities will need to become a priority for each National Federation. I would not underestimate the amount of time and effort that will need to go into this process.

A consistent approach

A lack of consistency in the application of anti-doping measures is a common complaint amongst athletes. WADA was created to establish a level playing field for all athletes by eradicating the use of performance enhancing drugs in sport. That same principle needs to apply to the implementation of the code. WADA’s proposals to incorporate the conditions for whereabouts information and missed tests in the international standards for out of competition testing will go some way to achieving this.

Our athletes also need to be assured that all nations are conducting regular out of competition testing. The introduction of ADAMS will enable WADA to track out of competition testing globally. By recording, and I would suggest publishing, the frequency of out of competition tests for every athlete in the international and national registered testing pools, we will see who is actually being tested and how often.

If this information provides evidence that some athletes are being infrequently tested out of competition, WADA and the International Federations should be in a position to initiate testing.

Athlete and public confidence in anti-doping measures would be greatly increased if they could view who has been tested out of competition and how frequently those tests are conducted.

Conclusion

My aim in writing this article is to draw the attention of National Federations and their elite triathletes and coaches to the WADA proposals. The introduction of these proposals will place a high level of responsibility of all elite triathletes around the World to maintain accurate and detailed whereabouts information using the ADAMS system. The consequences of getting this wrong, failing to keep whereabouts information current, or missing tests by neglecting to keep information up to date, is a minimum one year ban.

We do not want to see many of our leading triathletes sidelined as a result of not understanding their responsibilities and the consequences of not complying to the new rules when they come into effect next year.