Twitter

How Drug Anti-Diversion Techniques Can Be Used to Curb Doping

On January 30th, 2020, the Spanish Guardia Civil announced that it had disrupted a performance-enhancing drug diversion and trafficking ring operating out of Barcelona, with supplies originating in a Cadiz dialysis clinic. The sheer scale of this raid, aptly named “Operacion Hypoxianet,” again raises doubts about the effectiveness of sports anti-doping programs and testing. It may also foreshadow an emerging policy shift towards drug anti-diversion to reduce sports-related doping, to rebuild athlete trust, and, most importantly, protect public health and safety. The absurd cache found in the seizure – at least 850 pre-filled recombinant erythropoietin (EPO) individual doses, long-known to be abused by athletes to increase endurance – shows that large-scale drug diversion operations connected to sports can thrive for years without exposure. According to El Mundo, the Cadiz connection...

Black and white anti-doping fight nears stalemate – here’s how to break it

(Editors’ Note:  This guest editorial is written by anti-doping researcher, Dr. Paul Dimeo, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Health Sciences and Sport at the University of Stirling, in the United Kingdom.) The world of anti doping in sport sometimes feels like a battle between opposing forces on the same side. The debate has become polarised between those advocating zero tolerance and those who want to accept performance enhancement as a reality to be managed. The latest leak claiming to reveal the banned substances cleared by sporting authorities for use on medical grounds by top athletes might offer us one route to a middle way in all this. Perhaps total transparency about these so-called therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs) might work? The past few months have witnessed a glut of scandals reminiscent of the crises of the 1990s that led to the creation of the World Anti Doping...

Academia’s Role in Anti-Doping – In Microcosm and Big Picture

The recent fall-out between USA Cycling (USAC) and anti-doping researcher Dr. Paul Dimeo was widely reported in the cycling media. With the benefit of follow-up discussions and insights from both USAC officials and Dr. Dimeo, it is worth looking back at this incident in more detail – not only to understand what happened, but more importantly for what it can teach us as cycling tries to strengthen its anti-doping strategies.  In the broader context, this event has important implications for the conventional wisdom regarding anti-doping policy, freedom of expression, and the role of academia in driving change. Dimeo is a senior lecturer at the University of Stirling in Scotland, and a recognized and widely published expert in anti-doping and drug use in elite sports. He had previously conducted research and analysis for USAC, and in April, 2016, the organization asked him to chair a new...