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Here’s how to stop the sporting drug cheats in their tracks 

Cyclists compete in the Women's Omnium Scratch race track cycling event at the Velodrome during the Rio 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro on August 15, 2016
Cyclists compete in the Women's Omnium Scratch race track cycling event at the Velodrome during the Rio 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro on August 15, 2016 Credit: Odd Andersen/AFP Photo

Hackers, allegedly from Russia, have been publishing confidential medical records of sportsmen and women – including Britain’s most decorated Olympian, Bradley Wiggins, and the American gymnast Simone Biles, who won four gold medals in Rio.

The records are from the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) and reveal that many athletes have been approved to take banned drugs after being granted so-called “Therapeutic Use Exemptions” (TUEs). These athletes have done nothing wrong, but the episode has reopened an long-running debate about whether some are exploiting TUEs artificially to better their performances.

If we truly want to sort out this problem, here is what needs to happen.

1. Simplify the list of prohibited substances

The worst thing about anti-doping is that it is unnecessarily complex. That is because at the moment there is not always the evidence to justify the prohibition of every treatment on the list – we don’t know for sure that they really do enhance performance.

Some asthma treatments, for example, should be allowed, full stop. Then all the other drugs should be clearly labelled in pharmacies as banned – something that already happens in France.

2. Stop preventive exemptions

These are often an obvious method of bending the rules. If an athlete suffers from severe allergic reactions, say to bee stings, they get a TUE, issued in advance, to use an EpiPen. The same goes for oral cortico-steroid treatments, which prevent very severe asthma attacks.

In competition, if the athlete doesn’t have an attack, they are not allowed to take the pills. But they can do so immediately after competition, to help with recovery, without breaking rules. Because who can prove they haven’t had an attack?

3. Register doctors

Doctors  should put their reputations on the line like athletes. In a world where “marginal gains” can often contribute to victory, the medicalisation of sport is undoubtedly playing a part.

So we have to ensure that doctors, registered to each athlete, have signed off every treatment, and that liability for breaking the rules sits with the prescribing physician as much as the individual athlete. At the moment, in some places around the world, doctors aren’t even ensuring that athletes actually have the conditions they complain of.

 

4. Culture change

In certain sports (notably cycling and athletics), it has become normal to use medication. There has been a rush of medical professionals coming forward to be part of the team training the athlete, rather than treating medical conditions. Some of these doctors start with beneficial drugs and work out how to apply them to the athlete, rather than starting with the condition and then applying the right treatment.

In so doing we are normalising huge drug use. To look at some so-called athletes, it beggars belief that they are taking so many drugs. It’s clear this should be frowned on by the sporting community, not celebrated.

Michele Verroken ran the UK’s anti-doping programme from 1986-2004 and is director of Sporting Integrity 

 

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