Anti-Doping News: IST Changes

by World Triathlon Admin on 27 Mar, 2009 12:01

The ITU Newsletter has been focusing the past couple of months on the differences on the anti-doping changes in the World Anti-doping Agency Code from 2003 and the current 2009 WADA Code.  The Code is not the only change with regards to Anti-doping in the past few months.  The International Standard for Testing (IST) was also revised and came into force at the same time as the revised Code on January 1, 2009.  According to WADAs Play True magazine Issue 3-2008, the International Standards are mandatory for Code signatories. ITU is one of those signatories.  The purpose of the Standards is to harmonize different technical aspects in the fight against doping, including testing, the List of Prohibited Substances and Methods (revised annually), laboratory activities, and Therapeutic Use Exemptions (TUEs).

After much consultation with all stakeholders the revised IST requires athletes who are included in an ADOs Registered Testing Pool (RTP) to: (1) provide whereabouts, and be subject to testing 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year; (2) provide residential, training and competition information, as well as an overview of regular activities, and plans for travel; (3) submit quarterly whereabouts information, and regular updates; and (4) specify one hour each day (between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m.) during which they can be located at a specified location for testing. This does not limit the time in which an athlete may be tested; he or she may still be tested at any time, 24 hours a day.  But, to mitigate the difficulty in accounting for ones whereabouts 24 hours a day one quarter in advance, the athletes exposure to the risk of a missed test is limited to the 60-minute time-slot.

As well, the potential for declaring filing failures under Article 2.4 (Whereabouts Information), Articles 2.3 (Evading sample collection) and 2.5 (Tampering with any part of the doping control, including providing fraudulent information to an ADO) of the revised Code can be used to pursue athletes seeking to evade the system outside the 60-minute time-slot.

If you have any questions regarding Anti-doping, please contact Leslie Buchanan, ITUs Anti-doping Director at leslie.buchanan@triathlon.org.

Click here for more on ITU Anti-Doping

Click here for the official WADA website

Article tags anti-doping
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