Michael Cepic cannot “subscribe to the theory” that there will be doping games in Tokyo after the lockdowns and the corona pandemic. The managing director of the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) explains why you can’t just start doping in lockdown and why the classics are still a big hit. “What makes it more difficult for us, however, is microdosing,” he said in an interview with the APA – Austria Press Agency.
“The recent past has shown that doping is a highly complex, difficult matter in the absolute top-class sport that has to be planned by the training rhythm,” explained Cepic. Anyone who wants to dope has a plan, and a lockdown announced for a few weeks and the assumption that there will be hardly any controls during this time would not induce anyone to start spontaneously. Even if you can’t completely rule it out.
But there is also an athlete pass with a blood profile and a steroid profile. “You can’t go into that for three or four weeks and then believe that you won’t notice it. And for the standard, microdosing and a mixture of substances, you need the supply chain, which will be difficult in the lockdown.” It is also not the case that you sit on the couch and “inject and swallow”, but an effective training is part of it. And you don’t have that in lockdown either.
In some cases, the controls were even suspended during the first lockdown worldwide, including temporarily in Germany. “We never did that in Austria. We have of course severely restricted it, but we have still focused on suspected and particularly critical cases.” From an international perspective, control operations were restarted at the end of May / beginning of June 2020, and in Austria at the same time as training began. When there was another lockdown in autumn / winter, the training controls were at a level of 70 to 80 percent, explained Cepic.
The basic substance in which most can still be detected is urine, said Cepic. “Of course, the blood is also important for the biological passport. But 95 percent of the substances are found in the urine, everything is concentrated there, which makes it easier for analysis.”
The samples from the Olympic Games are evaluated in a laboratory in Tokyo, which is the responsibility of the International Test Agency (ITA). In addition, the tests are stored for a long time for follow-up controls. “That is of course a good thing because the analytics are always evolving.” But you can see that the classics like nandrolone hold up. “I’m not surprised because they are the most effective.”
But what makes it more difficult, and that’s the Russian model, is microdosing. “I mix anabolic steroids and use each one in such a way that it is difficult to analyze or can be proven because the individual substance is so small. But the mix itself, the cocktail, has the same effect.” He assumes that in the following years the methods will be so refined that things will be discovered again. But that is of no use to those who have finished fourth or fifth and then later become second or third or Olympic champion, nothing. “The moment is gone.”
In Austria, the test volume corresponds to an Olympic year. The new situation is that two Olympic Games will take place within seven months. “In terms of logistics and personnel capacity, an Olympic year is already relatively challenging. We are definitely reaching the limits of our capacity when it comes to the inspectors. But we can do it.” 2021 will be the year with the absolutely most checks that NADA Austria has ever carried out. The build-up of training for winter sports enthusiasts before the games in Beijing in February 2022 has long since begun.
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