{"id":8440,"date":"2021-05-08T08:08:58","date_gmt":"2021-05-08T08:08:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sportsnewsforyou.com\/?p=8440"},"modified":"2021-05-08T08:08:58","modified_gmt":"2021-05-08T08:08:58","slug":"why-clean-protocol-drugs-testing-needs-a-chance-comment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/?p=8440","title":{"rendered":"Why Clean Protocol drugs testing needs a chance: comment"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Rita Jeptoo successfully defended her Boston and Chicago titles last year, she secured a $500,000 jackpot as the top-ranked female marathon runner in the world.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The 33-year-old was heralded for reaping the rewards for hard work over a long career, until an A sample from a drugs test taken a fortnight before Chicago proved positive. An inspiring story of athletic achievement was dwarfed by one of doping.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With every convicted offender, the spectacle of elite competition diminishes. Until Jeptoo\u2019s positive test, African athletics had been comparatively untainted. Now rumours abound and belief is shaken.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Triathlon boasts just a handful of high-profile drug busts: Nina Kraft\u2019s hastily aborted Kona win in 2004; the farcical Lisa H\u00fctthaler, who doped then tried bribery in 2009; Virginia Berasategui\u2019s tearful mea culpa<\/em> in 2013; and Brigitte McMahon, triathlon\u2019s first Olympic female champion, testing positive for erythropoietin five years later. Despite improved science, elite testing pools and biological passports, is triathlon really that much cleaner, or is it \u2018there by the grace of god\u2019?<\/p>\n

The premise \u2018innocent until proven guilty\u2019 means that dirty athletes race until they\u2019re caught, but by then medals are often awarded and national anthems sung. So what if we flipped our thinking so only those who \u2018proved\u2019 they were clean could start? It sounds far-fetched, medieval, an affront to human rights, but is it the logical end-game for the fledgling Clean Protocol (www.cleanprotocol.org), started by the not-for-profit World Clean Sports Organisation?<\/p>\n

The complex certification process sees the athletes sit a series of psychometric and cognitive tests and involves analysing ocular motor deception or, crudely, subconscious eye twitches, akin to a lie detector \u2013 although it\u2019s not an analogy founder Teague Czislowski is fond of.<\/p>\n

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He admits the test is not foolproof. To date it\u2019s thought to be about 85% accurate, so has a far higher chance of returning a \u2018false positive\u2019 than recognised clinical environments (World Anti-Doping Agency claims its errors are one in 10,000). But what if governments, governing bodies and WADA embraced its potential?\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

At the Ironman World Championships in October, Clean Protocol certified a handful of professionals, including Britain\u2019s Dan Halksworth, Harry Wiltshire and Jodie Swallow. Others were understandably reticent, but Andrew Johns, two-time British Olympian and Clean Protocol\u2019s athlete liaison, believes attitudes have shifted such that, if the programme was repeated now, at least 50% of professionals would participate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Those rumblings sound promising, but Clean Protocol may not last the course. It\u2019s reliant on private funding, which is not sustainable long term, and Czislowski is disillusioned by the status quo. \u201cUnfortunately I\u2019ve found those in charge of anti-doping programmes the most unhelpful,\u201d he says. \u201cThey barely engage with us\u00a0or, when they do, recite their mantra of\u00a0support\u00a0for the current system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year, former WADA president Dick Pound wrote a damning report outlining how anti-doping programmes are failing, blaming a lack of will among sports organisations, governments and athletes. Czislowski agrees. \u201cKona\u00a0gave us\u00a0the ability to look through a small window\u00a0into the potential future of clean sport.\u00a0Few others share the vision,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m hopeful\u00a0the way to make sport cleaner is to improve behavioural change mechanisms. However, we are too early and lack resources. I give\u00a0triathlon a 20% chance of becoming cleaner.\u00a0Most athletes want it clean but do not speak out and the race organisers have no will. Clean Protocol is not perfect. It is just a start.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It\u2019s easy to write off Clean Protocol as unworkable, both practically and financially, but solutions to great problems often require visionaries. If the utopia is a gateway to clean sport, maybe it\u2019s worth a try.<\/p>\n

(Illustration: Daniel Seex)\u00a0<\/p>\n

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What do you think? Let us know in the comments below!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Rita Jeptoo successfully defended her Boston and Chicago titles last year, she secured a $500,000 jackpot as the top-ranked female marathon runner in the world. Advertisement The 33-year-old was heralded for reaping the rewards for hard work over a long career, until an A sample from a drugs test taken a fortnight before Chicago…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8440\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}