Val Barnwell tells The Washington Post: ‘We’re all on something’
Val Barnwell
Val Barnwell also is called a Guyana Olympian in the story. But I’ve never been able to confirm the claim. Also: Gary Snyder was an M60 sprinter at Riccione worlds, not an M65 as the story says. Minor quibbles. It’s a great read.
Here’s the text in case the link goes bye-bye down the line:
Drug testing for masters athletes? Track officials grapple with question for the ages
By Amy Shipley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 21, 2010Drug testers did not summon Gary Snyder three years ago to provide a urine sample at the world masters track and field championships in Riccione, Italy, and he’s plenty happy about that. After his competition in the 100 and 200 meters for 65- to 69-year-old men, Snyder realized that his prescription medication for high blood pressure qualified as a prohibited, performance-enhancing substance.
It had never occurred to Snyder, a year into his term as USA Track and Field Masters Chairman, that he could have flunked a drug test and been banned from the very sport he was overseeing in the United States.
“That would have been embarrassing,” Snyder said. “I don’t know how I could have explained coming in 20th, or whatever it was, and taking drugs. Holy cow . . . I would have had to resign.”
Now, as Snyder attempts to bring drug-testing to U.S. masters track and field in time for next summer’s outdoor championships, he has a deep appreciation for the treacherous terrain he is negotiating. The population of athletes that competes in masters track and field events in the United States is older (ages range from 35 to nearly 100), slower and substantially more medicated than professional or Olympic-level competitors. Some participants say testing is expensive and would achieve little more than implicating a bunch of well-meaning grandmothers diligently taking prescription medications for non-competitive reasons.
“Any masters athlete over 40 is going to test positive for something, because at this age, we’re all on something,” said Val Barnwell, a men’s 50-54 world record holder who won four gold medals at last summer’s world championships in Lahti, Finland. “Who in their right mind would cheat at this level? To get what?”
Many would say Barnwell, 52, should answer his own question. It was after news broke in March that Barnwell had been slapped with a two-year ban after a positive test for testosterone prohormones in Lahti that USATF Masters officials found themselves persuaded that doping had become a serious concern, and that some sort of testing was necessary to prevent a free-for-all of drug use at U.S. masters track and field meets. Indeed, Snyder said he has faced rising pressure from other nations to follow the lead taken by a few countries in Europe that have implemented masters drug-testing.
The only place U.S. masters athletes currently face testing is at the annual world championships.
“To say that it’s not an issue, drug use in masters, well, how can you say that after an athlete tests positive?” said Mary Trotto, 62, a USATF Masters executive committee member and active decathlete and heptathlete. “Some people wonder why we would even think about it, but unfortunately we do. We have to keep records and performances clean.”
What is the point?
Athletes are divided on whether that, indeed, is the case; the issue has stirred a debate among the community’s 8,500 members about what, exactly, masters competition is. Are masters track and field events merely organized opportunities for fun and games, healthful and friendly competitions in which like-minded adults seek to stretch their own physical limits?
Or, because they are sanctioned events that post entry fees, award medals and observe world records, do they take on a more professional stature? Are competitors owed some guarantee, or at least a reason to believe, that they are competing on a level playing field?
Ken Stone, a longtime track and field journalist who runs the Web site http://www.masterstrack.com, figures a small handful of masters athletes are surely taking performance-enhancing drugs. He simply doesn’t care.
“Most people accept cheaters as, ‘Those are the idiots who hurt themselves, and it doesn’t bother me at all,'” Stone said, adding that drug-testing “is a waste of money, it goes against the ethic of masters track, it’s a nuisance and it won’t even stop the doping it pretends to attack. There are so many holes in drug-testing I can’t even begin to list all of them.”
Despite the widely differing views, Snyder and the USATF Masters Committee met by conference call in mid-May and agreed to start an anti-doping education campaign at the U.S. championships in Sacramento in July, the first step to putting a drug-testing regimen in place.
“The message [USATF] Masters Track wants to send out is, ‘We are going to testing,'” said Bob Weiner, 63, an executive committee member and middle-distance runner who was the press secretary for former White House Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey.
“Now we have to figure out how to do it.”
There are myriad questions. Should officials consider testing no one older, for example, than 75? Should they make certain exceptions to allow some banned substances that are commonly prescribed to older folk? Should they offer more lenient rules than at the elite level, where athletes are held accountable for any substance found in their bodies regardless of how it got there?
Though a modified program makes sense to many masters athletes, it simply won’t fly. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency won’t support a seniors-only, watered-down program with reduced bans or a smaller list of banned substances (though an age cut-off likely would be permissible).
If you opt for drug-testing, you get the whole package, at least if you want the credibility offered by the international anti-doping code set forth by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
Even so, U.S. Anti-Doping Agency Chief Executive Travis Tygart said, “there’s sufficient flexibility in the WADA Code to put in place practical solutions” for the special challenges faced by the masters track and field community.
The multitude of prescription medications and supplements many senior athletes take might present the most daunting obstacle. Even in elite competition, athletes are allowed to use banned substances, provided they meet the requirements for exemptions known as “therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs).” Ensuring that TUEs are sought when required would be critical to preventing masters track and field from seeing a host of absurd positive tests. Many point to grandmother Kathy Jager as an illustration of how things can go awry; at age 56 in 1999, Jager flunked a steroid test after taking her menopause medication at the masters track and field world championships in Gateshead, England.
“There’s going to be a bunch of TUEs,” said Maxwell Hamlyn, 69, a world bronze medal winner in the middle distances and the chair of USATF Masters southeast region. “They’ll have so many, you’ll overcome WADA. They may not be able to handle it.”
There is this, too: athletes selected for drug-testing are required to be naked from the chest down and in full view of testing officials when they produce a urine sample. In short, it’s not a dignified process. But anyone who refuses to produce a urine sample when summoned will be deemed as having flunked the test and will most certainly earn a ban.
Costs of testing
Barnwell, of course, did flunk a test. A former Olympic competitor for Guyana, Barnwell claims he never knowingly took any steroid and says he resents the intrusion testing brought to a sport he competed in for amusement — and by spending plenty of his own money. Indeed, masters track and field athletes pay their way to all events. There is no glamour, no fame, no prize money.
“I’m putting out $2,700 to go to the world championships,” Barnwell said. “Why should I be tested? You’re imposing your testing standards on me, and I’m getting nothing from it.”
Barnwell said he had used Viagra, a supplement known as Animal Pak and other products and had no idea what exactly caused his positive test. (Viagra contains no ingredients that are banned; Animal Pak claims on its label that it contains vitamins, shark cartilage and ox bile, but it lists no steroids).
For sure, Barnwell said, he did not intentionally take steroids to enhance his performance.
“I use Viagra all the time,” he said. “What if I want to have my lady with me and I want to have a beautiful night? . . . You’re telling me I can’t use ‘x, y, and z’ at this age? . . . No one is going to understand until they get busted for something when they are not using steroids. It’s ludicrous.”
Tygart disagreed, saying USADA would love to execute more random, out-of-competition testing of top-level masters athletes — as it does routinely with elite athletes — but simply does not have the funding to do so. In a few cases, however, USADA has targeted star masters athletes and caught them. And in recent weeks, another masters athlete was felled by a positive test. An Irish women who won two medals at the March indoor world championships in Kamloops, British Columbia, in the 40-44 division tested positive for the stimulant ephedrine.
Implementing even a basic, in-competition testing program is not cheap. Urine tests cost upwards of $500 per shot. Testing even a small portion of the athletes that would typically show up for a national championship could cost $10,000-$30,000. Snyder said U.S. masters officials expect to ask competitors to cover the cost of testing at the sport’s national championships through surcharges on top of their meet entry fees.
It would, he said, be a small price to pay for clean — or, at least, cleaner — competition, and enhanced international respect.
It won’t, however, eradicate the domestic turmoil over the topic.
“It’s something foisted on masters athletes by the powers-that-be,” said David Pain, 88, a San Diego attorney credited with bringing masters track and field to the United States in the 1960s. “This is insanity as far as I’m concerned.”
43 Responses
Excellent treatment of a complex topic with both sides well-articulated.
A good follow-up piece would be how rank-and-file Masters athletes would feel about competing once the drug testing program is implemented.
How many will just say it’s not worth the hassle and find athletic enjoyment in some other sport?
With the number of entries still rather low for nationals in Sacramento next month, how low will the number of entries go next year when drug testing is implemented?
Rather than growing the sport, drug testing is likely just to drive people away. Who wants to bother with researching drugs, obtaining TUES, etc., etc.?
And when the sport begins to lose competitors, what is the value of a Gold Medal when there are only a couple of competitors in an event…even if those competitors are “clean”?
I agree that drug testing is a waste of money and will drive people away from the sport due to the expense.If it could be done without increasing the expense of competition, then I would be all for it.I can’t believe that more than just a few masters use performance enhancing drugs.I agree completely that I would rather get beat by someone on drugs than to have only a handful of competitors that are clean show up at the meets—-that would kill our sport. Most of us do this to keep in shape and because we love competition. Water down the competition and we are doomed.
Val is arrogant to the very end. I’d like to think I’m competing on a somewhat level playing field. As far as everyone over 40 being on something…..I think Val should be check whatever substance he’s smoking.
I think that if you are on something you should be tested. We compete for the love of the sport and to better ourself without using any substance that is illegal. Better yourself without breaking yourself. The longer you life the better you get we are like old red wine. It is not about the medal,it is about bettering oneself and if you put work into it the results will show it. I like to build friendships and compete against myself.If they want to use drugs they should be tested to keep the field even. They can compete in other sports keep track and field clean and open.
It’s nice to see that Val has been working on his “Floyd & Lance” skills of denial.
I met Val at a UNM all-comer meet back in 2006 and he was rude, aggressive, and carrying an excessive amount of mucle mass. I knew that minute that I saw him he using. As Canseco once said about Giambi, “he is the most obvious juicer!”
I don’t know Mr. Barnwell but I don’t like the phrase “because at this age, we’re all on something…” Most of us are not on anything and I wonder what kind of reception he will get from athletes when he comes back.
Here’s my reaction (included in the Wash Post online following the story for what it’s worth):
It’s a tricky situation because we want to stop cheating and want to test to accomplish that, but older athletes take more medications and the medical exemptions may overwhelm the testers. One thing we have to do, however, is sift through the nonsense of every busted athlete claiming everyone does it – – that is nonsense and a rationalization by the cheater. Also, we have to sift through the real medicines needed for someone’s illnesses versus the ones they say are for that but are really just to cheat. Random and targeted (where there is suspicion) testing will be a powerful statement that cheating is not being tolerated. As someone who worked hard to help create WADA and USADA when I was at the White House Drug Office, and as someone who is a masters runner myself who worked with Frank Shorter to create USADA, I want to see cheating stopped– but I also want fairness to older athletes. Bob Weiner, USATF Masters executive committee member, and former spokesman, White House National Drug Policy Office
AL and ROB:Que estas fumando=What are you smoking
A possible solution/compromise? – test only those
who set national or world age records. Of course,
AFTER the fact, it may be too late to detect anything. But any athlete setting a significant record should be tested – including subsequent
meets, to at least make sure they’re ‘clean’ for the
next year or beyond. Medals, ribbons, etc. – go for it.. risk your health.. (and I agree – for anything less than ARs/WRs, it’s best not to discourage participation, even by ‘cheats’)
On the other hand,.. with so many elite-level WRs suspect, should Masters be ‘zero-tolerance’ for ALL records?.. Personally, I don’t care – I’ll enjoy keeping stats regardless, but it IS sad for
anyone, at any age, to lose a gold or an age record
to someone who was pharmaceutically assisted.
I think Val meant to say “Any masters athlete ON THE MEDAL PODIUM OR SETTING RECORDS over 40 is going to test positive for something”…
Seriously, how can you say an athlete who doesn’t get out of the opening heats is on something?
The only thing men can be guilty of is Viagra and maybe Rogain.
I am 71. I am on nothing. Please test us all as much as you can afford to and get the cheats out of our sport.
Well, I’d rather pay a bit extra, maybe compete against fewer runners, but know if I get beaten I’m getting beaten fair and square.
I also hope the cheats suffer any side effects possible from their drug taking. Serves them right.
Does anyone know the fate of Geraldine Finnegan, the Irish woman referenced in the Washington Post article who was stripped of her medals in Kamloops for taking a cold medication? Was she ultimately banned?
At last report in this blog, the powers that be didn’t know whether to ban her or not.
Val’s case is an example of drug testing working successfully; Geraldine’s case is an example of the difficulties of applying drug testing to an older population that takes a myriad of drugs for a myriad of health conditions.
Bob Weiner’s entry above strikes the right balance: get rid of the cheaters, but have some cognizance (and sympathy) for the special characteristics of the older population that is being tested.
The rub lies in achieving both those goals simultaneously, especially if “suspicion of drug use” is used as one of the bases for testing. Whose suspicions will be acted upon? Whispering campaigns?
I guess if “suspicion of drug use” is enough to warrant testing, Gary Snyder (in charge of the developing the testing program) should be first on the list to be tested since he admitted in the article to the unwitting use of a banned substance in Riccione.
Geraldine’s…and Gary’s…innocent uses of relatively benign “banned” substances show how ridiculous the current program is for older athletes.
A tremendous amount of work has to be done on the drug testing program for Masters athletes if Bob Weiner’s twin goals of getting rid of real cheaters and being fair to older athletes can even remotely be achieved.
Given the amount of time it is taking for officials to determine Geraldine’s fate, maybe achieving both those goals isn’t even possible.
It’s a well known excuse: ‘the neighbours do it too’. Weakling.
Adding an extra fee of $10 or so for drug testing is not going to keep anyone out of a national masters meet. On the other hand, knowing that testing is taking place may keep one or two competitors from signing up because they are taking performance enhancing drugs. That is fine with me.
As for testing those who set WR -perhaps that might “catch” someone but it is the random tests that are best at keeping the potential PED user honest.
As for Val’s excuses – sad – very sad – pathetic – I am sorry that the Washington Post gave him so much ink with which to paint himself stupid.
Incidentally, implementing Ken Stone’s “simply does not care” about drug testing would mean that Val Barnwell would still be competing among us today. Is that what Ken Stone wants?
In the case of Val Barnwell how can anybody use a fraise like “Everybody is doing it” That is something our kids try to say to get their way in going to a party or something. He could be a victim of listening to to many rumors in his circle of friends or random acquaintances.
Using the word “everybody” leads me to ask who is everybody? I know it doesn’t include me.
If had to take anything other than food to compete it would be time for me to do something else or wear a medical tag.
Ken, I knew your stand on drug testing but I’m still appalled, horror-struck, dismayed, aghast, shocked. Your exuberance, display of joy and pride in getting your relay medal in Lahti barely got topped by Val’s showboating. I conclude that the medal was important to you. Now imagine four doped up dudes from Sri Lanka beating you in Lahti. No big deal? Yeah, sure. Now imagine all the athletes being out of medals because of cheaters. Imagine the athletes who did not hear their national anthems because of cheaters. Imagine not being able to show a medal on your opening web page because of cheaters. Would you have gotten down on your knees and begged Dieter Massin: “Please Dieter test those Sri Lankans. They all look like Val.”???
I’m 50 years old and fortunate enough to not be taking anything for my health so please don’t speak for me. I think one of the saving graces of track and field is that there is one competition against people and the other is against the clock or measuring device. At least I can be fairly sure the clock is honest most of the time. That’s the competition I most enjoy.
No fumo nada…..pero tambien no quiero pagar mucho mas.As I said, if you can do it with a reasonable expense, I’m all for testing, but if it increases the fee $50-100 apiece, then I think it will have an adverse effect.
Al:Que yo sepa,no se esta hablando de la cantidad que mencionas.Pero,PANA-HAY QUE MANTENER UN NIVEL DE LIMPIEZA.
I’ll bet my split 400s hurt just as much as Sanya Richard’s. I’ll bet it’s just as cold and rainy on the track for me at 5 p.m. in April as it is for her. I would like to know, as much as possible, that I’m not doing all that – and more – to get beaten by someone who’s cheating. I’d be happy to pay a surcharge to help insure that that my efforts are reflected accurately in my results.
I think it’s rather funny that Val cops to using Viagra at only age 53.
Panama Kid:
Basically I agree with you—I don’t like cheats either, and in a perfect world, everyone would be clean.The unfortunate fact is that some cheaters will continue to cheat despite testing. The last I heard was that you can’t reliably detect HGH in a urine sample. Are we going to start drawing blood also?
Many young athletes dope because a potential professional career would dramatically affect their lives—unfortunately so can the late complications of PED’s.
Why in the world masters athletes would dope is beyond me- certainly it would be an interesting psych study- and I have a hunch that this type of personality would also take great pleasure out of beating the system with a falsely negative drug screen.
Val and I go back a long way competing together. I’ve always understood his love of track & field, and his passion to compete & win.
I’m sorry to hear he was caught cheating. I’m glad he was caught; just sad he presumably chose this direction.
I’d like to affirm this to him directly : I DO NOT CHEAT! AND PLEASE DO NOT ASSUME WE ALL DO IN SOME WAY OR ANOTHER !
Sal
What in the world does Viagra have to do with PED’s? What does paying your own way have to do with Viagra?
One of the greatest wastes of all our time is to ask us to debate the merits of a goofy and false premise.
On second thought I guess Viagra could be considered a PED in the bedroom. Perhaps, even on the track, if it figured into influencing the photo finish camera.
won by a viagra lean
Rick, I am laughing out loud…. just trying to picture your remark.
Try to read that photo finish….
Reading thru all the e-mails, what will be the outcome?
I am very offended that masters over 40 are on something. If by me taking vitamins from the health food store means I am on something, then so be it. I was that average sprinter when I graduated from high school in 1976. I started running again in 1993 & have maintained the same speed for the last 17 years with lots of hard training & NO DRUGS. Vals comments were made out of frustration because he got caught doing something illegal. Just confess & get on with it.
If Val was not doing anything illegal why is his indoor 200 times in 2010 ,4 to 5 seconds slower than they were in 2009? That is something to think about.
I don’t believe in cheating being allowed to get more competitors. Two racing can be great to watch, see Bannister/Landy miracle mile. Meds however can be okayed if true disease is present.
Viagara, among other meds, may be proscribed (even though research so far has shown no performance benefit on the track, except perhaps at a photo finish) and that’s an invasion of our privacy. So Val is right about that, at least. Further, I definitely worry that the rules will not be applied without discrimination — when have we ever achieved that? Some of us are lean ectomorphs, some of us big mesomorphs — Val is big and ripped but that doesn’t prove anything in my book.
I think we need to challenge the binary of cheat versus no cheat. Some of us, myself included, consume very expensive and high quality protein shakes following expensive gym workouts, own $2000 worth of throwing implements, have the bread & professional freedom to travel to meets far and wide, are free to try (and discard if we don’t like) legal additives like creatine, stay in nicer hotels and sleep in better beds and eat in better restaurants before big meets, etc. Others make do without some or all of these things. In my book, the advantages of the pampered professional are a form of cheating over the athletes who get up at 3am to take long drives to meets and race and throw in cheap shoes, use cheap implements, and eat unhealthy food along the way. I have never felt that life, much less track and field, was remotely fair. I know that if a guy who was fighting all the odds took something like DHEA or ephedrine to make up for driving six hours to the meet and running and throwing in old beaters, I would not feel cheated by him. Maybe that’s leftist guilt on my part, but frankly I think we need to think about the larger picture here. Some of us do take advantages that help us compete — we don’t all ride the same bus and sleep in the same dorm and eat the same food before each meet.
Would it be more fair if we all ran bare foot? That way our arch-supports etc. would not give anyone an advantage.
Mike Fortunato wrote:
***…the athletes who get up at 3am to take long drives to meets and race and throw in cheap shoes, use cheap implements, and eat unhealthy food along the way.
Dude, have you been spying on me? And if you have, don’t judge me, cheeseburgers and fries are healthy! Dammit, now my training secrets are getting out.
Just a joke, all in fun.
Greg
I’m sick of reading about this egotistical cheat. I wish he would just shut up and fade away already.
I agree with Max. Enough of Val.
His story doesn’t really provide a good vehicle for a rational discussion of the pros and cons of drug testing for Masters Athletes because it is hard to separate Val’s personality from the issue at hand.
I wonder if Val weren’t such a loud egotist whether the rush to drug test universally would be so quick.
Geraldine Finnegan’s case was much more problematical and I’m sure much more representative of the types of cases that will come up under the new drug testing protocol.
Her case presents the sticky issues that really need to be focused on: how will an “unclean” athlete’s “intent” be determined? how will punishments be determined? if punishments aren’t equal, how will charges of discrimination be avoided?
Mike, I really hope that “leftist guilt” entry was meant as a joke.
Not a legal treatise, not airtight, but not a joke. My experience in problems of this kind are that people only swing the intellectual net as widely as it suits them. We blame the guy who took a PED (if that’s what he did) but we fail to ask if there are other advantages we ourselves are taking in the deal. And as for the offhand joke about running barefoot: in fact, in New Zealand, to make youth sports fair, all the kids run barefoot, or so I’ve been told (at least for rugby). I am saying that I know I take some advantages (traveling the night before and paying for lodgings; wearing and using excellent, although not the very best equipment) and I suspect some folks who are running Val down for whatever the heck he took are not pointing the finger widely enough, and perhaps at themselves. It’s a critical thinking exercise that is worth doing, if we want to get this right.
Mike Fortunato. “Whatever the heck he (Val Barnwell) took” was testosterone to be precise. Why on earth should anyone else point the finger at themselves for that? Your forgiving “we are privleged and therefore equally guilty” nonsense is a less attractive consequence of Left wing thinking driven in absurdum. It is absolutely ridiculous and helps nobody. Think.
Mike F. – I tell you what Mike, the next time you line up next to an obvious cheat (Val B. lets say) and he soundly beats you and bumps you from a podium spot, let’s see which one of your fingers is pointing, how critically you’re thinking, and how soundly you sleep in that comfortable bed.
It’s not a perfect world…thats why we have rules to follow.
Its nice to see that Val is showing remorse for his actions (NOT!!) I can tell you now that Vals remarks about over 40’s all being on something are a slander to most athletes out there including myself. I have won numerous medals at National , European and World champs and have never taken anything that is remotely illegal. I have never even smoked tobacco, let alone anything else. At various times from the age of 40 to 45 my performances have bettered those of Val. However age related problems after 45 sent me on a decline. But not at any time when my performances got worse did I even contemplate taking anything to help slow down my decline. Touch wood I know feel fitter than for many years and plan a comeback ready the World Idoors in Finland 2012. If all goes to plan I will show what hard work and dedication can do without the need for shortcuts.
For his remarks I beleive the authorities should reconsider the length of the ban as it is obvious he is not sorry.
Sad very sad
I have been following this story with great interest since I hope to return to competition this winter. I am a sprinter in Mr. Barnwell’s age group,(M50), and the fallout from his suspension has been an eye opener. The responses range from justifiable anger and disappointment to an almost irrational suspicion of any elite performer or even those athletes with exceptional physiques. It’s obvious the Barnwell’s choices and the subsequent suspension has tipped over a rock in the Master’s track and field community and what’s under there isn’t pretty.The short term answer is to test the top 3 finishers in each championship event while enlisting the aid of the Sports elite athletes in setting an example by agreeing to random in/off season testing.In the meantime,it would help to remember that the majority of master athletes have never doped and for some of us to check the knee jerk presumption of guilt of anyone who might be faster or have a better body.
Leave a Reply