Medications on banned list? Here’s where to send your TUE form
Sacto manual
TUE stands for therapeutic use exemption. It’s the hoop you have to jump through if you’re concerned about being one of the 1 percent of athletes who get drug-tested as worlds. Typically only several dozen (of more than 5,000 entrants) are made to pee in a bottle (twice). But the embarrassment factor (ask Val Barnwell) is the point of the doping drill.
You’re supposed to be scared into compliance. Whatever.
Here is Matt’s note on changes in athlete’s entry manual, responding to my own query:
Doping control
The doping regulations of WMA will be followed in Sacramento. All athletes must be aware that doping is not allowed and violators will be suspended from competition. For information on doping control, please visit http://www.world-masters-athletics.org/index.php. WMA’s web site provides information about the necessary documentation and procedures in case athletes are using medication for an illness. WMA and the Sacramento LOC have enlisted the services of the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) to conduct drug testing as part of the WMA Stadia Championships. Drug testing will be conducted under the IAAF/WMA Rules that comply with the provisions of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Please send in your completed TUE forms to Pierluig.Fiorella@tin.it.
7 Responses
1 percent! Why of all the dirty low down, good for nothing…
So let’s see: 5,000 athletes * $6.25 doping fee =$31,250
50 urine tests at most at a local lab cost 4 or 5K
Can we get rebate if we don’t get tested?
I should download a medical form and list all kinds of prescription drugs for fun, just to test the waters. I’ll take you down with me! I demand to be tested, even if I don’t make the final.
1 percent! Is this statement correct? Are there names of athletes who have been tested? This is a very small sampling indeed.
Everyone in WMA I’ve talked with over the years has stressed the hush-hush nature of drug-testing. No names are released unless someone is busted. No numbers are released, but a Finnish paper in 2009 got hold of a figure at Lahti worlds (I think it was 40-45 tested.)
Bottom line: Drug testing isn’t meant to throw a wide net. It’s meant to scare people into compliance by a random testing regimen (but sometimes with athletes singled out because of their appearance).
If you’re Joe or Jane Schmoe, you won’t be tested.
Joe or Jane Schmoe could be tested – IF the selection is truly random. Indeed the point is to scare those who need scaring into stop doping or not come to a meet if they are on dope.
OTOH – sometimes the tests “catch” someone on legally prescribed medication needed for health reasons. If he/she cannot get a TUE for that drug – and then turns up at a meet that has testing – will that unfortunate person be “randomly” selected to be tested? And imagine banning someone for 2 years for taking a prescribed drug for a heart condition!, cancer, kidney disease etc.
Those of you who always jump up and down shouting – just don’t compete – stop already – this is a problem for some masters athletes- and it will continue to be a serious obstacle until WMA and USATF etc – are willing to accept that masters athletes are not in it for the money – the drug testing regime is set up to deter elite athletes and up and coming youngsters from doping. The current system needs to be revised to allow for drugs legally prescribed to older athletes with serious health issues.
Yes there are a few masters athletes who take performance enhancing drugs – and they need to be caught and banned. The current system that treat us the same as the elite athletes is like taking a sledge hammer to bash a fly.
Well stated Mary. 99% of Masters athletes compete for the love of the sport. No one is getting lucrative endorsement deals from shoe companies, or product endorsements from Japan.
Look what happened at the last world indoor meet. I think it was an Irish runner that was suspended because she took an over the counter cold medication due to being sick. Was she trying to cheat..or just trying to compete despite being under the weather. Not to mention the many over 50 athletes that have legitimate medical concerns.
Nicely said, Mary and Ken. About a year ago we were talking drugs; I remember being chastized for saying that taking a lot of drugs was common among the older folk (of whom I am one). One commenter even said that healthy people do not take drugs.
With our very healthy friends Orville Rogers (M90, see other post) and Jim Selby (80+) both suffering strokes, I will revisit the issue of how many drugs are taken by the mature set and how this might affect drug testing.
It is hard to find how many drugs those aged 90+ take. The best I could come up with was an article by RL Rao and RM Schears of the Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minnesota) that appeared in American Journal of Emergency Medicine in 2010.
The title: Prescription use and survival among nonagenerians presenting to the ED.
On the one hand, those going to the ED (emergency department) must have had an acute problem of some sort, but on the other hand, these 90-99-year-olds were presumably living at home and not in institutions.
So how many drugs did these 90-99-year-olds take?
In all, 51.9% were taking 5 to 9 drugs, and 9.9% were taking 10 or more.
What does this mean? Well, if you want to prevent a stroke you should take drugs (in my view), and healthy people in the M90/M95, W90/W95 categories must be taking a lot of drugs.
My hope (impossible now) for Orville Rogers would have been to miss the stroke, compete at Sacramento and win gold in the 800 and 1500, then “get busted” for using a drug to prevent stroke. Now that would have been a story.
Some masters take drugs & compete to inflate their bodies & egos. Also, having a prescrpition does not always indicate a legitimate medical need, as just about anyone of masters age that feels a little tired or is skinny or fat can find a licensed doctor at an anti-aging clinic that will prescribe them HGH, testosterone, anadrol-50, estrogen blockers, HCG, clomid and other banned substances.
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