Should everyone over 80 be exempt from USATF drug-testing?
Fine for anyone over 80?
The July issue of National Masters News carries a column by USATF Masters T&F Chairman Gary Snyder updating us on the process of rolling out drug-testing at masters nationals in 2011. A couple points worth noting: USATF may allow post-meet TUEs (therapeutic-use exemptions). In other words, if you’re one of the fraction of athletes drug-tested at nationals, and you come up positive, you get a chance to argue: “Oops, sorry. I had a legit medical reason for taking the banned substance.” Then you get a note from your doctor and hope it gets you off the hook. Also: Gary writes, “The issue of an age cutoff is sure to generate a lot of discussion. There appears to be insufficient medical or scientific information to base our decision on. At this time, the discussion is around an exemption for age-80-plus athletes.”
An exemption means all M80 and W80 (and older) folks are home-free! Gobble all the HGH, EPO, DHEA and steroids your buff but wrinkled body can handle!
What? What? We shouldn’t assume geezers will exploit the loophole?
OK, OK. But if everyone over 80 is trustworthy, that means everyone under 80 can’t be trusted? Ha!
And what a great advertisement for masters track: “Hang in there, dopers! All is permitted after you hit the Big Eight-Oh!”
USATF’s logic will twist us into knots. The absurdity will escalate. The costs (surcharges to all entrants at nationals) will bite.
shucks – 80 – ya mean I have to wait 5 more years before I can take all those yummy peds.
IF there is a cut off – it should be based upon some sort of science – not the number of wrinkles one has.
Again – consistency, consistency please – the rules should be the same for USATF meets as for WMA and WSG meets. There is no age cut off there – or if there is – it is hidden in the rules. And the TUE requirements should match as well.
Rob D'Avellar - July 1, 2010
I think Gary and the other folks charged with coming up with a drug testing protocol have their hearts in the right places, but the age-80-cutoff and post-competition TUEs have an inherent silliness that suggests the unworkability of ANY drug testing program for older athletes.
Being able to get a TUE AFTER you have tested positive only tests an athlete’s ability to find a doctor who will lie for him.
If a program is riddled with loopholes, why have a program at all?
Loopholes lead to unfairness and unfairness leads to discrimination and discrimination leads to lawsuits.
Everyone wants a level playing field, but the passion that the drug testing issue generates every time Ken includes a drug testing story in his blog suggests that something else is going on here.
Are people really that suspicious of their fellow competitors that a drug testing program is necessary for people to accept the results of a competition?
Perhaps the simplest solution is VOLUNTARY drug testing. If someone wins a Gold Medal or sets a record, he or she can VOLUNTARILY submit to drug testing to prove to all their jealous competitors that their accomplishment is real. May sound silly, but no sillier than having an arbitrary age cutoff that is based on no scientific information.
“I think TUE is a farce, that ‘low testosterone’ is not a genuine medical condition but a (statistically meaningless) opinion, that because we’re all genetically different there’s no such thing as a ‘level playing field,’ and that we should be lobbying to have PEDs legalized so they can be adequately studied rather than arbitrarily banned and so that the incentive to ‘beat the system’ is removed.”
Cornell - July 1, 2010
It’s fine if 80+ athletes aren’t tested as long as they are not credited with any possible world/national records.
Ed Oleata - July 1, 2010
This is stupid. There aren’t enough 80+ athletes to make that much difference but EVERYBODY should be subject to testing if anybody is. Why don’t you start by testing all the athletes whose performance is out of the envelope when compared to the other athletes who made the finals. How about testing the sprinters and throwers who it is obvious are helped more than other athletes with PED’s. If we are going to test random people who had little to do with who got medals to be politically correct than the program is a whitewash. When a good friend who held the american record in the shotput for his age group gets beat by 5 Germans in the finals by 5 to 6 feet it makes you think that something might be amiss.
Mary Harada - July 1, 2010
The post test TUE is a WMA requirement- not a USADA requirement. Why WMA says – well we tested you – so if you are using any TUE drug – go get proof now – might be because of the work load they had processing the TUE requests and the legal issues involved in denying a TUE request. As far as I can tell – until this year they had one physician doing the TUE request work. I do not know how many forms he had to deal with – but apparently it was many. The WMA rule re the TUE ex post facto is new. I got one last year for the meet in Lahti – as per the old rules.
USADA cuts no slack for masters. If you need a TUE – get it before the meet. USADA is better funded and better equiped than WMA to go after drug cheaters. I think that if they could – they would have mandatory out of competition testing for any athlete of any age and in any discipline. Unfortunately for them – they are not funded by Congress with billions for chasing after 5 year old soccer players and 95 year old pole vaulters. But – if they could, they would. Luck for us that we do not have to worry about them turning up at 6 am to have us strip naked to pee in a cup.
I agree that having an age cut-off is stupid – it sends mixed messages about drug testing and stupidly suggests that some folks are just too old to bother with.
Jim Fuqua Jr. - July 1, 2010
I suffer with andropause also known as hypogonadism. I have to be treated for very low testosterone levels. If you read up on this condition you will see that men who leave this condition untreated are subject to early heart attacks strokes and early onset of alzheimers not to mention the loss of muscle mass. The thing is the testosterone levels are hard to control. Sometimes i’m a little low and other times it is high. I also am bi-polar and take a boatload of medications just to stay in touch with reality. I take these meds because it is medically necessary. What if my testosterone just happen to be high during the period i was tested? I am not a cheat but it sure would look lkie it even if I have a TUE.I have talked to others with similar conditions and they all said they will just skip the national championships and senior games.Also if I have a TUE for my condition I would always feel like I have a bullseye on my back. I compete because I love sports amd I love training. I think with a lot of drug testing member numbers will drop and a lot of your top flight athletes will skip the big meets leaving a lot of diluted events. It is tough being a masters athlete. Especially past 50.So I would be left to choose not to compete or compete and stop taking medication that is literally saving my life.
Simon Martin - July 1, 2010
Thanks Mary. Until your post made me go and look at the TUE Regulations on the WMA website, I hadn’t registered that pre-event TUEs are now “not required” by the WMA.
Yeds, the only TUE you need apply for as far as WMA is concerned is retroactive – if you test positive.
I’m sure Mary is right with her assessment of the situation. The original regs said that each TUE had to be reviewed by a minimum of three members of the TUE committee TUEC)…
that he TUEC had to include “at least five (5) physicians with experience in the care and treatment of Athletes and with a sound knowledge of clinical, sports and exercise medicine”…
and that “No member of the WMA TUEC shall adjudicate on a TUE application submitted by an Athlete from (or representing) his own country.”
So if the WMA really did have only one doc processing TUEs then all its TUE decisions were not legal. The WMA is now saying that all TUEs must be reviewed by 3 sports docs.
That said, you can see that Chaos still rules. Read clause 5.25 (f). After details of the criteria by which a TUE can be granted, this clause says:
“in no circumstances, shall a TUE be granted to an Athlete if the WMA considers that he would thereby gain a competitive advantage over another Athlete”.
Excuse me? The drugs on the prohibited list are there because they confer a competitive advantage. PEDs. Which is why they are banned. So how can taking them NOT result in an athlete gaining a competitive advantage?
CATCH 22. You cannot get a TUE for a drug that gives you a competitive advantage. But you will only need a TUE if you test positive for a drug…that gives you a competitive advantage.
What am I missing here?
Mary Harada - July 1, 2010
It is my understanding that one person was doing the review for WMA – I could be wrong about that – but it was the same person to whom I sent the same stuff year after year after year. I suspect he got tired of it. And ..the requirements noted above are as clear as mud. I believe the WMA Anti-Doping committee is working to clear up some of this and doing away with handling all the TUEs is part of the changes. My last TUE – granted last year – had written on it…..good for 5 years! My eyes popped out at that. Then I laughed – they must have decided that after all these years of the same old same old – not much was going to change for me.
Geoffrey Gee - July 1, 2010
Re: Simon Martin
Some common Peds are NOT performance enhancing. Think of diuretics in hypertensive drugs. These only get a banned rating because of their ability to speed up the elimination of other drugs.
Jack Karbens - July 1, 2010
It is amazing that 50% of the early respondents are ready to categorize an elderly person who takes any substance on the many pages of banned substances is a cheater and has committed a “crime.”
The banned substance list starts with a warning that the reader is responsible for determining on their own whether additional substances not on the list may also be banned. How many track athletes are doctors or chemists and are able to make such determinations? How much money do potential competitors need to spend in order to ensure that their reputations and lives will not be ruined by testing positive?
People over age 40, not 80 who compete in age bracket competitions should be allowed to take whatever their doctor tells them to take. Open athletes and masters who are competing for money should be tested, not masters who have to pay out of their own pockets to test their bodies and minds while having some fun, competition and fellowship.
The only meaningful performances which masters should be concerned about are improving or gracefully accepting age adjusted declines in their own personal times and marks for as many age brackets as their health allows them to run, jump and/or throw.
Until five year age adjusted banned substance lists can be scientifically developed, drug testing of masters will defeat the most valuable objectives of masters track programs.
Rick Riddle - July 1, 2010
I hope I can still pee at 80.
Simon Martin - July 2, 2010
“Some common Peds are NOT performance enhancing. Think of diuretics in hypertensive drugs. These only get a banned rating because of their ability to speed up the elimination of other drugs.”
Hi Geoffrey,
Diuretics are clearly performance enhancing as they enable athletes to lose weight quickly (like, overnight) and either make a weight category or dramatically increase power/weight ratio (and therefore speed).
They were being lethally abused when originally banned. Their use as masking agents was another compelling reason for a ban, but not the only one.
More recently, skiers “pioneered” their use to help adjust to altitude – another performance-enhancing use for sea-level athletes competing at altitude.
According to the WADA prohibited list, a TUE for diuretics will hold up UNLESS a test also reveals other banned substances.
Ken has followed track as an athlete, writer and web-master since the late 1960s, and saw most sessions of track and field at the 1984 Los Angeles and 1996 Atlanta Olympics. He also attended the 1988, 1992, 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012 Trials, the last three as a blogger and Patch correspondent. [More...]
14 Responses
shucks – 80 – ya mean I have to wait 5 more years before I can take all those yummy peds.
IF there is a cut off – it should be based upon some sort of science – not the number of wrinkles one has.
Again – consistency, consistency please – the rules should be the same for USATF meets as for WMA and WSG meets. There is no age cut off there – or if there is – it is hidden in the rules. And the TUE requirements should match as well.
I think Gary and the other folks charged with coming up with a drug testing protocol have their hearts in the right places, but the age-80-cutoff and post-competition TUEs have an inherent silliness that suggests the unworkability of ANY drug testing program for older athletes.
Being able to get a TUE AFTER you have tested positive only tests an athlete’s ability to find a doctor who will lie for him.
If a program is riddled with loopholes, why have a program at all?
Loopholes lead to unfairness and unfairness leads to discrimination and discrimination leads to lawsuits.
Everyone wants a level playing field, but the passion that the drug testing issue generates every time Ken includes a drug testing story in his blog suggests that something else is going on here.
Are people really that suspicious of their fellow competitors that a drug testing program is necessary for people to accept the results of a competition?
Perhaps the simplest solution is VOLUNTARY drug testing. If someone wins a Gold Medal or sets a record, he or she can VOLUNTARILY submit to drug testing to prove to all their jealous competitors that their accomplishment is real. May sound silly, but no sillier than having an arbitrary age cutoff that is based on no scientific information.
The poll needs another option:
“I think TUE is a farce, that ‘low testosterone’ is not a genuine medical condition but a (statistically meaningless) opinion, that because we’re all genetically different there’s no such thing as a ‘level playing field,’ and that we should be lobbying to have PEDs legalized so they can be adequately studied rather than arbitrarily banned and so that the incentive to ‘beat the system’ is removed.”
It’s fine if 80+ athletes aren’t tested as long as they are not credited with any possible world/national records.
This is stupid. There aren’t enough 80+ athletes to make that much difference but EVERYBODY should be subject to testing if anybody is. Why don’t you start by testing all the athletes whose performance is out of the envelope when compared to the other athletes who made the finals. How about testing the sprinters and throwers who it is obvious are helped more than other athletes with PED’s. If we are going to test random people who had little to do with who got medals to be politically correct than the program is a whitewash. When a good friend who held the american record in the shotput for his age group gets beat by 5 Germans in the finals by 5 to 6 feet it makes you think that something might be amiss.
The post test TUE is a WMA requirement- not a USADA requirement. Why WMA says – well we tested you – so if you are using any TUE drug – go get proof now – might be because of the work load they had processing the TUE requests and the legal issues involved in denying a TUE request. As far as I can tell – until this year they had one physician doing the TUE request work. I do not know how many forms he had to deal with – but apparently it was many. The WMA rule re the TUE ex post facto is new. I got one last year for the meet in Lahti – as per the old rules.
USADA cuts no slack for masters. If you need a TUE – get it before the meet. USADA is better funded and better equiped than WMA to go after drug cheaters. I think that if they could – they would have mandatory out of competition testing for any athlete of any age and in any discipline. Unfortunately for them – they are not funded by Congress with billions for chasing after 5 year old soccer players and 95 year old pole vaulters. But – if they could, they would. Luck for us that we do not have to worry about them turning up at 6 am to have us strip naked to pee in a cup.
I agree that having an age cut-off is stupid – it sends mixed messages about drug testing and stupidly suggests that some folks are just too old to bother with.
I suffer with andropause also known as hypogonadism. I have to be treated for very low testosterone levels. If you read up on this condition you will see that men who leave this condition untreated are subject to early heart attacks strokes and early onset of alzheimers not to mention the loss of muscle mass. The thing is the testosterone levels are hard to control. Sometimes i’m a little low and other times it is high. I also am bi-polar and take a boatload of medications just to stay in touch with reality. I take these meds because it is medically necessary. What if my testosterone just happen to be high during the period i was tested? I am not a cheat but it sure would look lkie it even if I have a TUE.I have talked to others with similar conditions and they all said they will just skip the national championships and senior games.Also if I have a TUE for my condition I would always feel like I have a bullseye on my back. I compete because I love sports amd I love training. I think with a lot of drug testing member numbers will drop and a lot of your top flight athletes will skip the big meets leaving a lot of diluted events. It is tough being a masters athlete. Especially past 50.So I would be left to choose not to compete or compete and stop taking medication that is literally saving my life.
Thanks Mary. Until your post made me go and look at the TUE Regulations on the WMA website, I hadn’t registered that pre-event TUEs are now “not required” by the WMA.
Yeds, the only TUE you need apply for as far as WMA is concerned is retroactive – if you test positive.
I’m sure Mary is right with her assessment of the situation. The original regs said that each TUE had to be reviewed by a minimum of three members of the TUE committee TUEC)…
that he TUEC had to include “at least five (5) physicians with experience in the care and treatment of Athletes and with a sound knowledge of clinical, sports and exercise medicine”…
and that “No member of the WMA TUEC shall adjudicate on a TUE application submitted by an Athlete from (or representing) his own country.”
So if the WMA really did have only one doc processing TUEs then all its TUE decisions were not legal. The WMA is now saying that all TUEs must be reviewed by 3 sports docs.
That said, you can see that Chaos still rules. Read clause 5.25 (f). After details of the criteria by which a TUE can be granted, this clause says:
“in no circumstances, shall a TUE be granted to an Athlete if the WMA considers that he would thereby gain a competitive advantage over another Athlete”.
Excuse me? The drugs on the prohibited list are there because they confer a competitive advantage. PEDs. Which is why they are banned. So how can taking them NOT result in an athlete gaining a competitive advantage?
CATCH 22. You cannot get a TUE for a drug that gives you a competitive advantage. But you will only need a TUE if you test positive for a drug…that gives you a competitive advantage.
What am I missing here?
It is my understanding that one person was doing the review for WMA – I could be wrong about that – but it was the same person to whom I sent the same stuff year after year after year. I suspect he got tired of it. And ..the requirements noted above are as clear as mud. I believe the WMA Anti-Doping committee is working to clear up some of this and doing away with handling all the TUEs is part of the changes. My last TUE – granted last year – had written on it…..good for 5 years! My eyes popped out at that. Then I laughed – they must have decided that after all these years of the same old same old – not much was going to change for me.
Re: Simon Martin
Some common Peds are NOT performance enhancing. Think of diuretics in hypertensive drugs. These only get a banned rating because of their ability to speed up the elimination of other drugs.
It is amazing that 50% of the early respondents are ready to categorize an elderly person who takes any substance on the many pages of banned substances is a cheater and has committed a “crime.”
The banned substance list starts with a warning that the reader is responsible for determining on their own whether additional substances not on the list may also be banned. How many track athletes are doctors or chemists and are able to make such determinations? How much money do potential competitors need to spend in order to ensure that their reputations and lives will not be ruined by testing positive?
People over age 40, not 80 who compete in age bracket competitions should be allowed to take whatever their doctor tells them to take. Open athletes and masters who are competing for money should be tested, not masters who have to pay out of their own pockets to test their bodies and minds while having some fun, competition and fellowship.
The only meaningful performances which masters should be concerned about are improving or gracefully accepting age adjusted declines in their own personal times and marks for as many age brackets as their health allows them to run, jump and/or throw.
Until five year age adjusted banned substance lists can be scientifically developed, drug testing of masters will defeat the most valuable objectives of masters track programs.
I hope I can still pee at 80.
“Some common Peds are NOT performance enhancing. Think of diuretics in hypertensive drugs. These only get a banned rating because of their ability to speed up the elimination of other drugs.”
Hi Geoffrey,
Diuretics are clearly performance enhancing as they enable athletes to lose weight quickly (like, overnight) and either make a weight category or dramatically increase power/weight ratio (and therefore speed).
They were being lethally abused when originally banned. Their use as masking agents was another compelling reason for a ban, but not the only one.
More recently, skiers “pioneered” their use to help adjust to altitude – another performance-enhancing use for sea-level athletes competing at altitude.
According to the WADA prohibited list, a TUE for diuretics will hold up UNLESS a test also reveals other banned substances.
Look out World…Grandpa’s on the juice!
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