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With the end of the fight against doping, the concern of sport grows for the post Covid-19

2020-04-24T16:52:19.139Z


The current confinement leaves the risk of an increase in doping in the absence of controls. Worrying one year from the Tokyo Olympics.


"The bar is not open! In an interview with Europe 1 a week ago, Olivier Niggli, the director general of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), warned those ill-intentioned who intend to take advantage of the Covid-19 pandemic for doping. A warning to qualify however since this same Niggli also specified that the AMA currently works only at “40%, even 30% of its usual speed”. A figure that seems optimistic in view of a press release published by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) detailing its action in confinement time. “We carry out doping controls in more than a hundred countries around the world. In the context of the pandemic, many of these countries are applying social distancing measures, which vary and change very quickly from one place to another. As a result, it is evident that our anti-doping program is strongly affected in the short term. However, we will continue to carry out our priority testing missions where possible. ”

»READ ALSO - Doping: cycling between fears and vigilance for recovery

Concretely, in fact, after having surveyed several athletes of the France team, none has been the subject of a doping test since the beginning of March. "I have not undergone any control since the start of confinement and I do not know if there is still one, whether in France or elsewhere," says Mélina Robert-Michon, Olympic vice-champion of discus throw. in 2016 in Rio. The last doping control test that I underwent, if memory serves, dates back to the French championships last February. However, we must always geolocate on the Adams software. In other words, athletes who are members of the IAU target group (around 500 top athletes) still have the same obligations as before. Except that the prospect of seeing a controller present at their place of confinement turns out to be non-existent in view of all the current restrictions. What does not fail to worry some about the possibility of seeing the cheaters jump on the occasion ...

"The body keeps a profit from everything that has been done in training, including, therefore, doping"

Mélina Robert-Michon

"We all suspected, unfortunately, that this very complicated period was not going to serve the cause of the fight against doping, analyzes Robert-Michon. Cheaters always look for small loopholes to get into it. Already that when all is well, some manage to pass through so inevitably if breaches like these open ... There will always be those, faced with such situations, who will ask themselves how to train and train themselves. maintain, and those who will wonder how to profit from it. "A concern shared by Christophe Lemaitre:" Athletes should not take advantage of this period to dope in peace and make a monstrous preparation from which they will benefit next year at the Tokyo Games. "

Home self-tests

Indeed, even if no competition is currently taking place and it is impossible to say when the athletics season will resume (the European championships scheduled for the end of August in Paris have been canceled), this does not mean that it there is no point in doping. On the contrary. "The Olympic Games are to be prepared over three or four years," explains Robert-Michon. All the work done serves. The body keeps a profit from everything that has been done in training, including, therefore, doping. This allows you to perform more sessions, to launch more, to improve technically and, even if after you stop taking products, the body still remembers all of this. When you have passed a course thanks to doping, it is acquired. Technically or in terms of power, when your body has managed to achieve something thanks to doping, it is easier to do it again then. So even if it's not scientifically proven, I think there is still a long-term benefit. "

"I find it incredible, in a period like this that some people take the opportunity to dope"

Christophe Lemaitre

What bulwark remains in the face of such a plague during the confinement period? Mainly the biological passport, which is supposed to rationally analyze an athlete's progress by following selected biological variables over time. The American Anti-Doping Agency (Usada) has also launched a program - called "Believe 2020" - of tests carried out by the athletes themselves, at home, which it monitors remotely by videoconference. Thus, test kits have been sent to the athletes, who must then produce blood and urine samples when they receive an unexpected call from Usada. A system whose effectiveness is still questionable, allowing this “curious and sad paradox” to develop, highlighted by Kevin Mayer (read below) and Christophe Lemaitre: “I find it incredible, in a period like this where We are talking about a health crisis in which hundreds of people die every day from the virus, some of whom take advantage of it to take drugs, whereas we know very well that these products prove to be very dangerous for health. It really shows their little respect for life. "

Read also

  • Kevin Mayer: "Brainless cheaters will take advantage of the situation to get doped"

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2020-04-24

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