IAAF to test all athletes at worlds
P Reid
Friday, August 12, 2011
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ALL 2,000-plus athletes taking part at the 13th IAAF World Athletics Championships later this month in Daegu, South Korea, will be asked to provide blood samples in an "unprecedented anti-doping programme" which is hoped will provide testers with "relevant parameters (biomarkers) for individual profiling purposes within the framework of the Athlete Biological Passport.
This will be the first time "that a heterogeneous population of nearly 2,000 elite athletes competing at a major sporting event will be blood tested under the same optimal conditions, within the same time period," the IAAF trumpeted.
A release from the world governing body yesterday said the taking of blood samples would be done in addition to the approximately 500 urine samples that will be taken during in- and out-of-competition testing.
The collection of the blood samples will start on August 18 in a specially constructed doping control building next to the Athletes' Village, the release also said.
Jamaica's team, which is expected to comprise between 45 and 50 athletes, is expected to be named early next week with the athletes scheduled to report to pre-competition camp in nearby Gyeonasan.
While the purpose of the blood testing, the release also stated, was to monitor the "athlete's bookmark over time" and "not on the detection of prohibited substances or methods themselves", the release said they could eventually be "used in support of an anti-doping rule violation if an athlete's overall biological profile is found to be consistent with the use of a prohibited substance or a prohibited method, in accordance with IAAF Anti-Doping Rules and Regulations".
The programme will be carried out along with several agencies, including the World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) and the Lausanne WADA-accredited Anti-Doping Laboratory (LAD), as well as Daegu Local Organising Committee, the Korean Anti-Doping Agency and the Doping Center of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology, the release explained.
The samples, it said, would be analysed by the LAD on-site in Daegu for a first haematological screening analysis and after the end of the championships in Lausanne for further analyses.
The analyses by the LAD will focus on measuring relevant parameters (biomarkers) for individual profiling purposes within the framework of the Athlete Biological Passport, the release and explained.
"The fundamental principle of the Athlete Biological Passport is based on the monitoring of an athlete's biomarkers over time," it said.
Read more:
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/sports/IAAF-to-test-all-athletes-at-worlds_9425346#ixzz1UoxGol8v