Who benefits from the crisis? For some athletes, the answer is in no doubt: the COVID-19 epidemic, containment measures and travel restrictions are the cheaters' business. They promote doping.
British walker Tom Bosworth (photo above), ranked sixth in the 20 km at the Rio 2016 Games, does not hold back his words. According to him, the current situation opens the door to all sorts of slip-ups. “ This is such an obvious advantage. For those who see sport as a way to win at all costs and make money, this is a gift, he suggested during an interview with the Times. This is a really bleak outlook, you can get huge gains in a two to three month period where you know you won't be tested. »
Tom Bosworth speaks the truth. The British walker knows it: anti-doping controls have been slowed down, or often stopped altogether, in the vast majority of countries subject to containment measures and travel bans.
In Canada, the National Anti-Doping Agency recently announced that it was putting its testing program on hold. The Russian agency (RUSADA) followed suit. Same decision in Great Britain, where UKAD admits to having slowed down very significantly the pace on controls.
The near certainty of being able to escape unannounced tests, carried out outside competition, ensures cheaters a period of peace of several weeks, or even several months. Tom Bosworth believes it is long enough to distort the situation.
At the AMA, on the other hand, the speech is more optimistic. Its president, the Polish Witold Banka, assured theAFP : Cheaters will not win the game. “ LTests are not the only weapon we have, we have other powerful ones, he explained by telephone from his home in Poland. There is the athlete's biological passport, there is the long-term analysis of samples, and there is intelligence. »
Witold Banka insists: the biological passport can detect anomalies, by establishing the profile (hematological and endocrine) of an athlete. Not false. But its analysis cannot give rise to a sanction, unlike a positive doping test.
The Pole reminds us: high-level athletes are “ always obliged to tell us where they are, even if we cannot go and test them. They should not think that this is an opportunity to cheat. If necessary, anti-doping agencies will deploy their weapons to catch them. »
How ? Mystery. But Witold Banka recognizes it: in times of global health crisis, where the medical world is mobilized to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, the fight against doping is not a priority. It even becomes very secondary.
Failing to be able to check potential cheaters at their homes or at their place of training, anti-doping organizations are reduced to brandishing the standard of threat. The Athletics Integrity Unit does not hold back. She announces that athletes who took advantage of the current period to take drugs would risk a suspension of up to 4 years, including for a first offense. They would then miss the Tokyo 2020 Games and those of Paris 2024.
