“They’re going to make you do what!?”
In a move designed to placate critics of its current anti-doping regime, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) has approved the immediate introduction of so-called “biological passport” programmes on each of the sport’s major professional tours.
The announcement, arriving as it does a mere three weeks after NBA commissioner David Stern reiterated his commitment to blood testing, only furthers golf’s isolation from the mainstream of world sport.
The passport system, currently in use throughout most Olympic sports — including athletics, swimming and cycling — allows for the creation of detailed individual profiles against which biological abnormalities can more readily be identified.
Severely underfunded, tennis’s drug-testing programme has struggled in recent years to keep pace with developments in doping technology. Indeed, the ITF was roundly mocked for performing a mere 21 out-of-competition blood tests in 2011 (cycling’s governing body, by contrast, managed to carry out 3,314 within the same time period).
A series of controversies, however, including the Lance Armstong affair and trial of Spanish doctor Eufamiano Fuentes, in which a number of unnamed tennis players have been implicated, have since forced the organisation to reconsider the threat posed by performance-enhancing drugs .
News of the reform has already been welcomed by a number of grand slam champions, including Roger Federer and Andy Murray.
Incredibly, golf’s current testing regime manages to look anaemic even by comparison to that abandoned by the ITF.
The PGA Tour still refuses to administer blood tests — the only reliable method of detecting several banned substances, including HGH and Vijay Singh’s troublesome IGF-1 — and a recent survey conducted by Karen Crouse of the New York Times (one of the few journalists actively pursuing the issue, and doing so brilliantly) revealed the extent to which out-of-competition testing on the circuit remains a rarity. Indeed, of the 54 players she interviewed, not one has ever been asked to provide a urine sample away from a tournament venue.
Conor Nagle
Conor, none of the major US sports do blood testing yet.
And personally, before we start testing for something, I feel like we should actually have a good reason to ban it.
The PGA Tour STILL refuses, eh ? Your implication is that the Euro Tour, and all others, PLUS just about every other sport on the planet DOES do blood testing…and that just ain’t so. Very few sports do blood testing.
I think you’re tryin to foist a couple of viewpoints on me, so for the sake of clarity:
– The European Tour adheres to a nearly identical system (every bit as inadequate).
– Blood testing is fast becoming the norm (particularly for Olympic sports), though the interaction of national and international bodies can’t always be relied upon to yield a coherent programme. That, however, is more a matter of logistics and regional corruption than it is principle.
– The number of prominent professional sports refusing to reform procedures is dwindling: the NBA and ITF are implementing changes; FIFA has pledged to do so in advance of next year’s World Cup. The PGA Tour no longer expresses a mainstream view.
@Conor, I think you need to re-read what Stern said. He would like blood testing, and thinks it will happen, hopefully soon.
The point that I think Court and I are both trying to make, is that in the US (where Finchem and the PGA Tour operate), no major sport currently blood tests. Which is to say that the PGA Tour has a main stream viewpoint. That may be changing internationally (although what does soccer do?), but it hasn’t changed in the US.
And again, can we actually get a scientific study saying HGH does something more than advil before we go on more witch hunts?
I see a picture up there with no caption indicating who is in the picture – Thats just not good enough.
its current anti-doping regime <<regimen, no?
Actually, no.
Looks like Colsaerts in the pic, in jeans?
Roger Federererer maybe?
Looks a lot like fed but he’s not that tall. Surely not taller than Tiger.