World Rowing Indoor Championship Question

[Droode]

With World Rowing and Jean-Christophe Rolland, FISA President supporting the event do any of you think drug testing is in the future of this competition?

[Cyclist2]

Don't know what your age or weight are, but I do know that at MY age and weight, Advil is a performance enhancing drug! I'm not going to waste time thinking about it - If some other old guy wants to win "at all costs" then good for him. Can't speak for the younger people that may be trying to win for bigger purposes.

[Droode]

Don't know what your age or weight are, but I do know that at MY age and weight, Advil is a performance enhancing drug! I'm not going to waste time thinking about it - If some other old guy wants to win "at all costs" then good for him. Can't speak for the younger people that may be trying to win for bigger purposes.

I am just interested in peoples opinion on if they believe drug testing will become necessary with the involvement of organizations that follow WADA and Olympic testing protocols. By the way I am 51 and fortunate enough to look better than most men half my age but I will admit that they have the upper hand on recovery.

[JerekKruger]

BRIC has this to say on the matter:

The British Rowing Indoor Championships run according to the British Rowing Rules of Racing which includes promoting clean sport. All competitors who enter could be subject to testing at this event, and therefore it is important that you take the time to familiarise yourself with your rights and responsibilities. Information about the anti-doping rules for competitors can be found here: British Rowing Anti-Doping

I don't know how common testing actually is (I suspect not very) but I'd guess WRIC would take a similar stance.

[NavigationHazard]

National-squad types, whether domestic or international, are going to be subject to possible random testing as it is.

The costs of testing general-population ergers for steroids, EPO, etc. would be ridiculously high. A >basic< urine test for steroids can easily run $350 using a collection center. Add additional costs for other PEDs you might want to test for. Bringing the testers to the venue would presumably cost more as well.

Even if all you did was test podium placers in only the 2k events at the World Indoor Champs this year, you'd have around 80 races x 3 medalists = 240 tests x maybe $500 a test = $120k for testing. Entry fees can't possibly support that kind of expense. You could cut it down considerably if you randomly selected. But then the odds of getting away with something start to go up dramatically. 100 tests spread over 2500 competitors, say, mean a 4% chance of being tested and might well still cost $50k.

FWIW, the UKAD folks were present at the recent British Rowing Indoor Championships and apparently doing testing. I'm not entirely sure whether they were there for the British national-squad rowers who attended, the warning cited in the previous post notwithstanding, or whether they also were testing from the general erging population. I am under the strong impression that they have done the latter in previous years and actually caught cheaters.

[Droode]

Thank you for the opinions and information, it does seem any sport that wants full validation of its world events needs some form of regular drug testing. Believe me I am not naive and think drug testing prevents PED use but I do believe it can prohibit some people from using and from time to time expose the cheats, without it all records and accomplishments in sport are questionable to most and even with testing we believe many are cheating. I guess it is a no win situation but I do believe in testing and that it can level the playing field in some sports, I am just not sure which ones anymore.

[hjs]

Only once heard of a guy getting caught, a strong lightweight erger, got caught during cycling for epo use.

Like Jon says, who is gonna pay? And if only races are tested, it still is easy to use offseason.