UKC

Just curious. Is there any form of drug testing on indoor professional climbing competitors?

In reply to Annabel Tall:

IFSC Anti-Doping info:
https://www.ifsc-climbing.org/index.php/about-ifsc/anti-doping

In reply to Annabel Tall:

Do you have suspicions of others? ( or were you wondering if you might get caught if you did some

In reply to Annabel Tall:

Cue Sharma & weed & disqualification

In reply to Annabel Tall:

If climbing ever gets into the Olympics (god forbid), then random drug testing will be required at any competition, at any level.

Then anyone taking cold medicine or "other substances" will be found out and banned.
Even Inhalers are only allowed with medical paperwork to back them up.

Remember the British skier who used a proprietary nasal spray from the UK, then bought the same thing over the pond, but it had extras in over there which meant his Olympic medal was lost, and he was banned for a period.

In reply to fred99:

Your first 2 paragraphs are simply wrong:

Is drug testing "required" at Sunday league football matches or Park Runs?
Are those using inhalers at those events really all found out and banned?

But more to the point why be so alarmist? One would be forgiven for thinking you have something against climbing competitions and are trying to use alarmist misinformation to get others to think similarly.

In reply to Annabel Tall:

Although not relevant to indoor professional climbing competitions you may find this interesting: http://www.theuiaa.org/medical_advice.html . See Paper 22a.

David Hillebrandt

In reply to john arran:

Actually, pursuant to being a competitive sport within the Olympic arena, and indeed any sport receiving funds from Sport England etc., is the requirement for drug testing to take place at all levels.
I have been at the first round of an athletics cup competition where drug testing took place, and 90% of the athletes there would only dream of representing their county as the pinnacle of their sporting achievement.
In theory, any single competition, in any of the recognised sports, even be it at schools, could be drug tested - and a refusal to partake means an automatic ban (from all sport), no matter what some parents may think.
Any movement toward the Olympics will bring in the requirement for drug testing to take place.
I am not being alarmist - I don't take drugs, but I'm sure there are some who do in order to help build up those torsos.
I do not have anything against climbing competitions per se, though I am one of the vast number of walkers and recreational climbers who would prefer the British MOUNTAINEERING Council to not spend an inordinate amount of money on a particularly small number of persons, but would far prefer the Competition Sport Climbing fraternity to be separated, both financially and organisationally from the main part of the BMC before the Sporting Bureaucracy of the UK, the home nations, and the Olympic etc. organisations cause ructions and we have the tail wagging the dog.

This is of course something that those wishing to get Competition Sport Climbing into the Olympics do not want mentioned, as it would be yet another cost added on - the Sport in question would have to pay.

In reply to john arran:



Out of interest, what is the cut-off point? It can't be only professional athletes who are subject to drugs tests. If I ran the London Marathon, who would decide whether I could be drugs tested?

In reply to fred99:


And then they'll have to give up competition climbing and go and climb big, loose, hard trad routes on remote mountain crags instead. Everyone's a winner!

In reply to Pero:

As fred says there is no cut-off point. AFAIK he's right about the other details this time too and testing could in theory take place at any event. Where he was wrong was implying that testing would be happening at all local competitions - in practice it pretty much never happens in climbing except in a small number of cases of top-level events, which is as it should be for the size and profile of the sport.

His other points about BMC funding are a rehash of very tired arguments that thankfully most climbers nowadays either see right through or are simply not interested in, and ones I have no intention of discussing again here.

In reply to Pero:

In most competitions at the higher level, all medallists will be tested, and the next couple (as back-up in case any medallists fail).
You also have targeted testing - where the testers have information that person X is guilty.
Then there's the random element - dependent on the competition (and it's type), they could choose particular places in the competition, or a particular shirt/competition number - by as simple a system as pulling a number out of a "hat".
The decision who to test is made by the Testers.
The sport in question then provides Officials to contact the person chosen immediately on completion of the event, and escort them to the Testers, ensuring that no-one else makes any contact which could result in the transfer of a sample.
The person being tested cannot leave until the test has been completed, otherwise this is regarded as being a failure to provide a sample, in exactly the same way as refusing to provide a breath test to the Police when driving is.

In reply to Pero:

As an addition, I forgot to say, that the Testers (at least used to) frequently attend competitions where no high level competitors were expected, but only the "lesser lights", just to emphasise that drug taking is a no-no at any level.

I believe that Rugby Union, particularly in Wales at present, has had a number of young up-and-coming players caught, who were not competing at the top senior level.

In reply to fred99:


I might be wrong, but that doesn't sound right. If a local wall runs a comp, how do the testers know about it, and how do the testers force entry to do the tests if the wall doesn't want it?

In reply to fred99:

There was a bit of controversy with participants being warned in advance in 2009 at a climbing competition.

http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/item.php?id=45568

The organisers blew the whistle in advance as they did not want to put any of their casual competitors in the position of having to refuse a drugs test to avoid showing up all their performance decreasing recreational activities.

In reply to fred99:



Good. Don't cheat and you won't get caught!

In reply to 1poundSOCKS:

I didn't think it was relevant unless you accept money from funding bodies or want any kind of official recognition. If you are completely independent you can do whatever you want.

In reply to fred99:

Alain Baxter I believe.

In reply to davidbeynon:

Relevant if you say this...

In reply to 1poundSOCKS:

That was an exaggeration I think. It was clarrified in the followup post:

"Actually, pursuant to being a competitive sport within the Olympic arena, and indeed any sport receiving funds from Sport England etc., is the requirement for drug testing to take place at all levels."

If I run a climbing wall, and I don't accept any money from these people then I can run a private competition with any rules I like. If I expect any recognition of the results then that's a different matter.

In reply to davidbeynon:


You could say that.

In reply to Oceanrower:


Difficult to see how some of the tests relate to cheating, Sharma being a prime example.

In reply to Annabel Tall:

When Ian Vickers won the European Championships as early as 1998 he was whisked away and tested almost as soon as he was lowered from the wall.

In reply to winhill:

Ok then;

Good, Don't take drugs and you won't get caught!

In reply to fred99:

Fred,

In 2005 (or maybe 2004), the Youth B World Champion had to vacate his title due to having taken cold medicine, which contained pseudoephedrine hydrochloride, which was on the restricted list.

Drug testing has been present at all high level competitions for as long as I can remember.

The IFSC has been a part of WADA formally since at least 2007. Prior to that there was a previous durg testing program, but which was not affiliated with WADA. In each World Cup I've been involved with (since 2008), we had to arrange for an accredited lab to have a representative present to collect a sample of the winner in each category. There is often also a random test for some lucky contestant who didn't win, but was randomly selected from the field.

Regarding 'random out of competition' testing, each national body must maintain a list of the top competitive performers, and include a way of reaching each athlete on short notice, so that WADA goons can show up on your doorstep without warning for testing. I know our county only has one or two people for whom we must maintain the whereabouts listing. If an athlete is not present for the testing, they get a warning, and sanctions if they miss more than one.

Testing is expensive to arrange. It's several hundred pounds per test, plus the time of the representative to attend the competition.

Someone on this thread asked "how to testers know to be there?". Short answer is that if the competition is to be sanctioned by the IFSC, then the organizer needs to comply, and the competition organizer must arrange and pay for the testing. It becomes part of the overall budget for the comp. And in climbing, when these comps are so often run on hope and prayer, the money for these tests can sometimes break the bank.

The IFSC adopted the WADA code as a pre-requisite to becoming part of the Olympics. Even if it never makes it to the Olympics, we are already there on the testing. We are already paying for it in terms of increased costs to competitions, and possibly to national bodies like the BMC.

If costs money to become part of the corrupt and evil world of the Olympics. God forbid we end up affiliated with the IAAF as well. Could you imagine someone like Sebastian Coe running climbing? The horror.

In reply to Annabel Tall:
The best way of getting equality in sport is allowing drugs.
EPO is simply an affordable way of training at altitude.
It's about time folk embraced the future of human achievement and cast off the shackles of ethical mumbo jumbo.

In reply to fred99:


However I take part in an Olympic sport up to and including international events and in three decades of competition I have never heard of any drug testing taking place except at a handful of the very highest level events. So in practice, it seems to depend on the sport.

In reply to winhill:


WADA bans and tests for illegal recreational drugs. Using them and competing is therefore against the rules. So do you consider cheating to be breaking known rules or does it only count if it actually increases performance or is intended to do so? Is it still cheating if you consider (as many do) that WADA has over-stepped its role in including testing for recreational drugs with no performance-enhancing effect?

In reply to Annabel Tall: it raises an interesting point that initially I thought non-issue as walls that run comps unaffiliated to a higher body would not need to worry as only affiliated comps get testing. However if you get 'elite' competitors at a non-affiliated comp, then how is that handled? Does it mean more affiliation, or a list of ok comps, or will it be overlooked because it isn't in athletics.

I've had two tests - one post race, and a random one after training at the track. I've also had testers at my house for a housemate - so testing does happen in athletics. I was about the worst performer I knew of to get tested though

In reply to Dogwatch:


Logically there is no justification at all for WADA testing for anything not performance-enhancing. That's the role of the police. WADA is there to help 'police' the fairness of competition performnce, and if that isn't a relevant factor then WADA should have no business being involved. I had this come up a long time ago when I was comps officer at the BMC and implementing the very first drugs policy; I lost out then to someone for whom authority had clearly gone to his head so he was using the opportunity to have an effect far wider than his actual role. It's a bit like people driving at 70 in the outside lane of the motorway: yes they technically can (in some cases at least) prevent other people speeding for a short while but it is certainly not their role to do so.

In reply to birdie num num:

I don't think that goes far enough. If they are going to let the pharma companies in they also need to let the medical robotics and genetic engineering companies take part and have a Formula 1 style competition with manufacturer's teams.

In reply to davidbeynon:


You can do that but competitors who take part in unsanctioned events can find themselves banned from sanctioned events. You see this happening in other sports.

In reply to birdie num num:




What a load of rubbish. Doping doesn't create a level playing field. It's an arms race. The more money the greater the resources. Lance Armstrong paid his doctor more than 1 million dollars. Does that sound like equality? Varying physiological response to drugs also means you still don't get equality. Some forms of doping/medication are not permitted in some countries so again inequality. Plus the long-term affects of a lot of forms of doping are not really known, which creates an ethical dilemma if doping is needed to be competitive.

In reply to john arran:


I can understand why you were over-ruled - you don't seem to understand what's allowed and what isn't. We can't pick and choose which drugs we want to ban or allow on the whim of a competition officer, in the same way that we cannot choose which criminal laws or road traffic acts we feel should apply to others but not to us.
Any drug which can enhance performance in any type of competition is banned across the board.
Beta-Blockers are not exactly useful to weight-lifters or sprinters, and I can't believe that steroids would be much use to a snooker player, but both apply everywhere.

There was a few years ago a well-reported case of a Finnish Javelin Thrower IN THE 65-69 AGE GROUP being caught for using Beta-Blockers in his national veterans championships. Now he only got a 6-month ban due to the obvious unhelpfulness of the drugs (and the fact that they kept him alive), but he still got a ban. What he should have done, and what he I believe went on to do, was get his use of Beta-Blockers sanctioned by the chief medical officer as being necessary for his health (and life), and was then given written authorisation for use.

Inhalers which involve steroids should also be registered in the same way.
It's not difficult, and in athletics there is a standard procedure. I'm sure other sports have the same.
Now at minor meetings the Officials don't worry too much about them, and simply ensure that they are looked after and made available in case the athlete is in extremis during or at the end of competition.
In any major competition however, the athlete had better turn up with their documentation, or else they risk getting into trouble.

In reply to fred99:

With all due respect you're talking rubbish again. I'm not up to date with the current situation but I know for certain that at the time I was referring to there was a core list of substances (such as steroids) which were universally banned and a separate list of substances which were left to a sport's governing body to class as prohibited or not. This separate list included cannabis and other recreational drugs thought not to be performance enhancing in many sports. Nevertheless there were people determined to impose their ideas in ways that had nothing whatsoever to do with preventing cheating in the sport, by banning substances that had no credible sporting reason to be banned. That is what I'm talking about.

In reply to shouldbebetter:


So if Shauna suddenly decides to go and climb the Lotus Flower Tower, or some big wall in Antarctica ...?

In reply to Oceanrower:



You actually mean something more like:

1. Don't take banned substances.

2. For substances that aren't banned outright but have a dosage limit, don't exceed the limit.

3. For substances that are only allowed subject to bona fide medical prescription, ensure you follow the rules governing the prescription of such substances and reporting to the appropriate drugs authority.

4. Monitor the list of banned and restricted substances as the list changes over time.

The point is, that it can't be easy for a low-ranked (possibly amateur) athlete to keep track of what is allowed. Especially recovering from injury. Unless you know exactly what is and isn't allowed, you could easily take too much of an anti-inflammatory. The top athletes will have private sports doctors, but others will just have to go to NHS A&E and who knows whether the treatment you receive there is allowed or not?

The drugs regulations now seem so complex that I would be reluctant to condemn as a cheat someone who fails a test, especially if the failure was due to a prescription medicine.

In reply to shouldbebetter:

Why would climbing be affiliated to the IAAF? Is boxing or synchronised diving affiliated to the IAAF?

In reply to The New NickB:

Nick. That was a joke. Sorry for not making it more clear.

In reply to AlanLittle:


Alan, this is a problem which is unique to climbing. Most sports don't have their top athletes buggering off to Baffin Island for some ultra-remote adventuring.

Remember that in real terms, climbing as a codified and monitored endeavor, especially with respect to doping compliance, is very much in its infancy. Some of these problems will need to be worked out.

I'm really uncertain how the IFSC would deal with this, as you raise a really good loophole. If I was intent on doping, and was worried about testing....just take off on an adventure in the off season and avoid any trouble.

In reply to john arran:


John, the issue here is "an organizing body sets out rules for a comp".

Athletes have a choice if they want to play by these rules or not.

If you chose to compete, even if you completely disagree with the rule, you agreed to as a minimum adhere to this rule set.

So what if you feel that certain drugs do/don't help? So what if your opinion is that THC doesn't help you perform better?

If an athlete wants to compete, they agree to play by the rules of the game.

In reply to shouldbebetter:



While that may be AN issue it was not not THE issue I was responding to. My point, again, was that while sporting bodies rightly are responsible for sporting fairness, they should not get involved in non-sporting matters unless they have a direct impact on the sport.

In reply to john arran:





Also there are thresholds. To get caught for most of the over the counter medications you have to be chewing it down.. I once took pseudo ephedrine not knowing it was banned and checked, after taking just 1 or two tablets it would be undetectable.

In reply to john arran:


What non-sporting matters are they getting involved in? They are saying that they don't want certain drugs being used in participation of a given sport. If you're claiming that they do/don't impact performance:

Earlier, you posited

How are you determining what is/is not performance enhancing? If you're referring to weed, there is a very strong argument that while it will not increase your physical performance, for many athletes it's calming effect will reduce poor performance which may occur due to nerves. Power lifting? Maybe weed isn't useful. Darts? Maybe it is.

But that's not for plebes in the cheap seats to determine, but rather the experts on sports and drugs to determine.

In reply to shouldbebetter: you make a good point - just because someone doesn't think something is performance enhancing that is just an opinion.

Re. The point on going on trips - it will be not so different to other athletes going o n trips. If you are on the list of athletes for home random testing then you need to register if you're going on a trip, holiday.

In reply to shouldbebetter:


Well that's my point very well illustrated. Thank you.
In the case of climbing at the time, the decision was being made by people with no specific knowledge of drugs, accepting that the substances they were banning were not known or likely to be in any way performance enhancing (this was openly conceded at the time). The experts at UK Sport had banned everything for which there was good justification and had left the rest up to governing bodies, in case they knew of any particular advantage that could be gained from other substances. The decisions were actually being made simply because they could be, based presumably on the fact that the administrators themselves were against taking such things and, seeing as they were illegal anyway, they could help police that law. Once again it is not, and should not be, a sport administrator's role to police non-sport related laws. Just as it is not, and should not be, a driver's role to police other people's driving at 75 on a motorway. Now can we put this one to bed now please? It's getting repetitive.

In reply to shouldbebetter:


I'd have thought tobacco would be even better for nerves. And caffeine is known to help performance both mentally and physically.



That assumes there is some ultimate truth regarding the effects of drugs. I would think there's probably a good amount of subjective opinion involved on this topic, and often the plebs in the seats have more direct experience than the so called experts.

In reply to Annabel Tall:

When there is sponsorship and competition,the temptation to use drugs must be great.I remember discussing with a fellow I shared a house with back in the 70's ,the advantages of going sponsored.I decided firmly against it.Any climber has the option not to get involved.If you like to be regulated and controlled,and pressured,go right ahead.

In reply to paul mitchell:

Paul,

To your point that if there's sponsorship, there's pressure to cheat:
http://fittish.deadspin.com/wada-discovers-world-record-factory-ethiopia-do...

In reply to Mr. Lee:

Sport isn't 'Chariots of Fire' anymore Big Lee….. Get with it….. Keep up.
It's mostly a business. You buy success. Ethically or otherwise. In the main.
I don't really get the outrage over doping. Human advances are enhanced by technological advances.
In the end, it will be as acceptable as a bit of heel cushioning.
Or buying a couple of Brazilians to help you win the F.A cup.

In reply to birdie num num:


How does this work? Reduced chaffing enhancing performance perhaps?