World Anti-Doping Agency launches blood-profiling scheme to catch doping cheats

WADA launches blood profiling guidelines

STOCKHOLM — The World Anti-Doping Agency launched new guidelines Wednesday on how to monitor athletes’ blood profiles for evidence of cheating.

During a two-day meeting in Stockholm to mark the organization’s 10th anniversary, the WADA executive committee ratified the guidelines for the “athlete biological passport” system that has been under consideration since 2002.

The guidelines provide advice to anti-doping agencies on how to implement programs to collect and store athletes’ blood samples and monitor them for any variations that could indicate doping — without an actual positive test.

“This is a long time coming. It’s without the slightest doubt a great step forward for the world of sports,” WADA president John Fahey said at Stockholm’s City Hall.

WADA vice president Arne Ljungqvist said laboratories will be asked to register blood data according to the new guidelines that will be used during the Vancouver Olympics in February. The data will then be delivered to sport federations, which will decide individually if they want to start using the new methods.

However, Ljungqvist pointed out that it is unlikely the new methods can be used to detect doping during the Vancouver Games, since earlier samples registered under the same guidelines are needed as a comparison to detect any abnormal changes.

Fahey said the case of five-time Olympic speed-skating champion Claudia Pechstein — who was banned from competing for two years due to abnormal blood levels — had shown it was possible to sanction someone based on their blood profile.

Pechstein never failed a test and denied doping, but the International Skating Union said she returned blood samples with abnormal levels at the World Allround Championships last season.

In ruling on an appeal by Pechstein, a three-person panel at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland reiterated that abnormalities in Pechstein’s blood profile “could not be reasonably explained by the various justifications submitted by the athlete nor by a congenital medical condition.”

As in that case, WADA said its guidelines suggest there should be an unanimous agreement by three experts that a profile shows signs of prohibited substance use before proceedings against an athlete can be launched. Three experts should also agree that the athlete’s explanation for the abnormalities don’t hold before sanctions can be considered.

“Coupled with existing and future strategies, we are confident that this model will make any prohibited preparation far harder to implement by those athletes who may still take the risk to cheat,” WADA director general David Howman said.

Earlier Wednesday, International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said that sports authorities are gaining the upper hand in the fight against the “corrosive evil” of doping.

Rogge said that rule changes and more efficient testing procedures have boosted efforts to curtail cheating.

“Athletes who cheat and those who assist them are much more likely to get caught,” Rogge said. “The momentum is clearly on our side.”

Still, Rogge warned that “cheaters will seek new ways of gaining unfair advantage, and we will seek new ways to stop them.” He highlighted genetic doping “as the next battleground.”