IAAF promises strictest ever doping tests for 2005 Athletics World Championships in Helsinki

One in four athletes will be tested

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Next summer's IAAF World Championships in Athletics will be the strictest sporting event ever in regard to doping controls, promises Dr. Juan Manuel Alonso, Chairman of the IAAF's Medical & Anti-Doping Commission.
      Between 450-500 athletes will be tested at the Helsinki games, which tops the number of tests taken in the previous IAAF World Championships in Paris by about one hundred.
      A little over 2,000 participants are expected to compete in Helsinki, which means every fourth athlete will have to give a doping test sample.
     
For the first time at IAAF games, blood haemoglobin levels will also be measured in Helsinki. IAAF decided on the introduction of this new practice at its April meeting in Doha, Qatar.
      According to Alonso, athletes whose haemoglobin level exceeds a set limit may be prohibited from competing on suspicion of doping. The practice has been used previously in cross-country skiing, with tests conducted before events.
      The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the IAAF will work in close co-operation in Helsinki as well as during the preceding training season, promise Dr. Gabriel Dolle, IAAF Anti-Doping Administrator and Tom Dielen, Director of WADA's European office.
      As usual, surprise tests will be carried out during the training season.
     
On Thursday Alonso, Dolle, and Dielen visited the Helsinki Olympic Stadium, the venue for next August's games, and the Otaniemi student village where the athletes will be accommodated.
      Former WADA director Harri Syväsalmi, now representing the Finnish Ministry of Education, says the visitors have expressed their satisfaction with the presented anti-doping and sample-taking facilities.
      According to Dolle, blood and urine tests will be used to detect the possible use of growth hormone and the EPO hormone. "Extra attention will be paid to the middle-distance and long-distance runners", Dolle points out.
      Dielen, in turn, promises that information about the tightened doping controls will be made available to coaches and team leaders well before the games. During the games a doping education centre will operate in the Otaniemi village.
     
The actual doping testing at next summer's games will be carried out by The Finnish Antidoping Agency FINADA, while the samples will be analysed by Yhtyneet Laboratoriot.
      "Requirements for doping screening have become tighter, and for this reason it is important that the laboratories where the samples are analysed are located close at hand", Syväsalmi says.
      The new designer doping substances developed in the United States present a fresh challenge for WADA. "Still, with the EUR 11.5 million invested in research so far, WADA should be on top of the problem", Dielen observes.


Links:
  IAAF
  IAAF World Championships, Helsinki
  WADA
  Finnish Antidoping Agency

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