LetsRun anti-doping challenge #1 - What can the sport do to clean itself up?

PED use will largely remain status quo unless both public perception and perception within the sport itself changes dramatically. The basic retort among way too many is "everyone is doing it."

Lance Armstrong is still making millions off the cycling industry. Athletic Brewing, among many, many others, is sponsoring him right now, for f-sake. Why, because he is from the "doping era" and "everyone was doing it." NOT everyone was doing it, and NOT everyone is currently doing it. Lance is a fraud and a cheat. Athletes that do it are frauds and cheats.

Currently, based on my understanding, athletes in AIU’s testing pool are allowed two missed tests per year and the third missed test would trigger an anti-doping violation.

The proposal here is to change the allowed missed tests from 2 to 1 for athletes who have been in the testing pool for at least one year. So an athlete newly added to the test pool could have at most two missed tests, and after one year he can have at most one missed test per year and the second missed test will trigger an anti-doping violation.

The rationale behind this is that after one year in the test pool nobody should be allowed to use “I am not familiar with the reporting process” as an excuse while at the same time you still have one chance if legit sh*t does happen.

If a soccer or basketball game starts at 7pm then the players will show up at 7pm, right? Same for athletics, show up where you say you could be tested is part of your job.

It might also be helpful if “a year” starts the day when the athlete is officially registered in the testing pool instead of the natural year.

And stop the stupid self-policing, e.g. USADA testing US athletes, ADAK Kenyans and so. Too much conflict-of-interest and buddies (see Flanagan's cat story).

Instead, do some random drawing every year, so that e.g. in 2023, Americans test Kenyans, Kenyans test Germans, Germans test Brits, Brits test Hungarians, Hungarians test Americans.

I get your point, but Armstrong has arguably paid the biggest penalty of any athlete for his doping. Records removed, results stricken, paid back millions to sponsors, banished from livestrong, public shaming, etc. Isn't that kind of the model scenario?

No meaningful, positive change can happen unless and until the athletes unionize. Full stop. The powers that be will always be conflicted enough to look the other way too often.

For the purpose of this post, management and agency means the same thing.

Managements of banned athletes need to pay a fine, $10,000 for each banned athlete.

If more than 2 athletes from the same management get banned within any 365-day span:
- The management needs to pay a $50,000 fine in addition to the $10,000 individual fine.
- The fine will be $50,000 for every additional convicted doper from this management for the next 2 years.
- All athletes registered under this management are not allowed to participate in the Olympics, World Championships, WMM, Platinum and Gold label races for the next 6 months. They are still allowed to participate in other competitions.
- If a management has at least 4 banned athletes within any 2-year period this management needs to be banned and dissolved immediately. The person in charge of the management should be banned from the sport for 4 years.

Doping is not necessarily the fault of the managements but they do need to step up their anti-doping game - they are responsible for choosing the athletes who are willing to train and compete clean and educating those athletes to stay away from doping. If the athletes don’t want to be educated and you still put them under your management then you have a problem.

When the fine is high enough the management might be better off setting up their internal drug testing, who knows. If they catch a doper before AIU, no fine or ban is incurred against the management and the doper is removed from its roster. Maybe AIU or WA should award the management in this case.

Peer pressure from the athletes within the same management might be another incentive for athletes to not dope? Maybe.

To make this work, WA or AIU needs to establish a database for the managements:
- Each management is required to submit its roster to WA so it’s clear which athlete is under which management.
- With the database setup, only managements participating in this proposal are allowed to send athletes to compete in the Olympics, World Championships, WMMs, Platinum and Gold label races.
- Athletes are free to transfer to a different management (as long as they don’t break contract with the former management), but if the former management is server the 6-month “ban” (e.g. ineligible to participate in the Olympics, World Championships, WMM, Platinum and Gold label races for 6 months) the transferred athletes shall continue their “ban” in the new management.

Only athletes registered in either AIU’s testing pool or their national testing pools are allowed to participate in the Olympics, World Championships, WMMs and Platinum label races. Those races have the biggest prize money and we should be strict on who is eligible to participate from an anti-doping perspective.

An exception can be made to athletes whose member federation is willing to serve as the guarantor: if this athlete tests positive within 2 years of the competition, the guarantor is fined for $30,000. If more than 2 “guaranteed” athletes are banned within any 365-day span the member federation is not allowed to be guarantor for the next 2 years.

Once coverage of AIU’s testing pool and member federation’s local testing pools is big enough, this model can be extended to Gold label races.

Member federations should show to AIU that their local testing pool satisfies some minimum number of tests per athletes per year to be eligible to serve as the guarantor.

I like a lot of what's being posted in here. The most obvious one should be that all times/medals you got should be wiped out (Nick Willis should be an Olympic Champion). I really don't know why it isn't already a thing. I also like the idea of part of prize money/appearance fees going to anti-doping measures.

There's a few more ideas that I like, but I do have some thoughts as to whether they're worth it or not. The first is 1 whereabouts failure triggering a ban. I'd prefer if there was 1 allowed each year. I think it'd be too easy for a young athlete to make one mistake and ruin their entire career otherwise, but 3 is too much imo.

Another one is creating an incentive for athletes to turn in other athletes. Really my only hangup on it is I would want to make sure that athletes who were turned in wouldn't be convicted of doping for anything short of a positive test, no matter the other evidence supplied. If it was lucrative with a lower standard of evidence, it could lead to athletes framing their competition, either to make money, or to get rid of their competition.

One that is really extreme, but that I tentatively support, is severe criminal charges. I don't know what the other poster meant by severe, but at the very least it should qualify as fraud. I like the idea of charging them with theft, but I'm not entirely sure who would get the money. When it gets to the point of Olympic champs doping, they're depriving their competitors collectively out of millions over the course of their careers. Jail time seems reasonable enough, at least for really big cases.

I'm on the fence about the publicly shaming idea. They definitely have it coming, but I think it reflects so poorly on the sport that it may not be worth it. Imagine if Farah tested positive and at every WC/Oly they showed the world like a dozen videos of him winning gold. Do dopers deserve to be publicly shamed? Probably. Would showing videos of dopers at global finals significantly discourage athletes from doping? Probably not. Would an average person who tunes in to the Olympics come away with the impression that whoever wins the race is dirty? I think a lot would. It seems more like revenge than something that would be good for the sport imo.

I almost like the rule where 12+ athletes testing positive from a country would ban that country for a year, but I think that could create an incentive for a country to cover up doping after they've got a few positive cases.

With all of these increases in punishment severity, I think we need to take a look at what people are punished for. Someone eating a weed edible a few days before a competition shouldn't end their entire career. If punishments can carry criminal charges, and athletes will be rewarded for turning others in, I think there needs to be some proof of intent to dope, or some grievous amount of negligence, at least in cases where athletes would need to pay back money they'd won.

I just put this thread on homepage but like what we have so far.

1) I am totally for stripping all results for something that results in a 4 year ban.

2) I LOVE the idea of agents being fined $10,000 if they have an athlete get a 4 year ban. The agents need to have skin in the game. $10,000 may not be enough.

But perhaps we should just start compiling a list of the agents and which of their athletes have tested positive.

All brands that sponsor athletes and races should have anti-doping related terms present in all their athlete contracts. For example:
- Immediate termination of contract upon confirmed doping
- An athlete is obliged to pay back upto one year worth of the endorsement deals to the sponsors if he is caught doping.
- If a contract is terminated due to doping, unused portion of the endorsement should be donated, cash to the anti-doping agency that catches the doper, shoes/cloths/devices to charities.

Brands that don’t participate in this proposal should not be allowed to become title / main sponsor of WMMs, Platinum and Gold label races.

Personally I don’t feel the brands are losing anything from participating in this initiative so maybe...

1. Admission of Guilt only equals lower punishment time if the athlete comes clean on all individuals involved in their doping. I think Merber mentioned this but "Infiltrate the Dealers, Find the Suppliers" (H/T "21 Jump Street). Crooked doctors, middlemen, agents and coaches need to be banned.

2. I agree with Coevett on applying the WC standard (3 random OOC tests, at least one blood test in 6 months) to Kenyan (and other Category A country) athletes for competing in Marathon Majors and Gold-Level races.

3. 6 years for first offense for a slam dunk doping offense (e.g. EPO, synthetic testosterone, ABP violation) with a possible 3-year reduction if they cooperate achieve point #1.

4. Transparency on athlete's drug testing history. Why is this all secretive? I don't see why you need privacy on whether you've taken a test or skipped one. Do you think fans would be a little less skeptical of Kipchoge, Mohamed Katir, Djamel Sedjati or Ciara Mageean if they found out they had 8 OOC tests in the last 6 months? I think so, yes. More skeptical if it was 1? Yes. This info should be public and we should hold the AIU/countries accountable if they're not testing the right athletes the right amount.

1. Properly fund anti-doping. It should not take months to years to get doping results. We should have results within days of a competition or out of competition test. Too many times, athletes have competed with an out of competition drug test pending that later came back positive. We also need funding into research on how to test for microdosing and other emerging doping strategies. The dopers are always two steps ahead of the testing.

2. More often than not, athletes are doped by managers, agents, coaches, doctors, physios, etc. and are the ones who seek out doping. Someone comes to them and tells them that in order to compete on an international level, they have to dope because everyone else is. So, doping is only leveling the playing field for the athlete.

Make each athlete's manager, agent, coach, doctor, physio, sponsor and any other support management certify that their athlete has not taken any banned substances before each competition. If the athlete tests positive, everyone who certified the athlete faces sanctions from fines to suspension/bans depending on the severity of the doping. Does not matter whether they participated in the doping or even knew about the doping. These participants in the sport need to bear responsibility for keeping athletes clean and do their own testing instead of playing the current hear no evil, see no evil game. Testing will only work if it is multilayered with pros doing their own internal testing in addition to WADA testing. And anyone who reveals an athlete they work with who is doping will be spared sanctions.

It isn't because there is somewhat of a leap to say athlete X tested positive in 2016 thus I am 100% sure they were cheating in 2008. Is it logically more likely now that you know they cheated 8 years later? Of course. If you want to just say a punishment for doping is your career being washed away, I can see that as a deterrent/punishment with serious teeth. But we don't know what we don't know, so it's not obviously the correct measure. Right now the powers that be stick to the facts and take away accomplishments that they know were impacted by doping. Not saying one way is right or wrong, but I understand WADA/AIU's stance as they follow a very "by-the-books" way of handling doping. They don't make assumptions about anything but what the test tells them.

Require sponsors to underwrite costs for drug testing and research, so athletes in all countries are subject to similar protocols. I agree with WeJo that sponsors need skin in game. As it is now there is reverse incentive for sponsors to uncover cheaters. Poorer countries are not testing like richer ones, so there needs to be one standard and system to test athletes. Also one governing body with final say - not alphabet soup of USADA, WADA, and AIU with differing and confusing rulings.

Beef up the testing of all entrants in major championships/marathons in the weeks leading up to the competition. The sport must catch the cheaters before they win major titles. They must be denied the opportunity to run a victory lap or stand on the medal stand. It is also very confusing (and a turn off) for fans to see previous champions have their medals taken away and the 2nd or 3rd placer in the actual race declared world or Olympic champion after the fact.

We need to catch the cheaters before they get the glory of running/winning on the track in major championships.

(maybe not really anti-doping idea but kind of related)

When a race publishes its elite starting list, I want to see any previously convicted dopers be clearly marked. I also want to see the number of active doping suspensions from each management (for all managements that have athletes competing) at the time of the race.

AIU should publish a yearly report with detailed breakdown of all the doping cases (for example, by country / drug / event). Historical data should also be included.

I like this idea, but like many suggestions here, it is too draconian.

How about if 12 or more athletes test positive, a team of investigators visits to determine where the cheating is coming from, and all athletes from the country undergo the extreme testing suggested in other threads at their own expense.

suggestions about harsh punishments neglect decades of research and actual government experimentation with increasing punishments (e.g. three strikes) that shows harsher punishments (even the death penalty) do not function as deterrents

My proposal is we need to get the mainstream sports and big shoe companies to pay more/something for antidoping.

Some of the proposals above call for athletes to give 30% of their prize money to anti-doping. That is draconian. We should probably figure out what percent of the budget of each sport goes to anti-doping. Tests aren't cheap and there isn't a ton of revenue in track and field so I assume we're giving way more.

How much does the NFL, MLB, Nike, adidas, etc give? As much money as they make I think they have a responsibility to the problem The doping problem may be way worse in the NFL or MLB but the leagues just don't seem to care. Obviously NFL money isn't going to go test track athletes but it can help getting better tests to detect new drugs, pay overhead etc.