The Germans Want To GPS Track Elite Athletes For Doping Purposes

Link?

He must be listening to the radio show which is here:

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2015/04/listen-to-thursdays-episode-of-toni-reavis-live-boston-radio-show-at-tracksmith-pop-up-store-with-secret-letsrun-com-tshirts-and-a-bar/

They had a guy on from Germany Dennis ??X who has come up with a GPS device. You wear it. When they want to drug test you, they ping it and it tells the testers where you are.

My immediate concern was Big Brother is watching but he said that the privacy laws in Germany are much stricter than America. So it won't report your location until the drug tester says they want to test you. Then it gives a location and they come and test you.

It is so athletes don't have to keep constantly telling the testers where they are and also so they can't lie about where they are ie saying they are out of the country.

Interesting idea. The devices cost under $100 I think he said. Sounds like they will be used in Germany.

How is it going to catch MO Farah when he's out in Ethiopia?

There's no wada or blood Labs out there

they ought to have it live full-time. what's the harm? that way they would know when and for how long they are actually at altitude as well. as it is currently you can say you were at 3000 meters training for 20 days so your blood passport will be all messed up for a while.

we'll probably all be wearing stuff like this soon enough. maybe we already are and don't know it. either way, who cares. neo will save us some day.

wejo wrote:

It is so athletes don't have to keep constantly telling the testers where they are and also so they can't lie about where they are ie saying they are out of the country.

Interesting idea. The devices cost under $100 I think he said. Sounds like they will be used in Germany.

I'm in favor of having a GPS on the phone that testers can track. Getting all the addresses, filling out the forms where you think you'll be the next 3 months. And when anything changes you need to send updates. It's just a hassle, or its easy to forget. I'd rather have them find me.

Ex. If you decide to go out and spend the night at a friend's house. You'd need to email usada the friends address.

I think it's outrageous they require college athletes to fill it out. I see the logic in professionals as that is their job, and part of the responsibility of the sport. But college athletes don't get paid, and they are easily on campus every day for class and training.

If we're worried about privacy. I feel it's more an invasion of privacy to have to say where you'll be for the next 3 months. Having a gps on the phone just modernizes the process.

An intrusive solution in search of a problem that doesn't exist.

possibly Malmo, possibly not. I actually effed up once and gave them the wrong address (of the house across the street). I was staying at a friends casita attached to their garage, and had described the house well, in addition to my car (with a bike rack) which was parked in front of the (correct) house. They found me just fine, but I would honestly have no problem with a phone based gps that would be able to ping your location WHEN THE TESTER WANTED TO TEST YOU and only then. otherwise, they could plausibly use the gps info for a whereabouts violation, even if they hadn't really planned on testing you at that time, but it would make life easier for them to confirm that you really were at the location you said you would be at. If I have nothing to hide, then there's no problem, IMO

Sounds like the athletes support of it and German people tend to be more sensitive to privacy. Google streetview doesn't exist in most of the country.

"I obviously don't want a chip implanted, but tracking by phone would be useful"

This is insane. Name me any other job where you would allow yourself to be tracked everywhere you go? The drug testing thing is outrageous. Orwell saw this long ago. If you disagree let me track you everywhere. Since you'll never do anything wrong, what are you afraid of? I'll report back to your boss, your wife, the police, friends you said you were busy to, anyone, anytime, anywhere. What are you afraid of?

They don't need to do this. Just make the athletes show up at a testing center. For instance, in the cases of Rupp and Centro, they would have to show up every four hours for testing. Put the burden on the dopers, not the testers.

Yay, let's increase the scrutiny in nations that are already have pretty strong anti-doping measures.

Let's not bother with ones that don't have any.