Mar 11 2009
Anti-doping Scientist Acknowledges “Biological Passport Impact”
Neil Robinson who is the Swiss Laboratory for Doping Analysis lead scientist who worked behind the implementation of the cycling’s biological passport system revealed earlier this week that some sports are about 10 years behind cycling when it comes to the implementation and monitoring of anti-doping procedures. Based on the story ran by Agence France Presse, Robinson’s revelation is a hard truth that people behind other field of sports should understand and work about. This scientist said that there are indeed a lot of sports that are behind by 10 at least years when it comes to the anti-doping procedures done by the cycling arena.
Robinson who is based at the anti-doping laboratory in Lausanne, Switzerland, confirmed the deterrent effect of the biological passports. These passports contain the personal record for each and every cyclist’s drug-testing history. The discovery and implementation of this drug testing policy is considered by many sectors as the biggest success of this year.
A biological passport, strictly speaking, is a personalized electronic data bank for each cyclist or athlete, wherein the results of all doping tests he has undergone over a certain period of time are stored and collated. Each biological passport ontains:
• urine test results,
• blood test results,
• the athlete’s hematological profile composed of a combined result from the hematological parameters which have been analysed through a series of blood samples,
• an accurate steroid profile based on the combined results of the steroid levels found in the series of urine samples which were gathered.
He even added that what is interest ing about this implementation is that they are able to see the change in the statistics of certain individuals based on the sporting calendar. Because of this Dr. Robinson said that they can now predict when these people are most probably going to dope - which will give them the inside information they need to schedule their own anti-doping tests.
The passport system was then adopted by the International Cycling Union (UCI) in January of 2008 as well as the organizers of the three major Tours in Spain, France, and Italy. They had all volunteed to strictly enforce the biological passport system as a requirement for participating in any and all events.
Robinson said that a lot of people in other sports sectors have harshly criticized the UCI, but Robinson was quick to add that you will only find things in looking. Their sports arena possesses all the profiles of athletes in other sports and Robinson says what they have seen corresponds to what they had seen in cycling 10 years ago. Robinson was not one to point fingers though, nor did he make any open accusations. The scientist was not one to say that athletes in the cycling arena are not doping, or if they were. All he was willing to sat was that he was happy that the UCI was able to come up with a strategy, put in place, and now the results are here for everyone to see.
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