Drugs and Money (Part 1 of 2)

There is an old saying that when you get together with family, you should avoid conversation about religion and politics. In sports, it’s a little different; the taboo topics are drugs and money. People always want to know how drugs impact elite sports and how “amateur athletes” can afford the high cost of training (a few blogs ago I described how it costs about $200 per day to train). Every time I talk to a group about the Olympics, I know someone wants to ask. Occasionally a brave soul has the courage to bring up one of these topics but they are usually met with stern looks of embarrassment from the rest of the group. Because it seems to be a common theme of interest, I finally decided that it would make for a good blog.

Let’s start with the big elephant in the room—drugs. Going back about ten years, there was clearly a major problem with drug usage by US Olympic athletes. While it is unclear how extensive this problem was, the revelation that our highest profile athletes, specifically many in Track and Field, were using drugs severely tarnished the reputation of all US Olympic athletes. Perhaps the biggest reason for this problem was the structural setup of drug testing in the US (and internationally). The US Olympic Committee effectively conducted drug testing of its own athletes which created a problem of credibility and reliability. This is essentially the same problem that every major league sport has right now with their drug testing. From a credibility point of view, can an organization be charged with enforcement of drug policy when that very enforcement is likely to cause detriment to the performance and image of its athletes? Clearly it cannot. So the USOC created an independent organization called the US Antidoping Agency (USADA) back in 2000 to monitor illicit drug use in Olympic athletes. USADA is now completely independent of the USOC and has autonomous authority to test and sanction Olympic athletes both in and out of competition. This functional independence has created the credibility and capability to clean up Olympic sports. While the USOC has and always will always have the goal of making the US Olympic Team the best in the world and promoting the top athletes, USADA’s sole mission is to monitor athletes and keep the US athletes drug free. The conflicting goals work well and this setup makes a lot of sense.

Prior to USADA’s existence, there were major loopholes in the drug testing system. Today, USADA has a policy of no-advance-notice (NAN) out-of-competition (OOC) testing that makes cheating the system virtually impossible. We are required to keep location forms on file with USADA at all times and must consent to drug testing 24/7/365. I have had drug officers come to my house at 6:30am on a Saturday to conduct a NAN OOC test. In a given year, I am likely to get around six NAN OOC tests and the same number of in-competition tests. If I were to refuse a test or test positive for a prohibited substance, it would result in an automatic two year ban from Olympic sports. While this might seem highly intrusive to many of you, I believe it is a great system. Those of us who compete clean are fairly proud to prove it. Furthermore, with the strictest drug testing policies in the world, the US can be proud that their athletes are now probably the cleanest athletes at the Olympics. Being subject to NAN OOC testing is but a small price to pay for this credibility.