More than a fifth of the British team at last year’s World Athletics Championships in Eugene, US did not have a single out-of-competition drug test in the 10 months before travelling to the event.
Data from the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) shows that 16 of the 73 British athletes at the championships – 21% overall – did not have a single unscheduled visit from testers. While that figure does not particularly stand out among western nations the figures will raise concerns over whether the UK Anti-Doping Agency (Ukad) has the required funds to do its job properly.
It may also raise concern over whether Ukad is using the £9m it spends each year, most of which comes from the UK government, in the best possible way. In response to the AIU’s data, Ukad noted it had to use its resources for more than 40 sports. “The testing programme is part of Ukad’s multi-faceted approach to keeping sport clean, which includes education of athletes and athlete support personnel on their responsibilities to competing clean.”
However, some within the organisation have long been frustrated that Ukad has far fewer powers than its equivalents in Austria, Italy and Germany, where it is a criminal offence to traffic and supply performance-enhancing drugs and athletes can be punished financially for sporting fraud.
The AIU’s figures also show that British athletes in Eugene were subject to an average of 2.42 out-of-competition tests in the 10 months before the championships. Of the western nations that finished in the top-15 in the medal table, that figure is below the US, Germany, Sweden and Canada, comparable with Poland and the Netherlands and slightly ahead of Jamaica, Australia, Italy and France.
Unsurprisingly, three of the countries with a substantial history of doping faced significantly higher levels of average out-of-competition tests for their athletes, including Ethiopia (8.03), China (6.2) and Kenya (5.93).
