The increase in doping violations within cycling’s weekend-warrior ranks has created multiple hurdles for the U.S. Anti Doping Agency, the group charged with policing both elite and amateur sports. As you will see in “The need for ‘T’—Amateur cycling and Testosterone TUEs,” amateurs and masters racers are drastically different from elite athletes when it comes to anti-doping.
We caught up with Matthew Fedoruk, USADA’s director of science, to talk about the agency and its oversight of amateur and masters cyclists.
VeloNews: What challenges are posed by policing amateurs and masters vs. elite athletes?
Matthew Fedoruk: At the elite level there is a population that is well-defined, and we have a level of control over offering extensive education. We have them file whereabouts, and they are immersed in the anti-doping message. It’s more in their minds than at the amateur level. The amateur level is more organic. There are tens of thousands of athletes. We’ve come up with innovative ways in order to reach them, by no means are those ways as extensive as we’d like. We have a newsletter and website and we’re meeting with race directors and making them aware of the rules. It’s a challenge because how do you make someone go to a website or read a newsletter when you have thousands of members? We don’t have the same level of control. We’re hearing from athletes that they are encouraged we are showing up to test.
VN: How did you deal with those challenges early on?
MF: We’ve always had the “Non-National” policy [pertaining to amateurs] in the [Therapeutic Use Exemption] policy that deals with amateurs. That allows us a level of flexibility with that population. We had the ability for athletes to apply for a retroactive TUE that can alleviate a possible sanction.
VN: What doping substances do you commonly see abused in the amateur ranks?
MF: We see the same patterns transpiring at the amateur level as at the elite level. I think there’s been a shift away from using the anabolic steroids and some of those traditional substances toward more physiological substances that athletes know their bodies already produce. They want to supplement this stuff, so EPO, growth hormone, testosterone, and some of the more designer substances you find in dietary supplements like selective androgen receptor modulators.
VN: What’s the background story behind the creation of the Recreational Competitor TUE?
MF: It grew organically out of the situations we found ourselves in and it was created to address this non-competitive specific population of non-elite athletes. They are the weekend warriors. They want to compete and are not going out there to receive prize money or maybe even to get on the podium, but they are held under the same rules of anti-doping as elites. We created this RCTUE in order to recognize this population and to offer a level of flexibility. We heard this from athletes as well. We still had to stand by the WADA prohibited list in making sure we held the athletes accountable, so not everybody with a prescription can go out and compete. There’s still the ability to abuse the system if we did that.
VN: What are the challenges posed by overseeing testosterone?
MF: Testosterone is the backbone of anabolic steroids. But there’s been an explosion in testosterone use for lifestyle and anti-aging and the pop culture that goes along with men’s health and maybe even female health. WADA has defined very concisely guidelines and criteria that an athlete has to meet in order to receive a TUE for testosterone. That line in the sand was that the athlete [with a testosterone deficiency] has to demonstrate that they had a disease and what the cause of the disease was. If they were prescribed testosterone for a condition that couldn’t be reversed through a non-permitted method. It couldn’t be because you were under stress or were over training or had poor diet or those things that can drastically impact a man’s testosterone level and lead to certain symptoms. What we’re seeing is a transition in the way that medication practitioners are prescribing testosterone for lifestyle reasons and for men’s problems beyond that. They are giving testosterone to treat symptoms. For us that is a problem because you can game the system that way, and testosterone is so powerful for athletes to build muscle and recover faster. We think there is a line there we just can’t cross because we’d be diluting the entire system.
VN: What role did the athletes in “The Need for T” play in influencing USADA’s creation of the RCTUE?
MF: I can’t comment on specific cases. Like I mentioned before, the non-competitive athlete was a group of athletes that we didn’t necessarily recognize. The RCTUE grew out of us seeing we were gaining more TUE applications from that group. There was a level of volume and flexibility that we needed to offer. The RCTUE is a two-piece TUE. You need to demonstrate that you’re a recreational competitor and that you’re not going to win prize money. And you have to have a diagnosed condition and undergo the required testing at the right time to provide a complete application in order to meet the criteria. I don’t think the RCTUE is a dilution. It recognizes a unique group of individuals. We’re seeing applications and handling those accordingly.
Listen to our conversation about amateur TUEs on the VeloNews podcast:
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