DOPING AGENCY CHIEF WANTS A NEW APPROACH

THE man who brought down Lance Armstrong has called for new rules that ban the use of medication to gain a performance advantage, describing it as the next ‘frontier’ in the battle against doping. In an exclusive interview with

Sportsmail here in Washington, United States Anti-Doping Agency chief Travis Tygart said that, although he believes the abuse of banned substances is in decline as methods of detection improve, using nonprohibited drugs when an athlete does not have a medical need is a practice that now needs to be tackled. Over the past three years both Team Sky and Alberto Salazar, the Nike Oregon Project leader who until last year was coaching Mo Farah, have faced accusations of providing athletes with medicines to enhance performance rather than treat a medical condition. In March a parliamentary report was scathing in its criticism of Team Sky, in particular for three triamcinolone injections given to Bradley Wiggins ahead of three major races including the 2012 Tour de France he won. UCI president David Lappartient has since echoed the conclusion of MPs. Responding to an admission in the parliamentary report by Shane Sutton, who coached Wiggins to that historic Tour win, that their use of triamcinolone had been ‘unethical’, Lappartient said: ‘If you are using substances to increase your performances I think this is exactly what is cheating.’ Lappartient described it as ‘a grey area’ while the parliamentary report stated that Sky had ‘crossed the ethical line’. Sky and Wiggins, who has consistently claimed he needed the corticosteroid to combat asthma and allergy problems, rejected the accusation, stating that they ‘strongly deny the very serious new allegations about the use of medication to enhance performance’. And Salazar, who remains the subject of a USADA investigation that has been active since a joint BBCProPublica report in 2015, has also denied any wrongdoing. But a leaked 269-page report USADA prepared for the Texas Medical Authority last year made serious allegations concerning infusions of Lcarnitine and claimed Salazar had encouraged athletes to take thyroid medication (thyroxine), calcitonin, ferrous sulphate and high doses of vitamin D to enhance performance. Indeed, in the report there was evidence that a British Athletics doctor had raised concerns about medication being given to Farah when in his opinion the drugs could be harmful to the health of the four-time Olympic champion. With the formation of the IAAF’s athletics integrity unit leading to major figures in track and field now being caught for the use of substances like EPO, Tygart (below) believes there has been a shift towards nonprohibited drugs. ‘The days of blood transfusions, and open and obvious growth hormone and testosterone use we saw at US Postal and BALCO are gone,’ he said. ‘I’m not saying athletes aren’t still going to take some risks but it’s not like it was. ‘Putting athletes in a position where they have to use nonprohibited drugs in a way that is not medically acceptable just to get performance enhancement — it’s an area we are really concerned about.’ Sky have stated their riders no longer use tramadol, a powerful painkiller some cyclists claim is dangerous because it impairs judgment when racing. Tygart said: ‘Tramadol is a great example. We know stories of how teams were handing it out at cycling events and crushing it up in water bottles to numb the pain and push through and in some cases the athletes have become addicted to opioids. ‘That’s not an anti-doping rule violation because tramadol is not a banned substance. That’s an ethical, code of conduct issue. ‘People shouldn’t be put in an environment where they feel they are being pressured to get ahead using drugs in violation of what those drugs were designed for. We’ve pushed WADA to say look, tramadol — cycling came out and said let’s get tramadol banned — is a concern. Thyroxine and calcitonin are similar. ‘We are talking about code of conduct rules — not antidoping rules. But they could apply to the coaches, the doctors, the sport federation providing drugs without a clear medical need and just for performance enhancement. It’s an unacceptable culture.’