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Sebastian Coe, the president of World Athletics warns would-be dopers leading up to the 2024 Paris Olympic Games that they should not be sleeping easily. This is due to technological advancements in anti-doping.
Coe told The Telegraph newspaper, “Technology is improving. Things that we are now able to test for — if you are watching championships now you will see us reassigning medals from six or seven years ago.
“No athlete who thinks they’ve got away with it on one occasion can sleep easily, because we have the systems to go back and test things we may not even know at this moment.”
The statute of limitation on retesting blood and urine samples is eight years. The statute of limitations to suspend an athlete is also eight years, two Olympic cycles. Eight years after the 2012 London Olympic Games, a number of athletes were suspended and medals were re-allocated as technology in testing had advanced. Technology continues to advance, however, so do doping practices.
Currently, micro-dosing and risking whereabouts failures are common cheats. Avoiding doping control officers during an out-of-competition test at an agreed-upon availability is evasion. Athletes receive two free strikes in 12 months, a third strike happens and it is an automatic, but an appealable provisional suspension. The suspension for whereabouts failures is equal to a doping infraction.
Winning money, medals, endorsement contracts when doping is theft. Some athletes in some countries will risk reputations and careers for prize money, which currently is difficult sometimes impossible to collect.
Retesting from the 2016 Rio Olympic Games will be coming to a close this summer, but Tokyo will have one extra year due to the delayed event because of COVID.
Athletes who doped during Rio and Tokyo should also not be sleeping easily until the statute of limitations has passed.
