Steve Cox | April 17, 2018
Ban WADA
COLUMN
Way back when the FIM, AMA and the promoters of supercross, now known as Feld Motorsports, introduced the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) drug-testing program for supercross, during the press conference (this is more than 10 years ago now) everybody kept talking about it being “good for the sport,” but I think I was a little bit too simpleminded to understand how.
Because as I saw it, and still do, we have a need to police doping. I do believe doping—as in actual use of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs)—has been an issue, and very likely still is, in supercross. And when I’m talking about PEDs, I’m talking about three specific drugs: EPO (Erythropoietin, which increases red blood-cell counts), HGH (Human Growth Hormone) and Testosterone (“steroids”). It’s those three we need to worry about, with EPO chief among them.
So, if we’re talking about testing for those things, as often as possible, I believe it’s a very good idea to do so. But here’s the issue: Back when this press conference took place, announcing that WADA was contracted to randomly test supercross racers’ urine, my main question was about why we didn’t just test for drugs that definitely help supercross racers, rather than also testing for things that would not help a supercross racer, but would help a boxer, a gymnast, a javelin-thrower, and any other thing that WADA thinks brings some sort of an advantage to athletes in any particular sport?
The answer I got from WADA was that they weren’t worried about sport-specificity, because their drug tests always held up in court. Which, obviously, wasn’t the answer I was looking for. I don’t care if it stands up in court. I care if it’s good for the sport.
Cheating? Really!?
After this press conference, I predicted that we would be unlikely to catch people who are actually cheating, especially considering it was urine-only, and considering they only tested a couple times per season (largely due to the expense). I predicted, instead, that we’d end up catching racers for “failing a drug test” for things that are not actually cheating (as in “gaining an unfair advantage over your competition”) and ruining their careers as a result.
And now it’s happened twice. First, it was James Stewart who was tagged a few years ago for taking a medically necessary ADHD medication, with a valid prescription. He didn’t tell the FIM ahead of time, because he valued his privacy (and this is another subject, but I don’t want to digress here), but regardless, he wasn’t “cheating” and the penalty effectively ended his career.
Now, it’s Broc Tickle. And this time, he tested positive for methylhexanamine, which used to be used in nasal decongestants. Nowadays, since ephedrine was banned by the U.S. government (and many others), it’s used in place of ephedrine as a “natural” stimulant in sports supplements. Often, it’s listed on these supplements (which, in the USA, are not subject to FDA regulation, due to some weird loophole that everyone refuses to fix) as “Geranium Oil” or “Geranamine.”
Tickle tested positive way back on February 10 in San Diego, and I was standing outside the KTM hauler for a couple hours after the race waiting for him to return from his urinalysis that night (it often takes them a while to pee after a race, since they’re often a bit dehydrated due to the exercise). He was upbeat and eating a sandwich as I interviewed him about his first top-five of the season. I very highly doubt he had any idea that it was even possible that he would fail that drug test (over two months later, to boot).
So, here’s where my simplemindedness becomes an issue: In my way of thinking, if someone says they want to solve Problem A, and they propose Solution B, then B had better address A. So, if the goal was to stop people from gaining an unfair advantage (aka: cheating) using drugs, WADA and the FIM would’ve picked out the specific few substances that are by prescription only, and that give a competitive advantage (EPO, HGH, Testosterone). But it’s not “gaining an unfair advantage” to take a supplement that anybody can buy and take. Testing for all of these ancillary substances can not result in a halt to “cheating,” because using those substances isn’t actually cheating in the first place. It’s against the rules, but it’s not “cheating.”
The thing is, rules, just like laws, are not self-justifying. Their very existence doesn’t make them right. And frankly I’m convinced at this point that many of these substances are added to the banned-substances list simply as a way for WADA to justify its own existence.
If you’d like to follow me down this rabbit hole: WADA is big business. The CEO, according to Bloomberg, makes about $1.2 million per year. And if they go too long without catching anybody breaking the rules they set, it’s conceivable that promoters and sanctioning bodies would decide it’s not worth continuing to pay them all these exorbitant fees to test their athletes because their athletes are obviously “clean.”
That means their entire business model relies on catching athletes breaking their (often arbitrarily instituted) rules. And that’s why, in my opinion, they’re constantly adding new substances to the “banned” list. They cast wider and wider nets to “catch” more and more athletes. This is how they justify their own income.
But at some point, somebody has to step up and decide to do what’s best for our sport, not what’s best for WADA. The NFL, for example, has drug-testing, but the NFLPA plays a role in deciding which substances are allowed to be tested for. They don’t test for everything. They test for specific things only.
Supercross can do that, too. And it needs to. Because the minimum ban for anybody failing a WADA test (for any reason) is now four years. And in supercross, that spells the end of Broc Tickle’s racing career, over a supplement you or I could buy at GNC. I tell you what, you can give that supplement to anybody who finished behind Tickle that night at Petco Park, and there’s no way it would make the difference to beat him.
If our choices are just “test for everything” or “don’t test at all,” I’d rather have the latter option. We haven’t caught anybody for actually cheating anyway. At this point, this policy is consistently causing much more harm than good.
Ban WADA. CN
