The Hassle Of Being Clean
By Chris Carmichael

Whenever I hear about another Hollywood celebrity complaining about their lack of privacy, I wonder how they'd feel about being an elite athlete. Celebrities have their share of hassles, but at least they're allowed to disappear and not tell anyone where they're going. If you're an elite athlete, you don't have that privilege.

If you have the ability, and choose to be an elite athlete in any sport within the Olympic movement, you are required to notify anti-doping officials of your whereabouts every day of the year. When Lance Armstrong was racing, you can only imagine how difficult it was to keep up with the paperwork. His travel schedule was packed all year long, and many of his trips were quick, last-minute flights here or there for speaking engagements or activities and meetings for his foundation. While you're in the middle of it, it gets to be a hassle and sometimes it's very frustrating. However, Lance and everyone around him supported the anti-doping regulations and understood that complete transparency was an essential part of making the system work.

Anti-doping officials need to know your whereabouts at all times so they can administer unannounced, out-of-competition tests. And they have a habit of showing up at inconvenient times, but when they show up you can't really ask them to go away and come back later. Once they've made contact with you, they have to stay with you until the test is complete.

I've spoken with a lot of athletes in Colorado Springs who have returned from long training rides to find the US Anti-Doping Agency sitting on their front porches. They need a urine sample, which isn't always an easy thing to provide right after five hours on a bicycle. And so, you get to sit around drinking water with the anti-doping officials for a while until you can produce a sufficient sample. Sound like fun? It gets better.

Unlike giving a urine sample at the doctor's office, anti-doping officials can't just hand you a cup and let you go to the bathroom by yourself. They have to observe the entire process to ensure that you're not giving them a sample of someone else's urine. They follow you into the bathroom, make you raise your shirt to your chest and lower your pants to below your knees, and watch as you fill the sample cup. Fortunately, they are respectful enough to have women observe women and men observe men.

And your exposure is not limited to the urine tests. Every medication you consume, including simple over-the-counter medications like ibuprofen and Pepto Bismol, must be documented and submitted to anti-doping officials. If you eat a bad tuna sandwich, they get to know about it. This regulation is meant to be for the athlete's own protection, ensuring that chemicals that show up in a urine sample can be traced back to legitimate medications. If you have to take prescription medications -- whether they could lead to a positive doping test or not -- additional forms are necessary to show that there is a real medical need for the medication. This includes anti-depressants and other medications used to treat emotional issues, meaning you have to be willing to make your entire life available to anti-doping officials. The records are confidential, but it can still be a very personal and uncomfortable experience for athletes.

Do you think Lindsay Lohan would accept these regulations to maintain her eligibility to star in movies?

Even with these policies in place, athletes manage to find ways to cheat and they're decisions reflect poorly on all the athletes who are clean and vigilant about keeping their anti-doping forms updated. Sometimes you'll hear athletes complain about the hassle and invasion of privacy, but the most part they're just frustrated by the inconvenience of the process and the fact that it's necessary in the first place. Given a moment to step back and put the anti-doping policies in perspective, every elite athlete I know sees the out-of-competition tests and medical forms as essential parts of catching cheaters and demonstrating their commitment to training and competing without performance-enhancing drugs.
 
"If you brake, you don't win." Racer Mario Cipollini

Should anyone expect to be employed in a situation where they do not need to keep their employer informed regarding their whereabouts? I think not! This is a reality of being gainfully employed!

In the Navy I was on both sides of random urinalysis testing. It was not much fun ... but it really was not a very big deal either.

Why is he comparing professional athletes to Lindsay Lohan? Perhaps I should be embarrassed to admit that I live under a rock ... but I could not pick her out of a line-up.

I think Charmichael finally hits the nail on the head when he says:

[quote:e48877d081]Sometimes you'll hear athletes complain about the hassle and invasion of privacy, but the most part they're just frustrated by the inconvenience of the process and the fact that it's necessary in the first place. Given a moment to step back and put the anti-doping policies in perspective, every elite athlete I know sees the out-of-competition tests and medical forms as essential parts of catching cheaters and demonstrating their commitment to training and competing without performance-enhancing drugs.[/quote:e48877d081]

Chris
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"If you brake, you get to race again tomorrow"

People in the entertainment industry are very often complaining about their lack of privacy, even though they have the ability to just disapear if they like. I think he was comparing elite athletes to people in the entertainment industry, and Lindsey Lohan specifically because she has been filling up the entertainment headlines for awhile now, more so than either Britney Spears or Paris Hilton.

-- Ken
 
"If you brake, you don't win." Racer Mario Cipollini

[quote:5ad1bf7ed7]Should anyone expect to be employed in a situation where they do not need to keep their employer informed regarding their whereabouts? I think not! This is a reality of being gainfully employed! [/quote:5ad1bf7ed7]

HUGE disagreement with you on this one Chris! My employer has NO business knowing my whereabouts on my off time. Only when I am on duty. I'd change careers before I'd give up my privacy.

Guess it all depends on what is most important to the individual.

H
 
It doesn't matter where you go in life .... it's who you have beside you.

H,

I definately think a lot of people would agree with you on this one, but I do see Chris's point and there are a lot of people out there such as Doctor's, Computer Administrator's, and many others that are on 24 hour call all the time. I think in a lot of respects being a professional cyclist is probably a lot like being on call 24/7, except unlike being a doctor where you have to stay within a certain geographic distance of the hospital, the testing agencies will actually come to you (so long as you keep up to date with recording your whereabouts).

R

When I was an engineer at BCF, I was on call 24/7, but that didn't mean the company needed to know my whereabouts. For the most part they didn't care, I just needed to be near a computer with internet or have a cell phone with me. Every once in a while they required me to be home or in the office during off hours, but that was the extent of it.

Then again, the only performance enhancers that I needed for my job was sleep and food. Not much else improves your programming and problem solving skills.


-- Ken
 
"If you brake, you don't win." Racer Mario Cipollini

Sorry folks ... my last post was poorly stated. In no way do I think employers have the right to invade employees privacy by knowing their whereabouts or what they are doing during their off time (in most cases ... with the ones Ryan indicated being good exceptions ... and some of them are compensated while they are *on call*, regardless of whether or not they get called in).

One of the things that really perplexes me about the Rasmussen case is how could the Robobank management not have known where he was for such a long time while he was training, which I think should be considered *on the clock* time. And if they knew before the tour began about these problems, why didn't they sort things out beforehand?

Chris

I suspect that is the same conclusion The Tour organizers came too, and probably had a lot to do with him leaving.

Ryan