THE STRAIGHT DOPE ON POST-RACE DRUG TESTS

RUNNER’S WORLD

Procedure is too expensive for most prize-money races.

As the first string of runners cross the finish line Sunday at the NYC Half, race volunteers, known as athlete escorts, will approach an undisclosed number of elites and inform them they have 60 minutes to report for drug testing. As the athlete cools down, refuels, and responds to media, the escort won’t lose sight of the runner, as required by the United States Anti-Doping Agency, ensuring that the athlete is behind secure doors before the hour strikes.

This isn’t a common scenario at most races with prize money. For example, on the same day in Atlanta, elite competitors in the Georgia Marathon and Half Marathon will finish only to accolades; no escorts, no USADA, no sample required.

The lack of drug testing at most prize-money races leaves a window open for dopers, particularly among events awarding first-place winnings between $500 and $3,000, a situation highlighted late last year when veteran road racer Christian Hesch (seen above) admitted to taking EPO, a performance-enhancing drug.

Hesch was a serial racer who targeted less-competitive events that still offered the potential for a decent paycheck. He was never required to take a drug test and took home at least $5,300 in prize money over nine months in 2012.

A look at the fields and money at stake in New York City and Georgia begins to explain the testing discrepancy. Stars like Dathan Ritzenhein and Kenya’s Olympic bronze medalist Wilson Kipsang will take to the streets of New York, while regional competitors will line up in the South. Atlanta’s total cash purse of $18,000 is less than New York’s first-place prize—$20,000 for the men’s and women’s champions.

In general, this pattern is repeated across the country. Of the roughly 33 road events with testing, the majority are high-stakes races with either big money or a championship title on the line. Those include marathons such as Boston, New York City and Los Angeles and highly competitive shorter distances such as the Fifth Avenue Mile and Carlsbad 5000.

Along prize-money lines, events offering more than $6,000 for first place generally test and those with smaller purses do not. But the line is not linear. The Beach to Beacon 10K and the Falmouth Road Race, both with first-place prizes of $10,000, do not conduct drug testing. The Cherry Blossom 10 Mile and Utica Boilermaker 15-K, with top prizes of $8,000 and $6,000 respectively, do test.

Race directors want a clean sport, but the majority say the Hesch violation won’t shift current testing practices for two main reasons: cost and the threat of a cheat isn’t pervasive enough to warrant it.

How Dirty is Road Racing?
“Distance running has its violators, but top to bottom, I don’t believe it runs very deep,” says Dan Breidinger, long-time assistant race director for Bix 7 in Davenport, Iowa, a 7-mile race with a strong international field competing for a $12,500 top prize. Bix does not test.

The question of testing hasn’t been raised among officials of the Beach to Beacon in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. “There was no conscientious decision made not to test,” says race director Dave McGillivray. “It is something that just hasn’t surfaced as a discussion item for the race committee.”

McGillivray is the founder of DMSE Sports, one of the country’s premier race management companies. He’s conducted testing at only a handful of DMSE events over the years because the company was either required to (the 2008 women’s Olympic Marathon Trials, for example) or because one of its races was chosen by USADA that year. The exception for McGillivray-directed races is those put on by the Boston Athletic Association, which tests at all events.

McGillivray says he doesn’t hear much about doping and senses current testing is working to keep the sport clean.

Ellen Larson, a vice president at In Motion, Inc., race management for the Carlsbad Marathon, says that even after learning that the race’s 2012 half-marathon winner, Ethiopian Ezkyas Sisay, was found guilty of using EPO, the race didn’t discuss adding drug testing.

“If it happened again, we might look at the possibility, but it’s hard to image that people are actually doing it,” she says.

Larson feels that the potential for testing serves as a potent deterrent. Carlsbad and many other races either announce the possibility on their website or include it on elite registration forms.

“We’ve threated on a few occasions to have [drug testing] and have had people not show up,” says Tracy Sundlun, vice president of events at Competitor Group, Inc., which runs the Rock 'n’ Roll marathon and half-marathon series. Competitor tests at about five races annually, rotating among its elite-focused events, including Arizona, Philadelphia, San Jose, San Diego, Lisbon and Madrid.


Financial Tradeoff
A number of years back, Phil Stewart, race director for Cherry Blossom, heard rumors that some athletes were doping. He and other members of the PRRO Circuit, a five-race collaborative that concludes with the championship Peachtree Road Race, began hearing from concerned runners asking about testing.

As a result, the group reached out to USADA and has been testing at all PRRO events since 2006. “It happens in the sport, so we want to help eliminate it,” says Stewart.

Commitment to fair play has also led the B.A.A. and New York Road Runners to conduct more testing, adding it to new or existing events over the last decade.

Those organizations, along with the PRRO races and Competitor, can afford the $5000 to $10,000 testing price tag. But that amount is out of reach for the majority of events.

“The money it would take to test would pull from our prize purse,” says John Reich, director of the three-year-old Mountain to Fountain 15-K in Arizona. It awards $1,500 for first and has a regionally competitive field—the type of events Hesch targeted.

Mountain to Fountain’s goal is supporting local athletes through prize money and grants to running programs from elementary school cross-country teams to the elites in Flagstaff. “Pulling funds away from our mission doesn’t compute,” says Reich.

That sentiment is echoed by many race directors, including Steve Nearman. His race, the Wilson Bridge Half Marathon, has a total purse of $15,000. Testing would cut it in half.

Performing one drug test runs about $500, putting the minimum at $4,500, assuming nine athletes are included (top three men and women, plus three more; there is no standard, however). Race directors could choose to test fewer athletes to keep costs down, but expenses such a secure location for testing—a hotel room or a tent at the finish—would not change, making it less worth the effort. Events can keep expenses lower by choosing basic testing (urine sample) rather than full EPO analysis (blood work). NYRR, which conducts full testing at some races, estimates total cost at $10,000 to $12,000 per race.

Athletes welcome testing. In fact, Deena Kastor didn’t commit to running the LA Marathon this Sunday until the race confirmed drug testing was in place.

Runners, though, seem to appreciate the situation lower-budget events are in and recognize that $1,000 for first-place may not really warrant drug testing.

“I’m very pro-testing, but know that most smaller events are limited by budgets, personnel and time, and therefore choose not to test and I respect that choice,” says Michael Wardian, a 2:17 marathoner who regularly places at regional races.

Nearman and Reich say they would test if the price came down. But with the demands of higher-violation sports like track and field and cycling, it’s unlikely USADA will be able to stretch its resources to more road races. (Track and field accounts for 35% of USADA’s total in-competition testing, compared to 1.2% for road racing.)

Annie Skinner, media relations manager for USADA, says, “We certainly work to make sure that it is as affordable as possible for event organizers to have testing at their events.”

The Hesch admission sparked discussions about doping among staff at the Tallahassee Marathon, says race director Nancy Stedman. Expense is a big factor—its small budget allows for $1,200 for first place—but operating solely on volunteers is another. “More facets to the race means more time, or another volunteer, which is, after all, a limited commodity,” she says.


Multifaceted Solution
Learning about Hesch’s doping violation was a punch in the gut for Sundlun, the vice president at Competitor. Hesch won the Rock 'n’ Roll Providence Half Marathon two months before his EPO use became public. Competitor stripped him of the title. Sundlun says the situation was a wake-up call.

“At times we race directors get naïve and don’t realize it’s not just the guys trying to win world championships or Olympic medals doping, but other guys, and that our second- and third-tier events are vulnerable,” he says.

Competitor offers a wide range of cash awards across its 30-plus events, from $1,000 at Providence to $10,000 at San Diego. (The company is shifting its prize structure for 2013, offering a flat amount for all competitors based on time; for a half-marathon, for example, all runners finishing under 1:05 (men) and 1:15 (women) will be paid $1,000 regardless of place.)

Sundlun says testing cost has never been an issue at Competitor and the company, like other large race-management groups, has an ear-to-the-ground advantage over smaller events.

"Our staff has tentacles into the elite world, which can provide red flags," he says. Sundlun adds that if Competitor suspects an athlete isn’t clean, it’ll prohibit that athlete from competing. But he acknowledges that the company’s “antenna had been raised” regarding Hesch, and despite its insider advantage, Hesch slipped through the cracks.

Competitor is planning to increase the number of races it tests at from five to an undecided number for 2013. But doing so won’t necessarily deter another Hesch. Testing was not done at Providence and the company does not anticipate adding it to its less-competitive events, according to Sundlun.

“There’s a loophole,” he says. “I honestly don’t know what one does out it.”

But, he believes, there’s strong movement in the right direction, including stricter anti-doping penalties announced by the World Marathon Majorsand the recent institution of biological passports, which monitor athlete’s blood profiles for signs of doping.

Sundlun and other race directors say an increase in out-of-competition testing—when USADA shows up unannounced at an athlete’s door—would do more to discourage doping than increased testing at races, and that the expansion of random testing in other countries is a welcomed move.

But less-competitive runners like Hesch are not subject to out-of-competition testing.

Since its female 2006 winner was caught cheating, Grandma’s Marathon requires elite runners to sign an affidavit declaring their clean status. The Big Sur Half-Marathon, where both Hesch and Sisay competed in 2011, is considering following suit by implementing its own athlete code of conduct.