USADA policy bans regular use of IVs for post weigh in rehydration
USADA drug testing representatives recently visited ATT and said the regular practice of rehydration with an IV drip after making weight has to cease.
USADA drug testing representatives recently visited ATT and said the regular practice has to cease.
USADA CEO Travis Tygart recently appeared on Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour, and explained the rationale.
“What’s important to remember is the WADA list is the list of prohibited substances. So, those are what most people consider the drugs, the performance enhancing drugs, but it’s also the prohibited substance and methods. And there are certain methods, like an IV infusion that you just mentioned, or gene doping or autologous or homologous blood transfusion, where you take someone else’s blood in advance of a bout and it gives you oxygen carrying capacity and recovery capacity and all sorts of benefits. It would be, by the way, game changing benefits.
So, the IVs are allowed under certain circumstances under the WADA prohibited list. You know, if you’re in the hospital, clinic, having surgery. If you need it outside of those, you have to apply for a TUE. It’s not, as you just indicated, not prohibited in most, or any that we’re aware of, licensing commissions. So, there’s going to be some education, obviously, around that. The purpose for it was to ensure… And you may… I don’t know how closely you’ve followed our investigation into cycling, but you saw it used a lot in cycling. Because, putting a bag of saline over 50 ml, for example is the rule, would potentially mask or alter the blood testing that was done. And there were examples in there where athletes would put a bag of saline in their arm when they saw the blood collectors coming to collect their blood. And they just delayed reporting for 15 min. So, that was really the purpose behind the rule.
So, there’s going to be some education around that and ensuring that, where athletes do need it, if it’s in an area that’s not allowed, so it’s not in one of those other settings, that they go through the TUE process. And those are going to be, as always, we’ve had dozens of those applied for over the years since it became on the list, prohibited in certain circumstances. But certainly education around the drug list and the prohibited methods list, like the IVs, is going to be a key part of rolling this program out and ensuring that the athletes are fully aware of what the rules are and how to comply with those rules, so that there’s no unintentional type violations. Because that’s not why we’re here. We’re here to stop those who are intentionally cheating with dangerous and performance enhancing drugs that rob their competitors of their rights under the rules.”
A number of athletes responded via Twitter that this would have major consequences. What it clarifies is that in addition to PED use, our sport has a major problem with weight cutting, that has only just begun to be addressed.