Thread by @honestsport_ew

Hello @Madison_Keys and @andreapetkovic, I really hope you did read our article before your tweets. @schnejan

But either way, here is another explainer for you both.

But really this thread is for tennis 🎾 fans who have no idea what the Athlete Biological Passport is.

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https://twitter.com/Madison_Keys/status/1539287615945457664

To recap: once or twice a year, in the days before major tournaments, competing players are notified by the ITF that they have to book a slot to submit an Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) blood sample.

This happened before the French Open 19, US Open 21⬇️,Miami Open 22.

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The ITF say they do not do this for regular blood and urine testing.

Regardless, according to the ITF’s own anti-doping guidelines, all testing must be no notice save for "exceptional and justifiable circumstances".

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It is obvious why players, who are doping, should not be warned of upcoming doping controls.

Random testing is already ineffective at catching cheats - athletes know how long it takes for banned substances to clear their system and they plan around that.

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The ITF say that warning players about upcoming ABP tests does not reduce the effectiveness of their ABP programme as they also collect ABP samples randomly⬇️.

The ITF has never had an ABP sanction nor EPO positive.

And warning does make a “huge difference”. Here is why.

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The ABP is a tool used to detect doping by monitoring the variations in an athlete’s blood values to ascertain whether these variations are unnatural and a consequence of blood doping.

There are two main ways of blood doping: injecting EPO or undergoing a blood transfusion.

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When an athlete injects EPO, the drug makes the body produce more new red blood cells which increases the oxygen carrying capacity of blood as well as an athlete’s endurance.

These new red blood cells are called reticulocytes.

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Therefore an athlete’s reticulocyte levels increase when they inject EPO. This is one of several markers that is monitored in their ABP.

Conversely, when an athlete undergoes a blood transfusion their reticulocyte levels can go down.

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This is because blood transfusions suppress the production of reticulocytes.

So to recap,

EPO = reticulocytes ⬆️
Blood transfusions = reticulocytes ⬇️ decreasing effect

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Both methods increase an athlete’s hemoglobin.

Hemoglobin in blood carries oxygen from the respiratory organs to the rest of the body.

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This all increases an athlete’s endurance in the magnitude of 10% if done right. Game changing.

Effectively the ABP monitors these values, amongst others, by collecting an athlete’s blood samples, to ascertain whether variations in these values are a consequence of doping.

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If an athlete, who was blood doping, had to submit 10 random ABP samples every month, one would assume they should be easy to catch.

The reality: athletes submit far less samples, they receive some warning (16% in 2021 from ITF) and...... they manipulate their blood values.

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And this is why the ITF warning players about upcoming ABP tests before slams is concerning.

After all, Lance Armstrong’s teammates testified that they would undergo saline infusions to normalise their hemoglobin levels when they knew they would be blood tested.

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The ITF is giving players up to 4 days notice to do the same.

Note: Armstrong did this with the help of the Spanish doctor Luis Garcia del Moral who was simultaneously working with tennis players ⬇️ and welcome in Spanish tennis circles.

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honestsport.com/2020/06/08/esp…

But beyond just giving players the opportunity to avoid detection, the ABP expert @RobinParisotto1, who pioneered the first test for EPO, explained ⬇️ that the ITF is providing players with an ideal window to blood dope before play begins.

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Unlike many performance enhancing drugs that are taken during training, when a player builds their fitness, EPO and the blood transfusion method are also particularly effective during gruelling multi-week events like the Tour de France and the tennis grand slams.

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And the other major problem…

The ITF took 2 single blood samples from the entire tour, men and women, in-competition in 2021, meaning they effectively did not monitor blood doping, using the ABP, at grand slams all year. Again one of the most gruelling endurance events.

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If they had done so, they may have seen some interesting things.

During the Tour de France, because the event is so demanding, you would expect to see an athlete’s blood values, such as hemoglobin, decrease over the course of the Tour ⬇️.

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As an athlete becomes more fatigued, and struggles to recover from previous efforts, the oxygen carrying capacity of their blood decreases.

A blood transfusion is perfect for boosting an athlete's endurance and recovery mid-event.

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For example, in the case of Lance Armstrong, at the 2009 Tour de France, his hemoglobin actually increased which experts argued was indicative of him undergoing a transfusion ⬇️.

His reticulocyte levels were also supressed.

Remember, Blood Transfusion = reticulocytes ⬇️

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The ITF is not monitoring, using the ABP, whether any tennis players’ blood values act similarly during grand slams. Regular blood samples are not included in an athlete's ABP.

A mid-tournament blood transfusion would be ideal going into the second week of a slam.

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But here one may say, well are tennis players really undergoing blood transfusions?

Well in 2018, an 🇦🇷 swimmer, who isn’t remotely as successful as the world’s top tennis players underwent a blood transfusion with the help of his mother!

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And then further, in a 2013 anonymised study, 76% of male and 47% of female players, at ITF events, said there was doping in tennis.

And remember these are socially undesirable answers, so you’d expect the percentage to be higher if every player had to tell the truth.

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And while most doping sanctions in tennis involve lower ranked players, there are sometimes interesting pieces of information in doping disciplinary decisions.

The🇷🇺tennis player, Alexey Aleshchev, who tested positive for steroids trained at the Dominika Cibulková academy.

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So I hope that explains a little the significance of the ITF warning players when they must submit to ABP testing.

And let's remember again that the ITF has never caught a player for blood doping with this ABP programme or by testing directly for EPO.

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Disclaimer: I referred to the ITF here throughout, but their anti-doping programme has been run by the ITIA since January.

I also tried to make the ABP explainer as simple as possible.

The ITF’s responses are in the full article below.
dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsne…

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And if you have confidential information about doping in tennis, or any sport, that you would like to share then please reach out⬇️.

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