Doping: How coronavirus impacts war on cheats

"We're now approaching a very important phase,” says Andrea Gotzmann, the chairwoman of Germany's national anti-doping agency (NADA).

She has just presented the agency's annual report for 2019 but looking back is one thing. The most important theme at the press conference, held virtually for the first time, is the present, and the question: has the coronavirus pandemic left the door wide open for cheats?

The numbers are sobering: testing in Germany has been scaled back by 90-95 percent since the start of lockdown, calculates Mario Thevis from NADA's doping laboratory in Cologne.

German cyclist Maximilian Schachmann recently told Sportbuzzer that he hasn't been tested once since his victory in the Paris-Nice in March, the same is true of Olympic luge champion Felix Loch who can't remember if his last test was before the world cup race on February 29 / March 1 or at the world championship in mid-February in Sochi. "It was definitely before the coronavirus lockdown,” he tells DW.

At least Loch is back in full training, his discipline being relatively unaffected by the pandemic. "We train twice a day in small groups of four athletes and one coach,” he says.

Competition testing only in football

Many athletes have already resumed training in preparation for a resumption of competition, whenever that may be, but NADA are still operating a minimal service.

"Competition testing, which usually makes up 40 percent of our tests, has completely stopped, except in football, where we've been testing again for two weeks now,” says Thevis.

But even in football, where tests are carried out in accordance with the strict regulations of the German Football League's (DFL) hygiene concept, the current reality creates new problems. When collecting urine tests, for example, testers must stand 1.5 meters away from the athletes, which makes it harder to detect potential manipulation.

Small steps to normality

Even so, after two months of voluntary blood tests on junior athletes, testing restarted on May 18. NADA say they are taking small steps and are slowly feeling their way back to their usual level, which they hope to reach by mid-June. But that still means almost three test-free months which unscrupulous athletes could have exploited. Not that Gotzmann sees that as a big problem.

"It's not possible for athletes to time their doping practises when there aren't any set tournament dates,” she explains. "They're not just sat at home generally taking substances; that's not how it works in our experience."

She also refers to the Athlete Biological Passports in which athletes' individual blood and steroid values are recorded over a longer period of time. Unusually large fluctuations can lead to retrospective investigations into manipulation.

More tests, better tests

In order to ensure that the passports are up to date, NADA wants to increase the quantity and quality of their anti-doping measures, and Gotzmann is confident that the missing tests will not have a negative effect on the Tokyo Olympics, which have been postponed until 2021.

"Toyko is a long way away yet,” she says. "Once all our testing systems are back up and running and we've reached our usual high standards globally, I don't see too much of a problem.” But that's precisely the issue: can NADA really be sure that testing across the world will get back up to speed at the same rate?

With the Games having been put back, some athletes found guilty of doping could be free to compete again, having sat out their bans. Inevitably, that has already led to criticism but Lars Mortsiefer, a solicitor who sits of NADA's supervisory board, cites the findings of the international Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS): "Everybody has the right to return once their ban is over,” he says. "Any changes would be legally problematic.”

Luge champion Felix Loch isn't affected anyway and is relaxed as he looks ahead to his next Olympics, the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing.

"I'm not particularly concerned that anybody could gain an advantage by doping in the luge anyway,” he says. "But it could be an issue in other sports where cheats could still be rewarded.”