Athletics Integrity Unit’s work vital as World Championships loom

Julian Diaz-Rainey and Andrew Mitchell of Pinsent Masons were commenting ahead of the forthcoming World Athletics Championships and in response to an announcement last month by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) that elite marathon runner Titus Ekiru faces a 10-year ban in relation to four charges of alleged breaches of anti-doping rule violations.

The AIU was set up in 2017 to manage all integrity issues, including doping, for the sport of athletics. The remit of the AIU extends to other misconduct including bribery and breaches of betting rules. While it was established by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), the AIU operates entirely independently of the governing body. Its work, together with the work of national anti-doping agencies, helps to ensure that athletes who seek to gain an advantage through doping are detected.

Diaz-Rainey said: “With the World Athletics Championships starting in Budapest on 19 August, the issue of doping in athletics is more important and more relevant than ever. The work of the AIU, and its commitment to detecting and sanctioning dopers, is an essential element of maintaining integrity in athletics.”

In 2021, the AIU took 7,108 samples, from 2,229 athletes from 85 countries. Of those samples, approximately two-thirds were taken out of competition (OOC). One of the main issues for the AIU is dealing with the predictability of testing. If a cheater is aware that they will be tested at a competition, they can still gain a competitive advantage by doping prior to the competition but stop in time for the banned substance to be undetectable by the time of the competition itself.

To combat this, the AIU set up a Registered Testing Pool (RTP), which is usually made up of the top-10 athletes in each discipline and currently comprises around 500 elite track and field athletes. The purpose of the RTP is to focus resources on the best athletes, to ensure that those athletes who are most likely to secure a podium finish will have been regularly tested, including being engaged in OOC testing.

AIU chair David Howman recently emphasised the importance of conducting OOC testing on a ‘no-notice’ basis. He said: “No-notice testing is a critical component in mitigating doping by catching sophisticated cheaters and deterring would-be cheaters.”

Athletes in the RTP have an obligation to notify the AIU of their whereabouts to ensure that they are available for no-notice OOC testing. A failure to file their whereabouts in time or with sufficient detail can lead to a “filing failure” and can have serious consequences. Any athlete who has three “filing failures” or missed tests in a 12-month period could face a ban of up to two years.

The success of the AIU’s RTP is demonstrated through the statistics available from last year’s World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon. Of the 1,719 athletes who competed, only 39% of the athletes had three or more OOC tests, but this number rose to 81% for the top-eight finishers. Top-eight athletes averaged 4.8 OOC tests in the lead-up to the World Championships.

In conjunction with the RTPs run by the AIU, the AIU also encourages national anti-doping agencies to run RTPs for the second-tier athletes, described by the AUI as “the ones most likely to spring surprises at major championships”.

Mitchell said: “The issue of doping is not confined just to athletics, and is a challenge faced by many sports governing bodies, particularly when sportspeople and using increasingly innovative methods to avoid detection. Just this week, Anthony Joshua has stated that boxing ‘clearly has a problem’ in this area. Other athletes and spectators want to know that the people on the podium are worthy winners, and not there as a result of performance enhancing drugs.”