Biomarkers To Play Key Role In World Athletics Fixture

The International Association of Athletics Federations has announced that all athletes competing at this month's World Championships in South Korea will have to take a blood test as part of a competition-wide anti-doping initiative. It will be the very first time that blanket blood-testing has been carried out at a major athletics event around 2,000 athletes will be expected to provide samples.

The event starts on August 18 and testing will be carried out at a purpose-built facility in Daegu. According to a report by athletics website Competitor.com, researchers will be looking out for a number of things once samples have been provided. First off, suspicious results may in certain situations lead to further requests for urine samples in Daegu, South Korea. After the event, samples will be passed on to the Anti-Doping Laboratory (LAD) in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Laboratory staff will be studying the athletes' biomarkers in order to build-up Athlete Biological Passports an analysis of an athlete's biomarker history which enables the sport's authorities to monitor how the biological profiles of individual athletes change over time. Unlike the testing which will be carried out over in South Korea, the work at the Swiss laboratory will not be used specifically to identify banned substances. Rather, the results will be analysed to help prove the "use and effect of these substances and methods by way of abnormal variations in an athletes biomarkers that would otherwise be stable".

The idea behind this revolutionary testing scheme is to give the athletics authorities a clearer idea than ever before as to how banned substances can affect an athlete's biomarker profile. By testing across the board under optimal conditions, the governing body will be in a position to create a database of information relating to various biomarkers from a wide range of elite athletes.

Biomarkers are set to continue to play a major role in the fight against banned substances in the world of athletics. According to former Olympic 400m bronze-medallist, Britain's Katharine Merry, said it will be interesting to see how athletes react to the news which was only announced by the IAAF after entries for the event had closed. She called on the organisers of the London 2012 games to take a similarly robust approach to testing for banned substances. The decision was also welcomed by British former 400m runner Iwan Thomas. He said it was about time that the authorities brought in the measure.