Canada to Issue 'Biological Passports'

Canada's anti-doping agency will follow the lead of its British counterpart in issuing athletes "biological passports" designed to more precisely flag banned substances in their blood.

UK Anti-Doping announced on February 5th that British athletes will have their blood profiled for the London 2012 Olympics in an effort to detect unusual changes that point to performance-enhanced cheating.

The Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport isn't committing to the 2012 deadline but says the new biological passport system is on its way.

Current anti-doping testing compares the level of substances in an athlete's blood against average levels across the population. The new passport system will allow scientists to measure an athlete's results against their own specific norms.

And that, experts say, will make it easier to identify suspicious levels.

"This would allow us to track athlete substance levels in their blood," says Rosemary Pitfield, a spokesperson with the CCES.

"Those levels would assist us in developing a benchmark for an athlete that is an indicator that an athlete is using doping or banned substances. You begin to understand what an individual athlete's norms are."

All countries and international sports federations are expected to adopt the new biological passport measures over time.

Pitfield said CCES is on the way towards developing the new system.

"We've started to collect blood, but today we're focused on the (Vancouver) Olympics," she said.

Establishing an athlete's benchmarks will require four to six unannounced blood samples taken over several months that will form an individual profile.

That represents both substantial cost and logistical challenges for anti-doping agencies.

The International Cycling Union, the first international sport to establish the biological passport system last year, has made the program mandatory for about 850 road racers at a reported cost of $7.3 million (U.S.) annually.

It's worth it, experts say.

"This is the way of the future," said Dr. Andrew Pipe, a leading anti-doping advocate and former chair of the CCES.

"All across the anti-doping community, people are looking at this and seeing the advantages," he said. "This is not perfection but it affords us very significant advantages over the one-time snapshot of urine testing."

When sudden changes in an athlete's blood are detected, they will almost certainly be subject to further tests and perhaps even removal from competition, Pipe said.

The British move follows a December decision by the Montreal-based World Anti-Doping Agency to approve protocols and guidelines for the passports.

The new standardized rules give international anti-doping organizations a "framework to implement this promising strategy in their fight against doping in sport," said a release at the time.

WADA director general David Howman said yesterday anti-doping agencies in both Britain and the U.S. have been anxious to implement the new testing protocols along with international sporting federations representing skiing, skating, biathlon and swimming.

As tight as the new rules will be, it will not put an end to cheating, he said.

"You're always going to get the odd person who thinks they can beat the system. That could be regular blood manipulation through mini-transfusions. But their chances will be more limited than under the current system."

Under the passport model, athletes with unusual tests could face action by their sport federation.