AN ATTEMPT is to be made to bring in compulsory blood testing for the first time in Ireland, as part of the ongoing drive to eliminate the use of banned performance enhancing drugs in sport.
A proposal to be tabled at the annual congress of BLE at Carlow on Saturday week requests that blood testing procedures be introduced at both international and national levels.
If adopted, it would put Ireland in the forefront of the war on drugs. It could also involve BLE in unquantified expense in an age when any compulsory testing carries the threat of litigation.
At a time when the results of testing conducted by means of urine samples are coming under increasing question, it is generally conceded that blood testing is the most likely means of detecting foreign substances in the system.
Oddly then, it has never been applied with the full rigour of authority by any of the major international sporting organisations, notably the International Olympic Committee which has consistently backed off because of the legal risks involved.
The International Amateur Athletics Federation, too, has been extremely lax in this area, although the organisers of the Golden Four meetings in Zurich, Brussels, Oslo and London have in recent years insisted on the right to carry out random blood tests.
Because specialist personnel and sophisticated equipment is required to operate the system, it is expensive. And the legal rights of those subjected to compulsory testing have yet to be clarified.
Yet there is growing evidence in this country that some politicians are determined to make such testing obligatory for those sports people seeking or currently in receipt of grant aid.
BLE prides itself on the fact that it was one of the national federations largely responsible for having the minimum ban on athletes testing positive for drugs raised from two to four years. And when subsequent attempts were made to have the process reversed, they were in the van of the opposition.
The likelihood is that the proposal, in the name of the Southern Region, will attract substantial support in Carlow. Less clear is how the funding required to make it work will be provided.
Also on the agenda is a motion that BLE proscribes the use of painkilling injections in athletics. This is a facet of medicine which has, over the years, been unashamedly abused internationally, with occasionally dire consequences to those involved.
With the increasing emphasis on commercialism in sport, this practice is likely to become more prevalent and, no less than the one calling for blood testing, it will appeal to many delegates at congress.
There will be broad support also, for a Kerry proposal that BLE urgently considers ways of increasing its female membership, with particular emphasis on the involvement of women in the administration of athletics at all levels.
That the numbers of continuing in the sport after underage competition is disappointing is not in question. Neither is the broader issue of a fall off in the numbers of athletes of both sexes, at senior level.
This is a trend which is disturbing the IAAF, who acknowledge that with the increasing sacrifices being asked of athletes with aspirations of making the top level, the problem can only get worse in the immediate future.
