[quote]DMerc wrote:
Something I found on Wikipedia about Mariusz Pudzianowski
“He initially finished third in the WSM contest in 2004 but was later disqualified after testing positive for a banned performance enhancing substance. He was forced to return his prize money, stripped of the International Federation of Strength Athletes points from the event, and received a one-year ban from competition. Pudzianowski did not dispute his banned substance violation and waived his right to have his stool sample verified.[citation needed] He then returned to win the title for a third time in 2005.”[/quote]
Interesting. I read his wiki, although they provided no citation for that claim.
I did some searching around and I found nothing “official” about WSM drug testing, just some old forum posts about how they ‘selectively’ drug test, mainly just to polish their image a bit. Two things: If it is true that Maruisz was banned for a year due to a hot test, it swats down the RIDICULOUS claim someone made about it setting the sport back 5 years, because apparently no one knew or gave a f*ck and WSM is doing just fine. Second, it would strongly suggest WSM’s testing policies are dubious at best, since there are many athletes who use AAS at that level.
Here’s an old IRONMIND news brief from 2003:
IFSA Drug Testing
by Randall J. Strossen, Ph.D. | ©2009 IronMind
“Douglas Edmunds, Ph.D. announced that IFSA would begin a drug testing program this year to help safeguard the health of its strongman competitors. Edmunds explained that the IFSA drug testing program would use a two-pronged approach, which would require strongman competitors to have a thorough annual physical and that the new IFSA athlete contract, in addition to requiring athlete loyalty, would encompass the athlete’s responsibilities in terms of health and safety, as well as his or her acceptance of the IFSA drug testing program once implemented. Edmunds said that the physical would be required starting in April and that IOC accredited laboratories would be used for the drug testing program.”
If you do a search on ‘drug testing’ in IRONMIND’s news section, a number of hits will come up, but nothing newer than 2008. There was an article from May of 2008 that quoted Phil Pfister’s desire to implement standardized drug testing in WSM and America’s Strongest Man, which suggested that current testing policies are nonexistent or just a P.R. veneer at best.
An IRONMIND article about NAS from several years ago also suggested that they selectively drug test (i.e.–only certain competitions that wish to conduct testing), but as most of us know NAS does not have any regularly implemented policy about banned substance testing.
On a related note, beating a drug test is not that difficult, depending on how stringent the testing is. Just look at the NFL. Or the UFC. Or, yes, even the Olympics. Athletes get popped, but for every athlete who gets popped there are 3 who make it through the system scot free. There are ways to circumvent getting a positive test and there are many substances that either have no existing method of analysis to determine bodily presence, or simply clear from the body in a short period of time.
