July 03, 2014 (Salzburg, Austria) – The next executive meeting of the international Biathlon Union (IBU) scheduled for mid-July is likely to be stormy. As reported, the heart of the controversy is an executive board (EB) vote taken on May 24 to discontinue blood testing at Olympic Winter Games (OWG) and confer all such testing to the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

IBU Medical VP, Dr. James Carrabre, says the matter was not included in the May agenda prior to the meeting and he was not sent the meeting minutes for review before they were sent to the general membership, suggesting ill intent may be the reason for this.

Carrabre sent a letter on June 16th to over 100 people in the biathlon world, outlining his concerns and was critical of the May 24 executive board vote, taken in his absence and with only seven of 10 board members present – read more here.

“I have not seen Carrabre’s letter because I am on vacation and up in the mountains,” said IBU president Anders Besseberg via cell phone on July 2. “I have no Internet access until I’m back at the office next week. But I cannot understand what the issue is. This is nonsense!”

Carrabre, who holds dual Canadian and US citizenship, believes that such a matter about doping controls is part of his responsibility as the IBU’s medical vice-president. He further describes discontinuing such tests as “a step backward” in the fight against doping.

“You know that Carrabre is a candidate to replace me as the IBU president?” Besseberg asked SkiTrax, referring to the IBU Congress scheduled for Sept 4-8 in Kiev, Ukraine, where delegates can vote to either re-elect Besseberg or vote to replace him with Carrabre.

Carrabre denies that he is trying to make political hay out of the EB decision and, in fact, turns that around telling SkiTrax, “The IBU and IOC are testing two different things at the OWG. To stop our testing without a suitable alternative plan is completely crazy and against all that we have been fighting for all these years. My medical colleagues in the IBU are perplexed and disappointed. At best, I see it as a political attack on the work I have been doing for the federation, especially since I am now a challenger for the presidency.

“I never went to the press with this issue, our nations [members] did. I also made all reasonable and appropriate attempts to try and clarify what happened before I wrote my letter to the nations. I contacted the president and secretary general and received an evasive answer at best from the secretary general. The president did not answer my questions.

“When you combine this with the fact that the issue was never on the meeting agenda, there was no forward discussions with me or anyone on our medical committee, and then the minutes were deliberately not sent to me for review after the meeting before sending them to all of the nations (as if the decision had been ratified by all EB members) then it was apparent to me that there was ill intent.”

But Besseberg denies that Carrabre tried to contact him in recent weeks, claiming the two men have not been in communication since early May. “There has been absolutely no communication since then. You can check my telephone and email records…”

Besseberg further claims the intent of the EB decision was to “harmonize” blood testing protocols between the IBU, the IOC, International Skating Union (ISU) and the International Ski Federation (FIS). “You know some athletes at the OWG compete in multiple sports. Currently, it is possible that an athlete would be allowed to start [based on doping controls] in one sport, but not another,” he continued.

He added that the IBU is simply following recommendations from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the IOC with its recent decision. He referred SkiTrax to a document on harmonization apparently posted on the WADA website, but we could not find it.

SkiTrax was also unable to find corroborating documentation that WADA the IOC, ISU, or FIS are moving towards such a harmonization. However we did find evidence that Besseberg is well-connected with WADA and sits on its governing board. Since posting this report WADA contacted us and provided a link to the following document regarding harmonization of doping controls at the Games – read more here.

Carrabre does not object to the idea of harmonization, but notes the devil is in the details: “Certainly the OWG is the IOC’s party and they have the right to control everything. It would not be in their or our best interests to make these changes without collaboration. I was at the IOC medical commission federation meeting this spring and harmonized blood testing at the OWG was not on our agenda. I am not against a harmonized approach but this must be done in a correct and responsible fashion.

“For us to just say we are not going to test is irresponsible and premature. I would want to make sure that the IOC was conducting the blood tests in a way that we could continue our work during the games period. The IOC medical commission has come a long way from my first encounter with them in Salt Lake City, where I was the [Salt Lake Organizing Committee] anti-doping representative for X-C skiing, Nordic combined and Biathlon. Their experience however, is not that of the federations and they need us to help ensure a robust testing program.

“The issue is that the federations all use their data differently and this confuses those looking in from the outside. The IBU medical committee has constructed a significant system whereby an athlete would not be able to blood dope or manipulate their blood oxygen carrying capacity and compete in our sport for long.

“The danger with the blood passport is that an athlete could conceivably be sanctioned for an abnormal passport when they in fact have done no wrong other than to fail a mathematical model. In Biathlon, there are several other “mouse traps” that we have built into our system that an athlete would trigger on the way to having a positive blood passport. This data would increase our confidence that we are sanctioning an athlete for the correct reasons (true doping),” he added.

Besseberg, a Norwegian, concedes that the matter was not included in the agenda sent to board members prior to the May meeting, but maintains it is perfectly normal for board members to make additions to the agenda. He also defends not sharing the minutes with Carrabre before their general distribution: “Yes, it’s part of protocol before sending to all members; if something has been misunderstood [it needs to be corrected]. But the minutes were sent only to those present at the meeting.”

We wondered about costs and number of tests performed annually and Carrabre quantified some aspects of IBU’s anti-doping program. “All athletes are blood screened every season. Our registered testing pool (the top 40 or so males and females are tested multiple times.). We also screen the top 1/2 to 1/3 of the junior field and start their blood passport early. We spend upwards of 500,000 Euros ($728,435 CDN) annually on testing,” claimed Carrabre.

Meanwhile Besseberg spoke at some length about how the IBU’s doping control equipment has performed poorly at three out of four of the past OWGs. Apparently the OWG in Turin, Italy was the only one where the IBU anti-doping equipment functioned well. Presumably the finely-calibrated machinery was damaged by air travel on the other occasions, a situation which may be repeated at the 2018 OWG in PyeongChan, South Korea.

But while Besseberg goes to great length to justify the decision to confer blood testing to the IOC at OWGs, he also frames the matter as anything but final. “Anyone can come with [an issue] in hand and have it put on agenda again. And our next meeting is in mid July – Carrabre knows about this. Everybody knows we are hardliners against doping.”

It could be quite a show at the next IBU executive board meeting, possibly with spillover to the IBU Congress in Kiev this September. SkiTrax notes, however, that as military tensions build in the Ukraine, the IBU is considering to move the Congress to Austria, close to its headquarters in Salzburg.