June 14, 2009 – Structured out-of-competition doping controls are a mandatory requirement on all International Federations under the new World Anti-Doping Code that became effective as of 1st January 2009. This emphasis is also reflected in the final statistics for the FIS testing program during the 2008/09 season. In the course of the past season, FIS performed as many as 1581 out-of-competition tests, both blood tests and urine (including EPO analysis). This is more than four times as many as the season before when 375 out-of-competition controls were performed by FIS. In addition, WADA conducted another 181 out-of-competition tests on FIS athletes during the FIS 2008/09 competition season. WADA’s out-of-competition testing included blood and urine controls.

Additionally 635 in-competition tests were completed by FIS, including regular urine tests, urine EPO controls, blood tests, and blood transfusion controls. This includes doping controls carried out at the 2009 FIS World Championships (including Junior World Championships) where the number of athletes subject to post-competition doping controls included the top four plus two at random, as per FIS Rules. Overall this represents a decrease over the figures in the 2007/08 season when 1’367 in-competition tests were conducted. This is because experience shows that focused out-of-competition testing is more successful in finding athletes who may be doping than recording high numbers of in-competition tests. Effective testing is a question of using intelligent information to conduct doping controls at the right time and place.

In total, there were 2’216 in- and out-of-competition doping controls carried out in all FIS Olympic disciplines by FIS during the 2008/2009 season including the FIS World Ski Championships. This is 474 tests more than during the 2007/2008 season.

The above figures do not include a large number of tests conducted by National Anti-Doping Organizations both in and out-of-competition which compliment the testing by FIS and WADA.

The overall investment by FIS in its Anti-Doping program during the 2008/2009 season amounted to approximately CHF 1.5 million (compared with CHF 1 million in 2007/2008). This included both the in- and out-of-competition testing programs and various preventive, informational and educational efforts.

For more information and statistics from previous seasons, click here.