Last December, SoCalCycling.com ran a Poll in our story “Is USADA Coming to a Local Race Near You” that showed that nearly 89 % of our Poll participants thought that there should be drug testing at local races.
Today, USA Cycling announced the official formalization of the RaceClean™ agreement with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA). The RaceClean™ program is an extensive anti-doping effort being introduced by USA Cycling to help facilitate increased testing in cycling in the U.S., which will include testing in several disciplines and at a variety of competition levels. USADA will continue to conduct the anti-doping program and handle any adjudication elements, ensuring that RaceClean™ reflects the highest standards of integrity and effectiveness, due to USADA’s independent, gold standard anti-doping program.
The RaceClean™ program is comprised of five key components:
- 1. Increased Testing at National Calendar Events. – This collaborative effort will be funded by USA Cycling, national calendar race directors, team owners/managers and riders. Testing, which will be conducted by USADA, will begin with road, mountain bike cross-country and cyclo-cross national calendars, with the goal of including track and BMX national calendars in the near future.
- 2. Increased Out-Of-Competition Testing – USA Cycling will work with USADA to add more riders to the registered testing pool. This requires riders to provide their whereabouts at all times to USADA for no-advance-notice testing.
- 3. Grassroots Testing – USA Cycling will work with its Local Associations that want to invest in more testing at the local level. USA Cycling will match funds up to $6,000 for each of the 34 Local Associations across the U.S. The Local Associations will opt into the program that USADA will implement. The SCNCA has opted into this program.
- 4. Donations – USA Cycling will add a check-box on its license and club applications for members and clubs that wish to donate to the “RaceClean™ Fund.” Non-members may also show their support by making an online donation HERE.
- 5. Education – USA Cycling will help promote and amplify USADA’s, WADA’s and UCI’s extensive anti-doping education programs and resources through various USA Cycling platforms and programs. This includes the promotion of USADA’s successful “Play Clean Tip Line” https://www.usada.org/playclean.
This finalized agreement is the culmination of ongoing logistical preparations since the RaceClean™ program was announced earlier this year, for which USA Cycling and USADA have been organizing the details to implement the increased testing.
“As the program evolved from conceptual to experimental to contractual, both USA Cycling and USADA wanted to make sure we accurately captured the scope and intent of the program in the final agreement,” said USA Cycling President & CEO Steve Johnson. “As is often the case, this was a little more involved than anticipated as it ultimately required significant changes in our rider waivers and event contracts.”
The RaceClean™ program will increase the amount of testing already in place, which thus far in 2013 includes 100 tests at 10 USA Cycling calendar events. With the addition of the RaceClean™ program, it is anticipated that testing will be conducted at the majority of the remaining events on the 2013 calendar, covering the disciplines of road, mountain bike and cyclo-cross.
Drug testing is not just for the pros and all riders that take out a USA Cycling license are eligible to be tested by USADA. It is the athlete’s responsibility to know what they are putting into their body and know that it is “legal” if they intend to compete in sanctioned events. To find out more information on USADA visit https://usada.org and for a list of banned substances visit https://usada.org/substances.
Photo © Christy Nicholson / EchelonDesignPhoto.com
