Issue date
Drug Free Sport NZ (DFSNZ) tested athletes in almost 40 sports in New Zealand in the 2016-17 year (July 1, 2016-June 30, 2017), including a raft of sailors.
As many as 16 New Zealand sailors were drug tested in the last 12 months. Photo: Sailing Energy / World Sailing.
While some might think there is no performance enhancing drug that could assist sailors to perform better, the way the sport has evolved over the past few decades would suggest otherwise. Sailors are now required to be high performing athletes with an expectation to be physically fit and strong and endure tough competition schedules, so the risks of using supplements and the temptation to use performance enhancing drugs increases.
One need only look at the recent America’s Cup and Rio Olympics to see the athletic fitness required to perform at the top level. As well as technical know-how, these sailors require muscular strength and agility to allow rapid movement, often in awkward positions.
Athletes must also maintain an optimal body weight for the boat class they are competing in. With these greater demands on the body and increase in on and off-water training, the risk of injury or repetitive strain is also heightened.
DFSNZ conducted 16 tests on New Zealand’s sailors over the 12-month period, eight in-competition and eight out-of-competition. No positive tests were recorded. It’s worth noting that a positive test is just one of the ways an athlete can fall foul of the anti-doping rules.
At DFSNZ we can never guarantee that any athlete is clean, but we believe that the scrutiny we put our sailors under, combined with our confidence in the culture at Yachting New Zealand, means that it is highly unlikely that any of our sailors are slipping through the net.
Of course, the international scene is different and there is reason to have less confidence in both the anti-doping programme and culture in some other countries. We need only look to Russia for evidence of that.
Our achievements in sailing are extraordinary, but we need to ensure our culture of ‘clean sport’ is preserved for the next generation – and that is up to everyone.
