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Could caffeine be headed back onto WADA's banned list?

Substance is currently on the anti-doping organisation’s monitoring programme

Caffeine could be included on The World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) list of banned performance enhancing drugs later this year, depending on the outcome of an ongoing study.

Caffeine was added to WADA’s monitoring programme for 2017 so that experts could study whether athletes were using the substance “with the intent of enhancing performance.”

Russian Federal Micro-Biological Agency (FMBA) Head Vladimir Uiba recently told TASS. "If it eventually makes its way into the list of the prohibited substances, we will be forced to recommend everyone against drinking coffee as well as soft drinks containing caffeine."

It's official: caffeine makes you ride harder and faster

Uiba makes it clear that the substance has not yet been approved for the list of banned substances, but theoretically it could happen later this year.

WADA’s study will continue until September, at which point the agency would issue a three-month notice that the substance was to be added to its prohibited list the following year.

To be added to the prohibited list, a substance must meet two of three criteria:

  1. It has the potential to enhance performance
  2. It poses a health risk to athletes
  3. It violates “the spirit of sport

It sounds like potentially grim news for pretty much every single competitive cyclist, but speaking to the Washington Post, WADA spokeswoman Maggie Durand seemed to imply that Uiba may have exaggerated with regards to what would be considered an acceptable level. “Generally speaking, WADA is extremely careful that normal food consumption does not interfere with anti-doping tests,” she said.

At this stage WADA can’t predict whether caffeine is likely to wind up back on the prohibited list, let alone what the threshold might be.

A previous ban on caffeine was removed in 2004. Prior to that, the legal limit was 12 microgram/ml in urine, said to be equivalent to around eight cups of espresso.

In 2010, then WADA president John Fahey suggested that caffeine could be re-introduced after an American footballer suffered an adverse reaction to prescribed sleeping pills which had apparently been taken to counter the effects of caffeine tablets taken before a game.

Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.

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9 comments

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Altimis | 7 years ago
0 likes

As long as they not banned Cola, I'm happy

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kcr | 7 years ago
0 likes

I think the 24 champs positive test was explained at the time as excessive tea consumption!

I don't see a problem with reintroducing rules about caffeine. There's no way you're going to be testing positive from just having a cup or two of coffee.

Avatar
oceandweller | 7 years ago
5 likes

First they came for the coffee & I did not speak out. Then they came for the cake & still I did not speak out... Unite! Resist! We must stand together or cycling (as we know it) is doomed!

Avatar
RobD | 7 years ago
2 likes

And as long as they don't try to ban chocolate coated coffee beans, they have a killer caffeine kick and just enough sugar for the final flagging half hour of a ride.

Avatar
SingleSpeed replied to RobD | 7 years ago
1 like

RobD wrote:

And as long as they don't try to ban chocolate coated coffee beans, they have a killer caffeine kick and just enough sugar for the final flagging half hour of a ride.

 

 

I briefly worked in a bike shop, you'd have people walk in pick a bike up and see it was 5kg etc a suck of air through their teeth and go yeah but it's not UCI legal then walk off.

We always laughed.
 

Avatar
RobD | 7 years ago
0 likes

Bit of a tricky area as 'natural' caffeine consumption, even taken to a relatively high level such as drinking 8 espressos is probably fairly self regulating, you'd probably feel ill at a level above that, therefore limiting any increase in performance by taking more. yet energy drink type consumption is probably much easier to achieve (let alone caffeine pills), surely the sleeping pills taken by the american footballer should be the things investigated as they pose a greater risk to health (in normal doeses at least) if you're using so much caffeine that you can't sleep at night then that's unfortunate, but start having less caffeine.

Avatar
STiG911 | 7 years ago
2 likes

At least three times this week I've seen an article and checked my calendar to see if it's the 1st April, but this one takes the biscuit.

Which it might as well, seeing as I can't have a cuppa to dunk it in.

 

Also liking the irony of the situation being quoted on by a Russian...

Avatar
Scoob_84 | 7 years ago
1 like

No npt the first of April yet - Surely this will end cycling as we know it if this goes ahead

Avatar
SingleSpeed replied to Scoob_84 | 7 years ago
0 likes

Scoob_84 wrote:

No npt the first of April yet - Surely this will end cycling as we know it if this goes ahead

 

I think ending Cycling as we know it is exactly what UKADA, WADA and the UCI want, in fact that ending cycling as we know it is pretty much what everyone wants or we might as well go back the Cycling hey days of the early 2000's.

 

 

If you look at the context of the amount of coffee that it would take to fall foul of the rule it seems quite sensible.

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