The athletes of the Dresdner Kleinwort Triathlon Team met for the 2.Anti-Doping-Workshop in Frankfurt in the end October 2008. Kerstin Neumann, pharmacist of the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA), and her colleague Matthias Blatt, Manager of the NADA Doping control system, informed about the newest developments concerning the NADA and the increasing requirement for the athletes. In the centre of attention was the reworked Code of the World-Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which comes affective on January 1st 2009 and especially intensification of the reporting obligations come with it.

From January on all athletes, which are listed in the highest category of the testing pool, like the members of the Dresdner Kleinwort Triathlon Team, have to be available for a possible visit of the controllers for an announced hour every day. Beforehand it is still compulsory to announce the further stay of a quarter. Several organisational problems appear by dealing with the athletes. Most of the times they are on long tours with their cycling and running sessions and it depends on the weather, where they train. Eventually no one wants to make a mistake – everybody who is not met by the controllers on the places as announced, gets a warning, called strike. In the case of three strikes a doping lawsuit will be initialised for the athlete. So it is bondage for every athlete to announce short-term changes of staying to the NADA.

Besides the tightened reporting obligations there are several questions about the medical therapies. Also a professional athlete can sicken and has to know, which medicine he is allowed to take and which not. Pharmacist Neumann showed that the same preparation can include different substances in every country. The NADA has a list for preparations of the German market, but information about the USA has to be obtained from the responsible Anti-Doping Agency USADA. In this case it is bondage for every single athlete to proof, what kind of medicine he takes. The NADA and the Dresdner Kleinwort Triathlon Team dissuades from nutritional supplements, which are often contaminated.

The four hour workshop was for the athletes of the Dresdner Kleinwort Team an important preparation for 2009. In the following discussion with the experts, the athletes made clear that the reporting obligations and controls interfering their everyday life and becoming a not irrelevant burden. Getting medicine in a pharmacy when you have a sore throat – this does not work for professional athletes without clarification of the circumstances. Anyhow, everybody supports the strict defaults. “We deliver our performance clean, but at the same time must be assured that our competitors stand under the same regulations. Therefore we are glad that the Anti-Doping system is advanced, although a lot of new and tightened requirements come with it”, said Maik Twelsiek.