practitioners massively use medications, some of which are banned

2024-01-18 11:30:47
Ultra-trailers, September 2, 2017 in Courmayeur, Italy, during the 15th edition of the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB). JEFF PACHOUD / AFP

Trail runners are not superhuman, let it be said! To overcome the endless races with intoxicating altitude differences that they inflict on themselves, improve performance and alleviate inflammation, pain and/or fatigue, they resort massively to substances authorized or not by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

This is the conclusion of the scientific study entitled “Prevalence of medication use among ultra-endurance athletes” which examined medication intake among enthusiasts of these extreme mass events, carrying out the very first hidden collection of individual urine samples in competition, at the start of four of the events of the 2017 edition of the world renowned Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB), born in Chamonix (Haute-Savoie) twenty years ago, and which brings together thousands of competitors each year.

According to the results, published this Thursday, January 18 by the American journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 49.8% of the 412 individual urine samples analyzed, or almost one in two, contained at least one medicinal substance. And 16.3% of them – or one in six – contained one or more substances appearing on the list of products prohibited by WADA at the time, therefore subject to sanction in the event of a doping control.

Respect for anonymity

All of the samples were taken furtively but while respecting the anonymity of the participants, at the start of the Orsières-Champex-Chamonix race (55 km and 3,500 m of elevation gain), of the Courmayeur-Champex-Chamonix ( 101 km and 6,100 m of elevation gain), In the footsteps of the Dukes of Savoie (119 km and 7,250 m of elevation gain) and the UTMB (170 km and 10,000 m of elevation gain).

Read the report: Article reserved for our subscribers Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc: from exhaustion to intoxication, “that’s what Ultra is, it’s a roller coaster”

Coordinated by the National Ski and Mountaineering School (ENSA), in partnership with the organizers of the UTMB, the University of Grenoble Alpes, the French anti-doping laboratory, in Orsay (Essonne), and its Italian counterpart, in Rome , as well as the universities of Lyon-I, Rome and Lausanne (Switzerland) and the hospitals of Chambéry, Geneva (Switzerland) and Aosta (Italy), this study was carried out with the implicit consent of the competitors.

Their registration form commits them, in fact, to “accept urine, blood, hair and/or saliva samples and associated analyzes requested by the organization’s medical commission”as well as to accept the anonymous use of this data “for research purposes”.