Anti-Doping Framework for Ultrarunning with Gabe Baida #223

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
Trail and Ultra Runners.
What is going on?
Welcome to another episode ofthe CoopCast.
As always, I am your humblehost, coach Jason Coop, and this
episode of the podcast is thefinal in a series of podcasts
that I have released over thelast four weeks about
anti-doping efforts in the trailand ultra running community,

(00:32):
and I'm leaving y'all off with abanger of an episode, and a
banger of an episode that is inmy new recording studio.
So if you happen to be watchingthe YouTube version of this,
hopefully the aesthetics are alittle bit better, more
appealing to the eye.
But that is neither here northere.
Welcome to the podcast, gabeBaida, who is a 15-year
professional in the anti-dopingarena.

(00:53):
Over 10 of those years werewith USADA and, in particular,
gabe was one of the mostinfluential people for booting
up USADA's anti-doping effortswithin the UFC.
Now, what does mixed martialarts in the UFC have to do with
trail and ultra running?
It's not just because I'm a fanand I'm fascinated with that
sport.
It is because they introducedanti-doping at a time where it

(01:17):
didn't really exist, or itexisted in a fractured nature,
and that is the exact sameposition that we are in in trail
and ultra running right now.
So I brought Gabe onto thepodcast today to discuss what he
learned from that effort andhow we can take those learnings
and apply it to the sport oftrail and ultra running.
If you are a key stakeholder inthis, if you're an elite

(01:40):
athlete, you're a race director,you're a coach or you're a
brand manager, pay attention tothe words that Gabe has
throughout the course of thispodcast, because we don't want
to repeat the same mistakes thatwere made in the UFC and we
have a good blueprint for how toimplement this, based on the
program that they actuallyimplemented.
It doesn't have to be exactlythe same, but the future will

(02:03):
always repeat, even though itmight not exactly rhyme.
All right, folks, with thatintro, I am getting right out of
the way.
Here's my conversation withGabe Bida, all about his
experience in implementinganti-doping in the UFC.
Thanks for coming, man, thanksfor having me.
This is you're popping thecherry here, popping the cork on

(02:26):
my new setup here.
I appreciate you putting upwith it.
I figure nobody better than you, since we've known each other
for a while to get this setup.
All said and done.
So for the people that arewatching the YouTube version,
this is all new.
It's usually just my face andnow I actually have a guest.
I don't think you knew you weregetting into that.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Well, I'm happy to be the guinea pig, All right sweet
.
Happy to be here.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
So we're going to spend a lot of time talking
about the UFC.
Yeah, and the longtimelisteners of this podcast will
recognize that I do make a lotof UFC references, and mainly
because I'm a fan.
But more importantly for thispodcast, it's because I think
that there are parallels withinwhat you have done with the UFC
and with USADA from ananti-doping perspective and what

(03:07):
we can learn about thatexperience, as ultra running is
trying to figure this wholething out.
But before we talk about that,just to set the table on what
you currently do and maybe tobreak the ice a little bit with
the listeners here, I want to goback to the Sochi Olympics,
which is probably one of myfavorite sporting things of all

(03:27):
time.
So the Sochi Olympics were known, or one of the things,
unfortunately, that the SochiOlympics were known for was this
gigantic doping scandal thathappened at the behest of the
country of Russia and VladimirPutin and their state-run
sporting organization andeverything that came out of that

(03:50):
.
Everything came out of that.
You had athletes that wereclearly doping.
You had athletes that were notdoping.
You had everybody get caught inthe cross hairs and it all kind
of unfolded like a spy novelreally.
There were any number ofdifferent articles that were
written, which I'll link a fewof those in the show notes about
them.
The movie Icarus, one of theirprimary characters, was a

(04:12):
central figure in this wholething and he's still now in
witness protection.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
I think right.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
Yeah, it's kind of crazy, but one of the one of the
key figures in that wholeordeal wasn't a person, it was
actually an object, right, anobject that you have now started
kind of a business aroundtrying to replace it, and that
was the urine sample collectionbottles.
One of the things that happened, as a product of the Russians

(04:40):
trying to cheat the system, isthey were swapping out dirty
urine for clean urine, allbehind the scenes, all
unbeknownst to WADA, allunbeknownst to many of the
athletes that were competing.
But the athletes that wereinvolved obviously knew, because
they had to give clean samples.
At one point they wentunderneath some sort of doping
program and then at some point,those urine samples were swapped

(05:01):
out in this elaborate scheme.
And so Gabe, sitting hereacross from me, raises his hand
and notices a businessopportunity in that, which is
what you currently do.
So why don't you describe tothe listeners like what you
currently do for a living andwhy I had to give this elaborate
?

Speaker 2 (05:16):
yeah, background on the sochi olympics.
Yeah, certainly, I mean spot on.
I mean it was a wild scandalthat you know, quite frankly,
rockeded the sports world,particularly the Olympic
movement and the wholeanti-doping system, and shined a
bright light on, I think, someinadequacies that were present.

(05:40):
The founding of our company,innovero, which we basically
were born directly out of thatscandal and it really came
together from a New York Timesarticle, I think in 2016, where
literally urine samplecollection bottles were on the

(06:00):
front page of the New York Timesand they were at the center of
that whole scandal.
And it made it really difficultfor national anti-doping
organizations like USADA,professional sport leagues like
Major League Baseball and someselect other kind of North
American groups to go to theirathletes and their biggest

(06:21):
stakeholders and say, hey, youcan have trust in this system,
it works, it's great, thecollection equipment's good and
it just rang really hollow right, like you can't have the
industry standard, trusted kindof piece of equipment that you
know the highest profileathletes in the world rely on to
protect their careers, be atthe center of a scandal and have

(06:41):
people trust that system.
So you know, people,organizations started looking at
alternatives and quickly foundthere wasn't a really good,
solid alternative out there thatthey could put their trust in
and have their athletes puttheir trust in.
So you know fortunately for me,you know the likes of USADA,
the US Anti-Doping Agency, andMajor League Baseball pulled

(07:04):
some resources together andfounded Inovero to develop
state-of-the-art, high-securitysample collection equipment to
better serve their athletes andthe world's athletes.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
And I think it's a good illustration on a couple of
fronts.
One is just entrepreneurship atits best.
I mean the way that youdescribe it.
Hey, this was on the front pageof the New York Times, right?
Yeah, this is on the front pageof the New York Times.
Let's make a business to try tobring some competition into the
marketplace.
But I also think that it'sinteresting from an anti-doping

(07:35):
perspective, because we think alot of times that these
processes are very simplistic innature, are very simplistic in
nature and this is part of theconversation that I had with one
of your former colleagues,tammy Hansen, a couple of weeks
ago where an athlete pees into acup or a sample collection
bottle.
They pee into a cup, that urineturns red or green.
It's either hot or cold.

(07:56):
We actually use that vocabulary.
Somebody pisses hot and theneverything magically works out
the way it should have.
But even the sample collectionbottle right?
Something that's fundamental.
Right, somebody's putting theirbiology into it.
Right, they're puttingsomething that is being excreted
out of their body into it andit's getting transported to a
lab.
Something as quote unquotesimple as that needed

(08:19):
re-engineering and innovation.
Right, to use your word, to addintegrity.
Right, or to bring backintegrity to the whole system.

Speaker 2 (08:28):
Yeah, it's not unlike any other industry, like I've
always said.
You know, as we've looked atkind of the marketplace through
the lens of Innovero, like themoment you have stagnation,
innovation stops and you needinnovation to continue to be
competitive.
And you need to have innovationin order for you know the
market to move, so to speak, andto continue at kind of that

(08:50):
forefront of kind of theindustry.
In that way, and in order foryou know athletes to have trust
in a system and not have massivescandals happen.

(09:13):
Your equipment needs to bechanging, your processes need to
be changing.
In the training.
You know ultra marathontraining world, I'm sure your
training schedules constantlyhave to be training, so it's
just stagnation never leads toanything overly good.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
Yeah, I really appreciate that sentiment in all
industries, right, and not justin sport.
Okay, so with that table set, Ialways love that story.
You, out of a lot of the peoplethat I come into contact with
and a lot of my colleagues, youhave the best stories and that's
just one of them.
We're going to.
We might talk about a few ofthem throughout the course of
this podcast.
We'll see how many of themactually bubble up to the

(09:48):
surface because you've got thebest ones working with the UFC.
So we're going to go backseveral years and the reason
that we're doing this to kind oflay it out for the listeners a
little bit, because this isgoing to be a trip down memory
lane is that several years agothe UFC contacted USADA to come

(10:08):
in and create an anti-dopingprogram for them, when one
didn't really exist, or at leasta fractured system existed at
the time.
And the reason that story inyour experience is important is
because trail running is in avery similar situation and I
think that a lot of listenerswill start to hear these analogs
as you walk through a littlebit of that experience.

(10:29):
But before we get into this,I'm going to brag on you a
little bit because you're anexperienced person in the sphere
.
You worked for USADA for almost11 years.
Nearly five of them was withinthis UFC program.
Five of them was within thisUFC program and having done that

(10:49):
for that long of a period oftime gives you scope for the
beginning, the middle and nowthe end of that UFC USADA
relationship, which we're notgoing to get into too much, and
I think that is extremelyimportant to see all aspects of
that.
So we're going to start at thebeginning.
I've been a fan of mixed martialarts way before they were on

(11:10):
ESPN, back, way before they wereeven on Fox uh sports, when
they were on spike TV way backin the day, and I remember this
whole.
I remember this whole storylinequite well.
From a business perspective,the UFC was trying to become a
quote-unquote legitimate sport.
They had a very clear directivein front of them they wanted to

(11:31):
grow their audience size.
They wanted to grow theirmarket size.
They wanted to be on ESPN.
That was one of their goldstandards, one of the pieces of
that not certainly the onlypiece, but one of the pieces and
one of the ways that they weretrying to legitimize this cage
fighting sport, which wasridiculed in a lot of sporting,

(11:52):
a lot of sporting world,certainly is illegal in a lot of
States.
One of the key components ofthat was bringing anti-doping
into that, into the sport itself, from a very, not from an early
stage stage, but at least themiddle part of their middle part
of their business development.
So they contact usada you'reworking at usada at the time,

(12:15):
you have worked at usada at thetime.
Take us through how thatinitial conversation in that
initial planning processactually started, and looking at
this new sport and how are wegoing to solve for this sport.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
Yeah, I'm going to have to jog my memory because it
was a number of years ago, butthere had been ongoing
conversations between the twoorganizations for months about
what a potential anti-dopingprogram could look like for the
promotion and the sport and Ithink there was a pretty healthy
learning curve on bothorganizations' parts to
understand kind of what it wouldlook like if the two got into

(12:49):
bed with each other.
You know, I think USADA camefrom that kind of relationship,
from here's the anti-dopingprograms that we've run in the
past, mainly in the Olympicspace but also had dabbled in
kind of the professional boxingspace a little bit.
So there was some familiaritywith the combat sports space and
kind of the dynamics andrelationships that existed with

(13:12):
some of the state athleticcommissions that regulate.
So you know, I think theconversations continue to get
more and more productive to thepoint of it made sense, goals
aligned.
And I think, looking at itpurely just from USADA's
perspective at the time this wasan organization that was
looking to do the right thingfor their athletes and to really

(13:35):
set out to clean up their sportand we're able to get to a
point where had very productiveconversations on what the rules
were going to be that theirathletes were held accountable
to, and once we reachedagreeance on the rules,
obviously there was a financialcomponent to it as well.
But then it was really whatdoes it look like to implement a

(13:55):
program for this?
And that's where I came in andI was, fortunate enough, I was
pretty early on in my career andthe powers that be at USADA
asked me to kind of transitionover to run that program and I
saw it as a really awesomeopportunity and, you know, went
in kind of headfirst to it andstarted the launch and rollout
of that program.

Speaker 1 (14:12):
All right.
So we're going to talk a lotabout what you did, but let's
set the table even further,because this is where the
parallels actually start.
So, previous to USADA coming inand running the UFC's
anti-doping program, they hadthis very fractured system to
where the state athleticcommissions handled various
components of this.
So the Nevada state athleticcommission, california state

(14:33):
athletic commission, new Yorknow, as it stands, the races are
the key stakeholders in this.
The races all decide.
This is the rule framework thatwe're going to use.

(14:55):
We're going to communicate thatrule framework across the
athletes in this manner.
Some of them are going toborrow from WADA standards, some
of them are going to make uptheir own.
Other ones are not going toborrow from water standards.
Some of them are going to kindof make up their own, other ones
are not going to have kind ofanything at all.
And I want you to take, likethe listeners, through what you,
how you eventually started tolook at that fractured landscape
within all of the differentstate athletic commissions, just

(15:17):
to get your feet wet into interms of what was actually
happening.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
Yeah, I mean it's spot on.
It was very fractured in thatdifferent jurisdictions mainly
the states that had these stateathletic commissions that
regulated the sport all hadslightly different but slightly
similar rule sets and it wasvery inconsistent from, I think,
the athlete's perspective andfrom the UFC's perspective from

(15:42):
the promotion and, when you'vegot some states that have
marijuana, for example, theUFC's perspective from the
promotion and when you've got,you know, some states that have
you know marijuana, for example,as a prohibited substance and
other states that don't, andhave athletes be subject to a
penalty in some states for asubstance but not, you know,
subject to that same penalty ina different state, just based on
purely the rules andregulations that existed in that

(16:03):
jurisdiction.
I think.

Speaker 1 (16:04):
Or the law, or the law.
Yeah, there was certainly thatpart of it, as well.

Speaker 2 (16:08):
But you quickly got to a point where you saw the
inconsistency from state tostate and you saw the need for
kind of a harmonized rule setthat all athletes, regardless of
where they were competing,needed to be kind of held
accountable to.
And that's really where, youknow, I think USADA came in to
be able to help assist anddevelop.

(16:28):
You know, that rule set thatcould be applied across all the
jurisdictions, although therewas certainly some, you know,
dynamics at play with the stateathletic commission's rules
still very much applied.
But to have kind of thisoverarching rule set that all
athletes were subject to madeeducation very much applied, but
to have kind of thisoverarching rule set that all
athletes were subject to madeeducation very kind of.

(16:48):
I don't want to say easy, butwe could take a consistent
approach on what we had toeducate on so athletes could go
be successful regardless ofwhere they were going to fight.

Speaker 1 (16:58):
Okay, so, speaking of athletes being successful and
where they're going to fight,it's beyond the US, and this is
another parallel that we've gotwith trail and ultra running.
So the UFC, at any one point intime, has about 600 fighters on
their roster all over the world.
All over the world US, brazil,asia, europe, africa, you name

(17:18):
it.
They've got them everywhere,all different languages.
And here's Gabe raising hishand in the USADA offices just a
few miles from my house, righthere, saying I want to figure
out how to implement a rule setand anti-doping across all those
athletes in every singlecountry.
And not only that, there's alsoan ecosystem baked around all of

(17:39):
the athletes.
In most cases, they have acoach, they have a trainer, they
have a nutritionist, they haveany sort of other gurus you know
kind of in their surroundingsthat are now influencing the
athlete on any number ofdifferent things supplements,
training, diet, nutrition, sleeppatterns, all these other
things.
And that's a job that Iwouldn't want.

(18:00):
But yet you raised your handand you wanted a big part of it.
I don't even know where tostart, because the athletes
themselves and where they arelocated is enormous in and of
itself.
So you can have the floor,because you went through the
entire process.
Where did you like start tocommunicate the rules?

(18:21):
What are the rules?
How are we going to go andimplement them?
What are the some of theinitial things that you had to
take on to solve for thisproblem?

Speaker 2 (18:27):
Yeah, I mean, there's something good about being
young and naive, I think rightLike you don't know until you
know, right Type of approach.
But what a fun challenge, right,like to look at that program
and not fully appreciating kindof the scope and breadth of what
it ultimately was.
But know, I don't have theexact numbers, at one point I
did I think there was athletesin 46 different countries

(18:50):
speaking 18 different languages.
Um, that came from various likeeducational backgrounds.
Right, like you look at some ofthe athletes that we had to
educate, like some of of themdidn't, you know, read or write
past an eighth grade level.
So how do you take, you know,complex, intricate anti-doping

(19:10):
rules and communicate it to anathlete who has never even heard
of anti-doping and then allowthem to be successful in that
program?
That was a really big challengeand that was kind of front and
center in our minds as westarted launching that program.
We knew once the rules wereestablished, like education was
a paramount part of that programand being able to educate as

(19:35):
many athletes as we possiblycould was the first kind of key
piece that we needed to tacklewhen implementing that program
and, as you know, we hashed outkind of our implementation plan.
You know we had to tackle whenimplementing that program and,
as you know, we hashed out kindof our implementation plan.
You know we had to get in frontof athletes, so like we sat on
the road, like we literally wereon a traveling roadshow for the
better part of like six to ninemonths and when we hit every

(19:56):
major gym in the U S, everymajor gym in Brazil, I think we
were in Japan, australia allthroughout Europe.

Speaker 1 (20:03):
I think we were in Japan.
I think we're in this countryacross the ocean.
It was all a blur at some point.

Speaker 2 (20:08):
It was literally just from one country to the next to
educate and get in front, ofcourse, the athletes, but also
encourage athlete supportpersonnel to come To your point,
the nutritionists, the coach,the trainers, whoever else
touched the athletes or had animpact on athletes' lives and
careers.
We wanted to make sure theywere educated, or at least had
the chance to be educated, onwhat this new program was going

(20:29):
to look like.
So the education piece was soimportant to building a strong
foundation to, I think,ultimately set that program up
for a certain level of successthat we saw.

Speaker 1 (20:40):
So one of the things with the education piece that
you and I and some of yourcolleagues and I have talked
about is because it's new to theathletes.
You expect to receive a certainamount of pushback on any
component of the system, theframework, the actual doping
controls themselves.
You know the atom system andthe whereabouts system and the

(21:01):
band substances and the bandmethods and things like that
about system and the bandsubstances and the band methods
and things like that.
I wonder if there's an easy wayto kind of encapsulate just
some of those types of pushbackthat you were getting from the
community as you were going onthis like epic roadshow around
the world to educate theseathletes and their teams that
are around them.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yeah, I think there was an anticipated level of
hesitation.
You know, with the program wewent to gyms and you know, kind
of had our standard deck ofeducation materials that we
would run through and talk toathletes about.
But you know, more importantly,I think, tried to keep it very
conversational and open it upfor questions and I think the
question we most commonly gotwas well, how does this impact

(21:40):
me?
Right, like this new program,these new rules, like how does
it impact me?
What's it going to do to mycareer?
What happens if I test positive?
What happens if I inadvertentlytest positive?
Like all these differentquestions, I think started to
get, you know, the wheelsturning and a lot of fighters
and coaches and trainers headsof, okay, how do we map out a
plan to success for our athleteswith that?

(22:03):
So you know, I don't recall anylike specific kind of items of
pushback, like the whereaboutspiece is always a little bit of
a concern for athletes.
Can you describe that beforeyou?

Speaker 1 (22:14):
go forward, just so everybody understands what that
means.

Speaker 2 (22:16):
In the Olympic space as well as in the UFC program.
You know athletes were requiredand are required to provide
their whereabouts 365 days ayear, 24, seven, and I think at
face value.
And by whereabouts I mean like,where are you going to sleep at
night, what are your traininglocations, what time are you
going to be there?
And then if you're going tojump on a plane and you want to

(22:38):
go to Arizona for training, youneed to update and tell us that.
Or if I want to go on vacationwith my family to Mexico, you
need to update and tell us that.
So like and the purpose of thatis.
The purpose of that is to beable to locate athletes anytime,
anyplace, for no advance noticetesting, essentially.

(22:59):
So this is probably one of thebiggest burdens that are placed
on athletes that participate ina pretty thorough anti-doping
program is having to providetheir locations 24-7.
Like it's a huge burden and noone's really figured out a good
way to get around that yet.

Speaker 1 (23:18):
Yeah, the athletes are just like chip me, Literally
Put a GPS chip on me and thenyou know where I'm at Exactly.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
And as technology, you know, continues to evolve
and develop and obviously oursmartphones are great tools, you
know, for that but we've yet tosee like a full-blown GPS
tracking solution out there thatallows athletes to just say you
know what, I'm going to optinto this and let you know the
person who's supposed to test me, find me with, based off the
whereabouts app, like that Ithink is ripe for opportunity,
but we're not there yet.
And back to kind of youroriginal point of gives more

(23:50):
context on whereabouts, likeit's literally providing your
location 24 seven.
And that comes with some teethon it.
If you don't do it, and youdon't do that three times in a
12 or 18 month period I can'trecall exactly what the window
is at this point but you couldbe subject to a suspension.
Yeah, so it's a really integralpart of those anti-doping
programs, but it comes with ahuge burden on athletes.

Speaker 1 (24:12):
Well, and it's interesting also because some
athletes previous to beingsubject to any sort of doping
control will literally go offthe grid for their training.
As part of effective training,I just want to go and isolate
myself in the mountains andtrain like a monk, right, and I
don't want anybody to talk to me.
I don't want to have anycontact intentionally and other

(24:33):
athletes will want to do that todope Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (24:42):
It's a really fine line and I can think of
instances.
You know, with a global programthat we were running, I can
think of examples of in Russiain particular.
We're trying to show up to testathletes in Russia and it was a
town in Russia that you'venever heard of and they
literally were three miles up amountain in some mountain hut
training and their point was Iphysically can't provide a
location because no addressexists here Right, so like it's

(25:05):
that fine balance of looking atthis from one a sport
perspective and where athletestrain and live, and not
everything is us centric tooRight, like we don't all have a
physical address.
That's one, two, three, fourmain street and you can find me
here 24 seven, you know.
I got to imagine in the kind ofultra trail running space, like
you're literally off the gridfor days at a time.

Speaker 1 (25:27):
Yeah, sometimes I mean and once again to your
point where not everybody has anaddress, that's quite common in
Europe, right?
How do you go and tracksomebody down?
So certainly a point ofconsternation.
Okay, so you're going in andyou're traveling around, you and
your posse, you and your yousaw to posse you're going and
traveling around to all of thegyms and to all the fighters and

(25:48):
to all their networks aroundthe entire world and all of
these different and all of thesedifferent languages.
One of the things that that Ifound interesting and unique
about the program rollout that Ithink is worth discussing is
this period of no fault that Idon't know what the origin story
of it is and maybe you canactually, maybe you can actually

(26:09):
clarify this for me.
But there was a period of timethat USADA was going through
their anti-doping program, justlike they would with their
entire roster of athletes, butthere was no consequence to it.
Why don't you explain, like howthat originally formed, like
what the idea of that is andwhat the everybody learned from
that?
Both USADA and the fighters andtheir teams learned from that

(26:31):
whole?

Speaker 2 (26:31):
process.
Yeah, I mean, I think at facevalue it was just it was a huge
like this is going to be a fairprogram and we're going to put
athletes' interests first.
Like it is, we didn't want tobe in a situation where we were
leading lambs to the slaughterright and I think that was
really important.
In that the education componentwas critical, in that you can't
have athletes subject to arobust anti-doping program

(26:56):
without them knowing the rulesvery well, or at least having an
opportunity to know the rulesvery well, and they need to know
what can they put in their bodyand what they can't put in
their body.
They need to know the risksassociated with dietary
supplements and risks with beingassociated maybe with a certain
medical practice or whatever itmay be.
So that period of no fault wasprimarily for us to give us a

(27:21):
little bit of a runway to getall the education we needed done
in that initial kind of sixmonths of the program launching.

Speaker 1 (27:29):
That's a lot.
That's kind of what I wasgetting at Like.
It's six months.
It's not only you and your teamtraveling around.
It's this six month no faultprogram that you had all in an
effort to initially educate theathletes and the people around
them.
Now I'm going to ask you thisnext question is Gabe being

(27:49):
removed from it with some sortof clarity?
now that you've kind of seen ittranspire.
Was it enough?
Was all of that effort, was itenough?
And if it wasn't, are thereareas where you would have gone
back and said I wish we wouldhave done X, y or Z?

Speaker 2 (28:04):
differently Was the six months enough.

Speaker 1 (28:07):
The whole thing, the education and the no fault piece
.

Speaker 2 (28:10):
Yeah, that's a really good question to think.
So, yeah, like being six yearsremoved from that program and
that job and looking back at,you know, the level of effort
was made to educate athletes andgive them that that period of
time to kind of assimilate tothe new rule set, I think was

(28:35):
adequate and I also think youshould appreciate that it was
also a stair-stepped approach tothe implementation of the
testing.
And that's where the teeth of aprogram really come in right.
The rules are really importantbut the rules don't do a whole
lot if you're not out theredoing testing right and then
getting results back from alaboratory.

(28:58):
So while we spent a six-monthperiod educating, when we
started implementing the actualtesting program, it wasn't zero
to 60, it was, I think we juststarted primarily like in
competition testing, so atevents, and you'll hear a lot
kind of in the anti-dopingcircles.

(29:19):
Well, in competition testing iskind of an intelligence test in
in some ways right, like you,even even when it was before
that you had the state athleticcommissions testing primarily in
competition.
So you always knew thepossibility that you could be
tested in connection, you know,with that.
So you know, I think, by way offocusing on education for six

(29:39):
months and then taking astair-stepped approach to
implementing a full program.
I think it was close to 18months before we had a
full-blown program in place thatwe were contracted to do.

Speaker 1 (29:52):
And that context is really important.
That's a big commitment.
It's not turning on a lightswitch all of a sudden from one
side to the other, like youdon't have a program and then
one month or one week later youhave a program, a program, and
then one month or one week lateryou have a program.
You all, being the experts, aredeliberately taking this to use
your vocabulary, astair-stepped approach, in order

(30:13):
to make sure that everything isfair and also to give
opportunity to work some of thekinks out within any number of
different places where that'sjust going to happen.
A worldwide system where you'vegot so many different moving
parts and also the consequencesof the results are very high as
well.
Results meaning a lot ofdifferent types of results the

(30:34):
athletic results, the results ofthe anti-doping program, the
results of the monitoring system, kind of everything gets lumped
into that.
A lot of people will come upwith the criticism or have the
impression that it's just toomuch, it's too complicated.
Why don't we just test for EPOand testosterone and then give

(30:56):
lifetime bans for everybody?
Why does it have to be thatcomplicated?
For the people who are thinkingthat.

Speaker 2 (31:02):
Yeah, I mean it's a fair question.
I think it's a fair thoughtthinking that.
Yeah, I mean it's a fairquestion, I think it's a fair
thought, you know, as someonewho's spent most of their career
working in anti-doping, youknow I think I'd probably
understand and appreciate kindof the intricacies and ins and
outs of the system better thanthe person probably listening to
the podcast.
Right, you know, and I thinkthe answer is athletes, or and

(31:25):
not only athletes, just peoplethat want to exploit the system,
can find a loophole and a smallloophole and they can drive a
truck through it quickly if theywant.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
So I think Russia brings the KGB in.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
Right, right, they're going to find a way.
We're going to find a way.
So I think you know, from anoverall system perspective, like
you need to keep it as tight aspossible, but you have to
balance that with the athletefairness piece and it's this
constant kind of balance andsong and dance of in order to
have a super strong, robustanti-doping program.

(31:59):
We have to have X, y and Z, butthe impact of that is often man
, that's a huge burden onathletes.
And then you know, I thinkthere's the impact of that is
all often man, that's a hugeburden on athletes.
And then you know, I thinkthere's the the kind of value
proposition component to it aswell, of you put all these
resources, you put all thismoney, you put all this effort
and you get, you know, less than1% of athletes that typically

(32:21):
test positive.

Speaker 1 (32:22):
Yeah, that's the criticism.
That's the criticism of it.

Speaker 2 (32:24):
Right, but it's you know, I think it's, it's
something that will never stopbeing asked, and the moment it
is when the market becomesstagnant and people are saying,
oh, we're good, we can becomplacent.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
I remember.
So I remember once again I'm afan.
I'm going to come at this froma fan perspective.
I remember when this rolled outto the UFC and the criticism
across the first six or 12months of the program was if
drugs are this big of a problembecause that was kind of part of
the pitch, right, the cultureis rotten.
Everybody's on testosterone andsteroids and everything else.

(32:58):
We're going to come in and fixthis.
If the culture is rotten andUSADA comes in with the you know
the superhero cape, you shouldcatch some cheaters.
And I think within the firstsix months of the program there
were like two positives.
It was a very small handful, andthe criticism that emanated
from that was one of efficacy,right, you're not catching
people, and I kind of look at itas you know what.

(33:19):
They did a good job educatingthe athletes in advance and
weeding everything out so thatthe you know, so that people
didn't get caught up in thesystem like later on the down
the road.
But I get both sides of thatRight and so I just remember,
like I said, I just rememberthat unfolding in real time as
being a criticism, but it issomething that you have to

(33:40):
balance, right.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
Yeah, certainly, and I think as we looked at that
program, we wanted to catchintentional cheaters in that
process.
It doesn't do USADA any good,the UFC any good any
organization that's running ananti-doping program to go out
and just pick off everyunintentional cheater right Like

(34:05):
.
And that's where I think thecriticism of it was in part
because we took six to ninemonths to educate and it gave
athletes an opportunity tochange a behavior right Like.
If and we heard obviously allthe rumblings coming in it's a
dirty sport.
Athletes are intentionallycheating and again I go back to
we didn't want to be in asituation where it was lambs to

(34:25):
slaughter, it was.
We need to be fair and measuredin our approach.
We need to give athletes anopportunity to know what the
rules are and we need to giveathletes an opportunity to
change behavior.

Speaker 1 (34:34):
Change behavior, meaning they're using a
prohibitive substance beforehandand now they need to not use it
.
I mean, I hate to like cutthrough it that sharply, but
that's literally what you mean,that's literally what I mean.

Speaker 2 (34:44):
So so you need to change that behavior right, and
you couldn't do it justnecessarily overnight.
So so I think, yeah, wrong orotherwise, was it harshly
criticized?
You know, six, nine months inof where all the positive tests,
why have only two people beencaught, you know?
So you know, I just hope thatgives some context.
As far as you know, we took avery fair and athlete friendly

(35:05):
approach as we tried toimplement that program.

Speaker 1 (35:08):
I think the learning lesson from that is is you
always have to take a long-termviewpoint with these things.
You can't evaluate it off of 12months of success or 18 months
of success or even 24, you gotto look like five or 10 years
out on the road and everybodyalways holds cycling up as the
example.
But it actually is a good one.
Inothingham telling me thisyears ago the solutions to it

(35:50):
are never perfect.
They are always going to be metwith some level of imperfection
and the pathway through thatimperfection to use your
vocabulary again is to stair,step up or ratchet up what you
are doing over periods of time.
You're using an iterativeprocess to solve for this

(36:12):
problem.

Speaker 2 (36:14):
Yeah, 100%.
I mean, there is no perfectsystem.
I think it's the pursuit ofthat perfect system that we're
all focused on.
And you look at the vocalcritics of anti-doping out there
now, not from kind of theoutside looking in at
anti-doping, but people that are, you know, career people within
anti-doping, that are alwaysconstantly trying to improve the

(36:37):
system and trying to improvethe governance and trying to
improve, you know, theprohibited list or whatever it
may be Like.
There's this constant focus oncontinuing to improve,
continuing the hands to make ita more fair, more just, more
athlete-friendly system.

Speaker 1 (36:53):
Yeah, and that's something that I think a lot of
people don't realize that goeson behind the scenes.
Usada has always been a greatadvocate towards WADA in
changing things like that,whether it's procedurally, or
things on the prohibitive list,which get changed every year.
Every year and normally USADAhas a little bit of a thumbprint
on those types of changes and Ithink that that should

(37:13):
absolutely be recognized.
Okay, so let's try to solve forthis problem.
Right, we've gone through yourexperience and now we get to
kind of publicly pick your brainon how we can solve it for
ultra running.
You know a little bit about thesport.
You and I have conversed alittle bit.
I've also had a conversationwith my colleague, who you have,
who you've now been introducedto in current Malcolm, who's

(37:35):
head of the professional trialrunners associations anti-doping
working group, at aconversation with her and a
podcast that was released lastweek, mainly on kind of the
business side of it.
So how do we solve this as abusiness?
So we're going to leave thatside of it out right, we're
going to wave a magic wand andwe're going to fundraise $5
million or whatever it is.
It's not that much.

(37:56):
At the end of the day, it'smanageable within our ecosystem,
but we'll put that aside justfor conversation sake.
So let's say we have the money,just for conversation sake.
So let's say we have the money.
We have a chosen anti-dopingentity to manage it.
Let's just call it USADA.
It could be the AFLD, it couldbe anybody else, but they're
going to kind of operate with asimilar blueprint.
What happens next?

(38:17):
If I were to hire Gabe awayfrom your current business right
now and said hey, dude, like,solve this for us.
Knowing what you know about thecommunity and about how the
races operate and where theathletes are located and what
the coaches are dealing with,and all of my personal gripes
that I've brought to you overthe years, how would you start
to solve for this?

Speaker 2 (38:38):
I don't think it's rocket science.
I think the blueprint is thereIn my mind, the piece that seems
to be missing is kind of thisunifying body that brings kind
of athletes together and racestogether and is able to put
together a rule set thateverybody can agree to on that

(39:01):
and then from there I think it'snot hard to go out and find the
service provider to be able toadminister.
That program is how Iunderstand the space, based on
my conversations with you andbased off this conversation with
Kareem.
So I just what does it take toget?

Speaker 1 (39:18):
Yeah, but it's so easy, why don't we have it yet?
Come on man, Come on bro.

Speaker 2 (39:21):
I don't know the space well enough to you know,
wage my wagwan and snap myfingers to say, voila, it's done
.
But yeah, I guess I questionback to you is like what would
it take for that to happen?
And then I think theanti-doping piece falls into
place fairly easily and there'sa real well mapped out kind of
pathway and blueprint to followwhen that happens.

Speaker 1 (39:41):
Well.
So what has gone on in thebackground?
And I think a little bit whatyou're alluding to is I've spent
a few days with your former COO, matt Sticchio, mapping this
very thing out, and it didn'ttake us very long.
To be quite frank with you, wecame up with a framework in I
don't know, two or threedifferent brainstorming sessions
that maybe took 90 minutesapiece with a couple people in

(40:01):
the room, and that framework is.
It's not perfect, right Toalluding to what I was
discussing earlier.
It's not perfect, but it'sreasonable to start with.
And finding the organizationcertainly isn't the linchpin
right, or finding the serviceprovider certainly isn't the
linchpin.
I think there's a small hurdlein finding the funding for it,

(40:23):
and mainly it's not the totalamount of funding, because the
industry is big enough.
There's enough economy goingaround that if we whittle the
pool down to 100 or 150 people,which is probably what we're
talking about, that's not thatmuch money.
It's the multi-year commitmentpiece that is the biggest deal,
because I think you have to lookbeyond three or four years.

(40:44):
You've got to look five, six,seven years, and having a
secured source of funding is alot scarier when you look that
far down the road.
But the thing that I kind ofkeep coming, and certainly the
willpower is there.
The athletes want it, the racedirectors want it, the brands
want it, the coaches want it.
I'm raising my hand.
That's why I've been doing thisfor the past few years.
I certainly want it.

(41:04):
So the willpower is there.
There's a coordination effortthat I think is really lacking.
There needs to be a person or afew people in a leadership
position to galvanize all of thedifferent stakeholders in the
community to make actuallyeverything happen, not just
theorizing it in meetings andcoming up with frameworks, like

(41:26):
I've done, and things like that,like actually sitting down and
doing the work.
And the difficult part in thatis is somebody has got to raise
their hand and volunteer to doit, and that's a hard person or
people to find.

Speaker 2 (41:38):
Sure, do you think it's the chicken and the egg in
that, and we're not going totalk about the business side of
it?
If the funding was there andyou said, hey, in year one we've
got $250,000 that is going togo towards standing this up,
like if you hire the rightpersonnel, would it happen?

Speaker 1 (41:56):
That would be.
That would reduce a barrier toentry If you had funding for
people to actually work insteadof be volunteers for it.

Speaker 2 (42:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (42:07):
That would be that that would reduce a barrier for
entry.
I don't know if that's thebiggest one, though, because at
the end of the day, you can lookthrough the window a little bit
and see how this can play out.
It's a self-appointed positionfor all intents and purposes.
That is probably.
Even if you do some fundraisingfor it, that's probably pretty

(42:27):
poorly paid or not paid at all.
If you don't get fundraisingfor it, that is rife with
controversy, you get all of thecriticism and very little of the
kudos, and not a lot of peopleare going to stand up and raise
their hand for that.
There's a lot of people thatshould because there's people in
the community that will, youknow, do any different number of
things to bitch and moan aboutstuff, but for the people to

(42:49):
actually take action, I reallyhate to cast a shadow of a doubt
on the community, because thecommunity is actually quite
wonderful, but to find thatperson is not an easy thing, or
for that person to emerge is notan easy thing.

Speaker 2 (43:01):
Yeah, I mean there's a certain component of it.
It's kind of thankless work insome ways.
Like you, better be comfortablebeing a bit of a punching bag
for the first year 18 months.

Speaker 1 (43:11):
You sound like you're coming at it from personal
experience.

Speaker 2 (43:14):
But yeah, it's fine and it's good because it's the
right thing to do.
And I think you can beprincipled in your approach.
You know, as you look at thattype of opportunity Like it's a
selfless job, in that you'redoing it for the good of the
sport and for the good of sportas a whole, not just trail
running and to draw parallelsback to previous experience, you
want to do what's right forathletes and you want to see the

(43:34):
best athlete win.
And if performance is beingartificially enhanced.
Does anyone want to see thatperson win?

Speaker 1 (43:44):
Who's your analogy?
then, Does anyone want to seethat person win?
Who's your analogy then?
Like, if we go into the trailand ultra space, do you need a
team of people that travelaround the world to all the
training venues and like, get infront of people to educate?
Like, what does that piece act?
Cause I think that's important,yeah, something that you've
mentioned, that's something thatTammy's mentioned, that
everybody, every time I havethis conversation occurring
theme is we have to get in frontof athletes somehow to tell

(44:06):
them that these are the rules,here's how they're going to be
implemented, here's what'scoming down the pipeline.
Be ready for it, becauseultimately, it's your
responsibility, a strictliability.
How does that emerge in thisspace?
Because here's the difference,where you have to kind of put
your brainstorming hat on.
In the UFC analogy or with anyother NGB, it's the NGB saying

(44:27):
you have to play a part of this.
Sure, you have to, you want it,you want to be a fighter in the
UFC.
This is the deal.
Sorry, bro, sorry, sorry ladies, this is a part.
This is absolutely a part ofthe deal.
It's baked into the entiresystem here.
Sure, we can determine a pool,but there's gotta be a committee
that determines who the pool isand that that I guess that
institutional way of getting anathlete into the right

(44:52):
organizational system doesn'texist.
So how do you, how would youthink that this group solves for
that?

Speaker 2 (44:59):
I think you've got to find a starting point and you
and I've had enoughconversations where you know
it's probably not going tohappen overnight and you're
going to take some baby steps toslowly get to the point where
you'll be able to consider abigger, more robust program.
And there's certainly some highprofile races now in the ultra

(45:21):
space and trail running spacethat pay really good money.
What are the anti-dopingrequirements or drug testing
requirements from these racesthat are, you know,
well-sponsored, well-funded, youknow, probably PE backed?

Speaker 1 (45:35):
Yeah, you know so you know I?

Speaker 2 (45:38):
just at what point do the races start?
Really, you know, caring about?
We want the people that arecompeting in our race to be
clean.

Speaker 1 (45:51):
Can the races do that ?
Can the races say, hey, listen,we want to do out of
competition testing for thisgroup of athletes coming into
the race.
I mean, certainly that's not themost complete solution, but
would there be any anythingprohibiting a race?
Let's just say the Pikes Peakmarathon.
Right, you saw it.
It does the Pikes Peak incompetition drug testing.

(46:13):
But could they raise their handand say you know what, if we're
going to pay for, you know,gabe Bida's entry, we're going
to test him for the six monthsleading into this race and
whatever other athletes thatwe're going to give entries to.
Is that prohibitive anyway?
Or is that a reasonablestarting point that races could
actually once again waving themagic financial wand here?

Speaker 2 (46:34):
I don't know.
I'm not a lawyer so I can'treally answer that.
But I'm trying to think back tosome of the other similar
experiences that I've had, where, you know, we've had private
groups that came to us while wewere at USADA and say, hey,
we're going to contract you forlike boxing for example, and
we're going to enter anagreement with you and we're
going to enter.
We're in agreement with you andwe're going to.

(46:54):
You're going to do the incompetition testing at the fight
, but you're also going to do 12weeks before you're going to
run out of competition testingso so I suppose, and they're
telling you who the peopleyou're actually testing are yeah
, they're determining the poolessentially the person you're
contracting correct, it's thesepeople you don't need to get
involved in figuring out whothese people are.
We're going to tell you that somaybe there's some parallels

(47:17):
there with individual raceswhere you know, we know the
athletes that are going to berunning in our race and, as part
of you know the agreement wesign as an athlete to run in
that race, the jurisdictionapplies back x number of days, x
number of weeks where they canbe subject to, you know, various
anti-doping procedures, like Ialso think about the state

(47:39):
athletic commissions in bothboxing and the UFC space where I
think as soon as the stateathletic commission licensed the
fighter in their state, theyhad jurisdiction to test them,
type of thing.

Speaker 1 (47:54):
so not apples to apples but not far off is kind
of my thinking there since we'rekind of on this subject, I
wonder if you can explain to theusers when there is a private
contractor who determines who inthe pool is getting tested,
right, so we know who the poolis.
It's 600 tested, right?
So we know who the pool is.
It's 600 fighters.
Ufc sign on the dotted line.

(48:14):
You're now subject to this.
Yeah, how does it happen thatfighter A gets tested 10 times a
year and fighter B gets testedtwice a year and fighter C gets
tested one times a year?
How does that transpire?

Speaker 2 (48:28):
Yeah, I mean at USADA we had a pretty robust kind of
risk assessment tool that drovea lot of that.
There's some probably behindthe scenes things that I can't
necessarily talk about, but alot of the biological data that
you get from results obviouslydrive future testing plans.

Speaker 1 (48:47):
So you're looking at an athlete's biological profile
and saying this looks funny, oryou have a program that says
this looks funny or this doesn'tlook funny and you apply more
resource to it.

Speaker 2 (48:55):
Here's an abnormal result that we got.
It's not a positive test, buthere's an abnormal result that
may trigger some follow-uptesting.
As a result of that.
I also think, as you look atthe UFC program in particular,
but probably some parallels tothe trail running space how
often is an athlete competing?
Are they running one race ayear?
Are they fighting once a year?

(49:16):
Are they fighting five times ayear?
Three times a year?
Whatever that number is right.
You know, there's somethingthat went into kind of driving
our testing plans that coincidedwith how frequently was that
athlete competing as well In theUFC program in particular was.
You know it was reallyimportant to make sure we had
athletes tested in advance ofthem being like be fighting and

(49:39):
having results back as well,because, being a combat sport
man, it was a ton of risk with.
If you've got an athlete thatgoes and fights and then you get
a positive test and thatathlete inflicted serious bodily
harm to another person, there'sa liability element to it as
well.

Speaker 1 (49:55):
So you have to get the test back and potentially
adjudicate it in a reasonableenough time to clear an athlete
to fight another opponent.
Is what you're saying?

Speaker 2 (50:03):
Correct, yeah.
And we had you know mechanismsbuilt in where you could
expedite adjudication processesto have you know a decision.
You know right, wrong orotherwise, as far as you know
whether or not that athleteshould be able to compete.
So the pool.

Speaker 1 (50:19):
First off, to kind of encapsulate my question and
answer really quick, the pool iscreated by an external
organization.
In the UFC's case they saylisten, this is the five or 600
fighters that you havejurisdiction over.
Usada is then determining.
Here's how we deploy whatever,however many tests you had
budget for, right, we're goingto use some intelligence to do

(50:40):
that.
We're going to.
It's not going to be completelyrandom.
We're not throwing everybodyinto a random number generator
and just drawing names out ofhat.
We're going to use someintelligence to direct those
resources the most efficiently,in the most effective way,
effective way possible.
If you need to balk on thisquestion, that's totally fine,
cause I know there's a lot ofstuff under the hood that you're

(51:00):
not at liberty to talk about.
But I was wondering if you candivulge a little bit of what
goes into that intelligence.
What directs?
Johnny is going to get 10 testsand Susie's only going to get
one test.
Is there anything that wouldthat the listeners would
appreciate to know in that wholeprocess that you can like
elaborate on?

Speaker 2 (51:19):
Yeah, I think at a high level for sure, and I
touched on a couple of themalready, like competition
schedule, how often you'recompeting.
You know biological data thatwe get back on tests that have
been completed and obviouslyeach one of those tests is
screened for a panel of you knowprohibited substances, but also
looking at you know variousbiological markers that may be

(51:39):
indicative of performance,enhancing drug use.
And if any of those you knowkind of markers come back that
we see that isn't enough towarrant kind of a actionable
positive test or something tomove forward with you know
pursuing kind of a ruleviolation, then at a minimum it
may trigger a follow-up test.
So it's very strategic in thatregard, in that it's not just

(52:01):
you know thrown at the wall tosee what sticks and saying, hey,
we're going to test thisathlete five times, this athlete
twice and this athlete not atall.
I mean, it's very kind ofincremental in that we're
obviously going to start withthe first test and that first
test may trigger another testand that second test may trigger
a third test, and then, oh,this athlete is running or
fighting in three weeks, fiveweeks, six months, whatever it

(52:26):
may be.
Oh, here's a marquee eventcoming up.
It's the super bowl, for thesport is.
You know it's a big money purse.
Is there a higher incentive todope based off of the financial
reward that may exist with that?
So all those factors play intowhat that kind of strategic
testing plan is and looks like.

Speaker 1 (52:47):
Can I go back to the blood biomarker piece that you
mentioned at the beginning ofthat answer and maybe I can come
up with an analogy that you caneither refute or confirm.
So in the running world becauseI've heard of this done in
anti-doping circles you'll lookat hematocrit and or hemoglobin
as potential for somebody usingEPO.
Sure, so you might not be ableto detect the EPO, but you're

(53:09):
detecting the hematocrit and orhemoglobin increases, which then
gives you the ability to turnup the testing Is that a fair
analogy?

Speaker 2 (53:17):
Yeah, I think so.
I'm not a scientist so I don'tknow the specific ins and outs
with you know the red blood cellcounts and the hematocrit
levels and those you know typeof measurements that they're
doing.
But yes, as you look at, Ithink the biological data that
comes in it could triggerfollow-up testing.
For, as you look at, I thinkthe biological data that comes
in it could trigger follow-uptesting for specific you know

(53:37):
substances that may be thoughtthat could be being used as a
result of those.

Speaker 1 (53:40):
How much does the anonymous tip line fall into the
equation?

Speaker 2 (53:44):
Yeah, that was actually really interesting
during my time at the UFC, Likeyou had dynamics with, obviously
, guys fighting each other andthen you had competing gyms and
competing.
So you know our tip line waspretty active, it sounds like a
very politically correct answer.
Our tip line was pretty active,but you know that being said,

(54:06):
there was a prettywell-established process where
USADA has a team ofinvestigators that would
seriously look into those tipsand determine whether or not
they were actionable.
So just because we got a tipdidn't mean it was oh, we're
throwing the kitchen sink, youknow, from a testing perspective
at this person.
It was no, we'll put it in theexpert's hands, we'll let our
investigators look into it andwe'll let them come back and say

(54:27):
yeah, there was some actionableinformation here that we think
you should follow up of, or?
I think this is bogus and youshouldn't consider it seriously.

Speaker 1 (54:33):
But the fact of the matter is USADA gets a lot of
valuable information from thatanonymous tip line Like they.
In all my interactions withthem they have always encouraged
people, if they know anythingabout anything, to go ahead and
contact that, because they haveresource set up to do just what
you went through to filterthrough the nonsense, to get to

(54:55):
something that actually might beactionable.

Speaker 2 (54:57):
Yeah, I think they get a ton of data from it.
I mean, again, being five, sixyears removed from it.
I'm not sure what it looks liketoday, but I I think it's an
important piece of you know,providing not only athletes but
people who may know of you knowinappropriate activity going on
that can report it in ananonymous way and not be kind of
viewed as that snitch in someways.

Speaker 1 (55:17):
So I mean, I imagine I'm kind of throwing the
fighters underneath the bus.
They're all typically verylovely people but I imagine
that's at least a point ofconsternation because of the
competitive nature of that sportand because of the
personalities within that sportas well.
They're absolutely going tothink that there's a conspiracy
theory against them, that theygot tested, you know, six times

(55:40):
in the last two months orwhatever, because it's so-and-so
in the rival gym that you knowlike bugging the anonymous tip
line the whole time.

Speaker 2 (55:47):
It actually got to a point where you know we saw
fighters wear tests as a badgeof honor.

Speaker 1 (55:51):
It's like the more tests.

Speaker 2 (55:52):
I have I have, the cleaner I can demonstrate I am
like, the more it's beneficialto, I think, their personal
brand.
So we definitely saw kind ofthe testing pieces, a badge of
honor that athletes you know didkind of took upon themselves to
make it that not by no meanswas it us promoting that we
started to see this in the trialin ultra space.

Speaker 1 (56:11):
The last conversation we had I mentioned this is with
the afld is uh, which is frenchanti-doping.
They've somehow co-opted someof the elite french trail
runners into their system likean athletics athlete, so like
any other track and fieldathlete, and I don't profess to
exactly know what the mechanismbehind that is, whether it's
like a club type of license,like we see here, usa cycling or

(56:32):
whatever.
But one of the interestingthings that I've seen come about
because of that is the Frenchathletes that are now part of it
are now putting that out onsocial media, just in the vein
that you mentioned, which is asa badge of honor, like I've kind
of made it, you know and likehey, listen, like this is part
of the gig, Everybody get youknow, kind of get in line yeah,

(56:54):
I think so.

Speaker 2 (56:54):
I mean, I have always looked at kind of the
collection process as aninconvenience, but I've seen
just still, you know, followingfolks on social media of like
people embrace it a lot morewhen they get that first test or
that second test.
It's like I have made it.
I'm an elite enough athlete nowto be drug tested and there's

(57:15):
something like admirable aboutthat, I think.

Speaker 1 (57:19):
I want to go down the road a little bit further now
and we've talked about, like,the whole setup right, how to
set it up, how to go and educatethe athletes.
You have to have a system.
Everybody has to create,everybody has to kind of agree
upon the rules, even though wemight agree to disagree on some
of them.
We're going to have somebodyimplement the testing, somebody
do the results management, butat the end of the day, athletes

(57:41):
get caught and athletes getcaught cheating.
How did you like go around thegyms and like counsel the
athletes on that particularprocess, like somebody in here,
just as a proportion of mathright is going to have to go
through that process?
Yep, like, what was that like?

Speaker 2 (57:58):
Yeah, nothing stands out really when we were going
through that process of you knoweducating athletes on that
process and we spent a good time, you know, educating athletes
on how not to get yourself inthat process.

Speaker 1 (58:12):
How not to get tripped up in the system.
Yeah, yeah right.

Speaker 2 (58:15):
And again, we didn't want to lead lambs to the
slaughter and we didn't want tocatch unintentional cheaters or
punish unintentional cheaters.
I think is kind of the moreimportant piece with that.
But I think the important pieceis there is a process in place
that allows for a fair and justoutcome.
And if you took a supplementthat was contaminated and it was

(58:36):
relatively low risk, forexample, there is a pathway for
you to essentially get out ofjail free card type of thing.
And I think it's also importantas you look at the programs,
you know you always have theopportunity to go to an
arbitration where you have anindependent arbitrator.
You know, hear your case.
So it's not necessarily you sawto making the decision on that.

(58:59):
Yes, they make the initialdecision, but if the athlete
doesn't agree with that decision, they have the opportunity to
go have an independentarbitrator hear that where both
sides can present their case andit's an independent person who
makes that decision.
And I think kind of the scalesof justice are at play there,
right, and that's the piecewhere you know we talked a lot
about kind of the fairness ofwhat that adjudication process
looks like.

(59:20):
In the event you do findyourself in that.
But also, you know there wasmitigating factors, there was
kind of extenuatingcircumstances as well, that all
played in into that.
So you know there was a lot oftime spent on kind of the
intricacies of if you findyourself in this situation.

Speaker 1 (59:41):
Here's kind of the avenue and pathway that you're
going to go through on thatWithin the UFC program.
Is that something that USADAprovided, which would be more
analogous to how the how theyhave it with the NGBs, or is
that something that the UFCprovided for the fighters In
regards to just the arbit, thearbitration?

Speaker 2 (59:53):
eventually, I think the UFC paid the independent
arbitrator.
I think there was an agreement.

Speaker 1 (59:58):
the financial sticking point in a lot of these
negotiations is once you go toarbitration, your cost goes up
like tenfold.

Speaker 2 (01:00:04):
Yeah, it kind of gets ridiculous at that point.
You see that argument a lot inthe Olympic space with Cass and
just how cost prohibitive it isfrom the cast in the court of
arbitration for sport, yeah, soyeah, so I don't quote me on it,
but I think the arrangement wasthe independent arbitrator had
a separate agreement or theindependent arbitration kind of

(01:00:25):
committee had a separateagreement with the UFC on what
that kind of ultimately lookedlike and the costs associated
with that were.

Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
Because you had, I mean during the lifetime of that
program, and we're not going togo through all of those because
I don't want to give you anymore gray hairs, gabe.
There were several high profileinstances of where they had to
go through that adjudicationprocess and that is never any
fun because it's all in thepublic spotlight.
The athlete brings it in thepublic spotlight, the

(01:00:52):
anti-doping agency brings itinto the public spotlight and
here the agency that theathletes are competing
underneath, which is the UFC,brings it into the spotlight as
well.
The conflicting points all comeinto the spotlight and it gets
adjudicated both in the court ofpublic appeal, which is always
very tenuous and tricky, and italso gets adjudicated by a panel

(01:01:16):
of experts or an expert, andthose things inevitably come
into conflict, which creates alot of the consternation between
the public and anti-doping andathletes and things like that.
All of those arenas kind ofoverlapping at the same time
with any one particular issue.

Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
Yeah, it was front and center, you know, kind of
day in and day out of thatprogram.
Right Like the court of publicopinion was quick to judge, as
it always is, not just in, youknow the UFC, space or sports,
but even in everything anymore.
It just moves so fast, you know,with that.
But you know I think thatprocess takes time, right Like
it.
You know, in order for kind,for kind of.

(01:01:53):
Let's take, for example, if anathlete you know is claiming a
contaminated product or acontaminated dietary supplement
caused their positive test, well, it takes time to one, identify
what it was to go, source itindependently, send it off to a
lab test, confirm it.
Okay, that one wasn't it.
Let's go through that wholeprocess again.
So so there's a lengthy, you, Ithink, process that needs to

(01:02:16):
play out in order for a fairoutcome to be reached.

Speaker 1 (01:02:19):
Yeah, and here's the issue that I've always brought
up with.
That is that the people thatare deliberately cheating and
the people that genuinely havethat happen to them and there
are people in both of thosecategories use the exact same
excuses.
Both of those there are peoplein both of those categories use
the exact same excuses.

Speaker 2 (01:02:40):
I didn't know I had a contaminated this.

Speaker 1 (01:02:41):
my food from whatever burrito truck was contaminated
Like.
It's the?
It's no, seriously, it's theexact same thing.
And in the court of, in thecourt of public opinion, with
all due respect to the publicit's impossible to weed through
who is telling the truth and whois lying.
Even when you get the group ofexperts in the room and you've
seen the minutes from thosemeetings even when you get a
group of experts in the room,they will still disagree on

(01:03:03):
points, and these are people whohave been doing it for 20 years
and do it for a living.
So, anyway, I don't know why Ibring up that whole point, but
I'm sure that we will encounterthat as we start to unroll
different processes, becauseit's inevitable that we have
these two groups of people thatare doing very different things.
They're saying they're doingthe exact same thing.

Speaker 2 (01:03:23):
Yeah, it's the real challenge of the program, right?
Like how do you differentiatebetween kind of those two claims
?
You know with it and that'swhere you know I think the
adjudication process reallydives into that and that's where
you know I think theadjudication process really
dives into that.

Speaker 1 (01:03:40):
But you know the public, 99% of people aren't
going to go read a 40 pagedecision.

Speaker 2 (01:03:46):
It's dry, legalese and it's tough to digest.
But, like, if you really wantto get down to you know what
drives those outcomes, you haveto kind of read through those
big lengthy decisions andthey're tough to digest.

Speaker 1 (01:04:00):
Yeah, it is and, like I said, inevitably it's an
inevitability, because everysport has a blueprint to where,
or has the same storyline, towhere they have to face.
They have to come face to facewith somebody that everybody
loves.
That is in this position theathlete is saying this and the
court of opinion is saying thatand the anti-doping agency is
saying something slightlydifferent, and who's right and
who's wrong gets muddled withthe personalities that are

(01:04:25):
involved.

Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
I think you should leave it at that they get
muddled with the personalities.
How's that nasty process?

Speaker 1 (01:04:33):
I want to give you back the floor a little bit,
because the whole purpose ofthis podcast was to use your
experience as a blueprint forhow the community can kind of
get galvanized around this ideato you during that entire tenure
that you had either before,during or now, looking at it on

(01:04:54):
hindsight any like words ofwisdom or any pearl, like
nuggets that you can give theaudience that's listening today
to, to where they can take itand at least take some initial
steps or, as we're going throughit, relisten to this podcast
and go oh yeah, gabe's told usthat this was going to happen.

Speaker 2 (01:05:11):
Yeah, you know, I think, stepping back and looking
at it from my six years ofinvolvement and seeing where
that program started from dayone to where it was when I
stepped away from it in 2017,2018, whatever it was, you know,
the program grew a ton in.
Like with any new program, likeyou need to be flexible, need

(01:05:35):
to be nimble, but you also haveto be strict yeah, it's so
confounding, and that's thebalance, I think.
But you know we saw it on theufc program like we weren't
afraid to change the rules whenit was the right thing to do for
the athletes in fairness of theathletes, in fairness of the
sport.
I think anti-doping as a wholeis very rigid, right Like to

(01:05:57):
your point.
Like you and your, your commentis spot on of just the
perception of you have to bestrict.
You have to be strict, yes, butyou also need to look at this
with a common sense approachfrom time to time, and it's
certainly not a one size fitsall approach, and I think
there's certainly nuances withinthe trail running space that I
have no idea about.

(01:06:17):
That you probably do, and thepeople that are involved in it
say you know, hey, here's whatthe UFC did, here's what WADA
does, here's what professionalsports do.
There's probably components ofeach of that apply and work.
I'd say, take a broad approachto it and focus in on what

(01:06:38):
really matters from theanti-doping perspective.
And obviously you want to havea strong, fair, robust program
that protects the health andsafety of runners, that protects
the sport as a whole.
It's clearly a growing sportthat's gaining more and more
momentum.
It's attracting more big names.
It's attracting moresponsorship dollars.

(01:06:59):
The incentive to potentiallycheat may only be getting higher
and higher.
So you know, I think finding arealistic starting point and
building on that is kind of whatI would kind of step back and
say through my experience, likethat makes sense to me.

Speaker 1 (01:07:16):
How important is the timeframe to get to the starting
point?
Cause you came in.
Yeah, I once again.
I went through my fan.
Sorry, hit my microphone here.
Once again I went through myfan journey with the UFC.
I watched them on Spike TV onFox.
Sports, and then all the waythrough.
Espn and USADA came in maybetowards the early part, but

(01:07:41):
certainly not at the verybeginning, but early enough, at
least in my observation that youdidn't have to unwind cycling's
problem, right, right.
So I wonder if you can kind ofdescribe to listeners that like
how important it is to get inearly enough to where you're not
unwinding all these likecultural problems and systemic

(01:08:03):
widespread.
You know things going on.

Speaker 2 (01:08:04):
Yeah, you certainly don't want to be late.
Right to the party and theywere almost late.

Speaker 1 (01:08:08):
I mean, that was kind of I think they're close, yeah
and hence why they ultimatelycame to us.

Speaker 2 (01:08:12):
Right, they said they , they were really smart and
they saw the writing on the wallof the direction the sport was
heading, and no different thanyou know.
I are sitting here having thisconversation today.
I think you're seeing where thesport is heading and probably
hear the rumor mill circlingwithin.
You know the sport.
You know the sooner the better.
Right Like.
Is there anyone that's going tomake an argument that you know
we put this anti-doping programin place too soon?

Speaker 1 (01:08:35):
Yeah, nobody's going to say that.

Speaker 2 (01:08:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:08:37):
So people will make the argument that it's not
enough right off the bat?
Sure, but to your point you canalways start.
It's always easier to start andescalate than it is to start
and ratchet down.
Yeah it down, because the issueyou run into when you start
really hot and heavy is you tendto paint yourself into a corner
that you can't get back out of,because then you're viewed as

(01:09:00):
is soft on doping.

Speaker 2 (01:09:03):
I think it's a lot harder to unwind perceptions and
culture than it is to implementa program.

Speaker 1 (01:09:11):
So don't let the perceptions and culture get into
it.
I once again I've said this forthe last three or four years
you've heard me rant on it andany number of breakfasts that
we've had together we still havea good culture.
That's not static, it's dynamic, and if you get ahead of the
problem before the culturechanges, it's way way easier to
change than when you have arotten culture and you're

(01:09:31):
unwinding all the education andall of the culture and all the
bad actions and everything kindof kind of all at once.
There's just fewer problems tohave the earlier you get into
the game.

Speaker 2 (01:09:41):
And I think you're a step ahead of.
You know some sports in ways inthat you've got crossover
athletes that had competed at anelite level, that have been
subject to Olympic style drugtesting programs, that are now
competing in in trail running orultra and they're asking for it
in some degrees, right Like we.
We need this.
We can see where this isheading If it doesn't happen.
You also have a landscape where, yes, you have different kind

(01:10:06):
of fractured jurisdictions, butyou have the likes of AFLD and
in France that's already doingsomething in the space.
So there's a certain standardthat you know athletes are
starting to grow accustomed to.
You know not to jump back intokind of the overarching
regulator, but you know whendoes the AIU start to look at

(01:10:26):
the sport and say, man, this isgaining some serious momentum.
Do we need to have a part ofthis?

Speaker 1 (01:10:31):
Yeah, that's a potential catalyst, the AIU
being the Athletes IntegrityUnit.
Is that the right acronym?
Athletes Integrity Unit?
I always forget the lastacronym like agency right?

Speaker 2 (01:10:41):
I always want to say something else.

Speaker 1 (01:10:43):
But anyway, I think you're right that it's ripe for
somebody, for an organizationthat currently exists, to take
over some of this.
But I don't think that's all ofthe solution because of this
fractured nature.
I do think that a big part ofit is taking that fractured
nature and galvanizing it, and Idon't know what the format of

(01:11:05):
that is.
I don't profess to have theanswer here, but galvanizing
that in somewhere.
And what I mean by that istaking the brands, taking the
race, the races, taking theelite athletes, taking the
coaches, anybody who's a keystakeholder, and galvanizing
that group together and saying,okay, this is what we all agree
upon.
You might disagree a little bithere.
You might disagree a little bithere, but this is generally

(01:11:25):
what we all agree upon.
Let's go.
Let's kind of go forward withthat.
I don't think we're kind oflike close but far.

Speaker 2 (01:11:35):
I don't know how else to describe.
Yeah, I I think you're probablyspot on with that right, like
you're starting to have theconversations, you're starting
to think about it, which isgreat, but you're a long way
from cup to the lip on some ofthat.
So plenty of room for progressand growth.
But yeah, as I step back and Ilook at kind of the various
different sport organizationsthat have anti-doping programs,

(01:11:58):
regardless of how robust theyare, all have some kind of
overarching unified body thatsay this is what we're going to
do and this is how we're goingto do it.

Speaker 1 (01:12:07):
It's hard to do it without, because inevitably
you're only as strong as yourweakest link Sure.
Inevitably you're only asstrong as your weakest link Sure
.
And so the weakest link ends upgetting exposed as some sort of
difference in opinion on whatthe rules and what the sanctions
should be.
It's two kind of fundamentalpieces of it what are the rules,
how do you enforce them, andwhat are the sanctions?

(01:12:28):
On the back end of it, evenwhen you have an organizing
system, those things come intoconflict and typically get
exposed the most.
So you can imagine that ifthere's not an over over over,
an overarching body that setsthe tone for all of that, how
much more of that consternationwould actually exist.
And that's kind of what scaresme about the fractured nature

(01:12:48):
right now.
I recently we were remarkingbefore the, before the podcast
came on I had our intern, zachFenske, shout out to you for
doing this for me.
I had him go out and survey thelandscape of all of the races
that have some sort ofanti-doping rules or framework
and there's no consistencybetween any, and nor would you

(01:13:09):
expect there to be.
I'm not doubting the efforts ofthose races to actually do
something.
I actually applaud them fordoing something and not nothing.
But when you line them all up,some of them do in competition
testing.
Some of them say that you'resubject to out of competition
testing.
Some of them ban NSAIDs right.
Yeah, ibuprofen and things likethat.
Some of them adhere to the WADAcode.
Some of them adhere to both theWADA code and the WADA watch

(01:13:34):
list, interestingly enough.
So I don't know how they'regoing to test for that, but the
things that maybe might bebanned next year, they also test
for that and that would beconsidered a prohibitive
substance in that one particularrace.
And so my point with all ofthat is is, if we use that as a

(01:13:55):
little bit of a blueprint forthe fractured nature, my fear is
is that fracturing continues topropagate where everybody's
kind of got their own opinionand then nobody can keep track
of the rules.
That's why the overarching bodyis extremely important, so that
everybody can play by the sameset of rules, Because at the end
of the day and you know thisjust as much as anybody else
that's all the athletes want.
They just want to know what thefreaking rules are, so they can

(01:14:16):
stay on the right side of it.

Speaker 2 (01:14:17):
Yeah, and you know the fact that athletes are
starting to ask for that is, Ithink, a huge step right, like
if you had the flip side of that, where athletes didn't want it,
I'd be way more concerned aboutit ever happening right.
Versus that, you have aconcerted effort from a group of
athletes that are starting toask for it and push for it is a
huge step in the right direction, and they'll be the ones who, I

(01:14:37):
think, ultimately can drive itacross the finish line.

Speaker 1 (01:14:40):
Yeah, ultimately, I do think that the athletes have
to want it the most.
And if I get any comfort inthis whole process, despite all
my misgivings and frustrationsand things like that with the
lack of progress, of which I'vehad a lot that I've expressed on
this podcast and in inprivately as well, I'm heartened
by the fact that the athleteswant it so much.

(01:15:01):
They might not all want theright, not the right.
They might not all want thesame thing or the exact same
thing, but they all still wantsomething and I think that that
will eventually win out.

Speaker 2 (01:15:10):
That will power will eventually win out that
willpower will eventually winout Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:15:14):
Thanks, man, thank you.
Thank you for your counsel overthe years.
By the way, we always have afun time when we get together we
do.

Speaker 2 (01:15:20):
There's no shortage of fun stuff to talk through.

Speaker 1 (01:15:22):
I'm sure this is just the first of many.
Will you continue to be aresource for?

Speaker 2 (01:15:26):
me Gabe I certainly will be.
Thanks, man, and if you wouldwant to, I'm well, I have in the
past and I continue, we'llcontinue to so.
Thanks, man, anything else?

Speaker 1 (01:15:36):
anything else you want to leave the listeners with
.

Speaker 2 (01:15:38):
Normally, I give the chance for people to plug their
own stuff, but you already havea baked in audience with your
business yeah, yeah, we're nicheenough where I'm not sure it's
going to resonate all that well,but no, I just appreciate the
opportunity to be on and fun totalk through this stuff.
Thank you glad I can lend mypast experience to hopefully set
ultra and trail running up forsuccess in the future.

Speaker 1 (01:15:59):
We're going to figure it out.

Speaker 2 (01:16:00):
You will Hang in there.

Speaker 1 (01:16:05):
All right, folks, there you have it, there you go.
Much thanks to Gabe for comingon the podcast today and, more
importantly, gabe, thank you forall the personal counsel that
you have given me over the yearsand thank you for the counsel
that you have now given to thetrail and ultra running
community.
As we mentioned throughout thecourse of this podcast, I do
think that a lot of the learninglessons that Gabe experienced

(01:16:25):
during his time at USADA andspecifically with this program
within the UFC are greatlearning lessons and a great
blueprint for what we can do intrail and ultra running is going
to take a little bit ofwillpower, a little bit of money
and a little bit of everybodycoming together to figure it out
, but I do believe that all theelements are there to take some
initial steps.

(01:16:46):
So thank you for.
Thank you, gabe, for coming onthe podcast.
I appreciate all the listenersout there for putting up with
the last four weeks of podcaststhat were all about the same
thing.
These are not going to be mymost popular podcast, they're
not going to be the mostdownloaded, they're not going to
be the most liked, they're notgoing to be the most shared, and
I don't care, because I thinkthat they are the most important

(01:17:06):
.
That's one of the great thingsabout not having to monetize.
My podcast is I can kind of dowhatever I want.
My podcast is I can kind of dowhatever I want.
I do hope that if anybody outthere and in particular, the key
stakeholders, the eliteathletes, the race directors,
the brand managers and thecoaches of elite athletes I do
hope that you have taken all ofthe information over the course
of the last four weeks to heart,because it is our

(01:17:27):
responsibility to shape thecommunity going forward, and we
all play a role in that.
There's something for everybodyin all of that.
Whether you're a coach, anathlete, brand manager, race
director, we can all takesomething from what we've
discussed over the course of thelast four weeks and do
something with it to push thisthing forward.

(01:17:49):
The learning doesn't stop,though.
The learning doesn't stop,though Not yet, because the
moment that this podcast getsreleased, I'm going to release a
free edition of my researchnewsletter, research Essentials
for Ultra Running.
That is all about you guessed itan anti-doping theme.
Every single month, theresearch team and myself we

(01:18:10):
review three papers that arepertinent to the trail and
ultramarathon space, and thismonth's issue is going to be all
about anti-doping and it isgoing to be for free,
unpaywalled.
You don't have to register youremail address.
I'm not going to spam you afterthe fact.
I want you to download it andsend it to your friends, copy it
, plagiarize it, do whatever youwant to get this information

(01:18:33):
out there.
So please go to my website,jasoncoopcom.
Forward slash researchessentials for ultra running.
It will be the very first thingthat you see.
You will not have to enteranything and I will not crawl
and try to find you around theweb in any way, shape or form,
because all I want to do is Iwant this information to get out
there in the public so that thefuture of the sport continues

(01:18:55):
to be as healthy as it is rightnow, and even healthier once we
get one of these systems inplace.
So y'all go and check that out.
I hope that everybody has takenthe information to heart that
we have had over the course ofthe last four weeks.
We will be back to our regularscheduled programming next week
with another killer edition ofthe CoopCast.

(01:19:16):
Appreciate the heck out of eachand every one of you out there
and, as always, we will see youout on the trails.

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