The testers arrive and the going gets tough

OLYMPIC DIARY:The unannounced urine test is invasive, right enough, but it has to be – it's only stressful when you're doing wrong, writes EOIN RHEINISCH

AFTER RETURNING from the World Cup race on Monday, Tuesday was not the type of day I had envisaged. Between drugs tests in the morning and having make up applied for a photo-shoot in the afternoon, it was a day of surprises.

The drug test lasted a lot longer than I expected. As is often the case, I had just been to the toilet before the doping control officers arrived, so they had to wait before I could give them the sample. You don’t know when they are coming so their arrival can put a very different spin on your day if you have plans.

I’ve been getting tested, I’d say, since I was 16-years-old. If you are not doing anything illegal then no it’s not a stress. It’s more of a stress if you are sitting there and you’ve organised something important. But once the testers call to the door and see you are there they cannot leave your sight until you provide the goods. If you had a job interview or something important like that, they would actually have to come with you until you provide a sample. You literally cannot leave their sight.

If I have to go and get my passport to show them my full identity they have to follow me around my house.

It’s often happened to me that you just leave the toilet and the doorbell goes and you say to yourself: “I bet I know who that is at the door, just my luck.” And yes, it is the doping testers. They could be in the house for two hours or more.

This week they arrived a little after 9am. They probably arrived earlier than that because I was coming back in the car and I saw them on the doorstep. The first part of the procedure involves a lot of form filling. There are always two people and on Tuesday there was also a blood doping officer.

I was informed it is very important that you haven’t exercised within two hours of them taking a blood sample. If I had been arriving straight in from a training session, I would have had to sit there for two hours regardless and only then could they take the blood sample. It’s something to do with the movement of blood around the body. I’m not really sure of the details but that’s what I was told.

I find the whole bloods procedure a lot easier. A lot of people are squeamish about needles but that doesn’t bother me. They take it out of your arm and it’s done. The urine sample can be a different ball game. You can drink water or tea to try and get the urge going but if you drink too much and over-hydrate, your sample will not be accepted if it is too dilute. Then you start all over again.

You can find yourself doing any number of things to make yourself go, a little hopping up and down dance in the kitchen, turning the taps on in the bathroom and closing your eyes pretending there isn’t a stranger standing beside you in your own toilet watching your every move! Yeah, it is pretty invasive but it needs to be. I’m not knocking it at all. It can be an inconvenience but it’s necessary. I believe it is something that has to be there in the sport. Sure it can be a pain sometimes when you have things to get done and I was trying to get ready to leave for London. But I absolutely approve of it. It has to happen in sport.

At this stage I’m feeling good about my final preparation for London. Last week I had a World Cup race in Spain. It was my last opportunity to race before the Olympic Games. That gives you a measure of where you are because you race against all the people you are going to meet in London.

In Spain, I finished fourth out of 70 in the heats, on the first day. Out of the people I will be competing against in London, it was second place. The field was reduced from 75 to 40 and those 40 people were separated by 4.7 seconds, so it was an extremely competitive race and I was pleased to be at the top end of that. That is the kind of evidence I am looking for that my form is good.

I was unlucky to have food poisoning that evening at a local restaurant. So that night was hell. I had hot and cold sweats and all of the other nasty symptoms that accompany food poisoning. I managed two hours’ sleep and the next day I felt horrible. I was a very different man when I raced the semi-finals. But I am taking the good things out of the weekend and my heats performance was very encouraging.

I’ve a feeling now the next weeks will be like a blur and part of me wants the Olympics to be eight weeks away, not four weeks. I want to enjoy and prolong these moments. I know it’s going to roll around quickly and will be over in such a short space of time. I also know that it will be a huge anti-climax afterwards. Something you have been preparing so hard for and for so long and then. . . it’s just, well, over.

“I believe it is something that has to be there in the sport. Sure, it can be a pain sometimes when you have things to get done and I was trying to get ready to leave for London. But I absolutely approve of it. It has to happen in sport