Wee problem for sevens players in Wellington

It may have been just a bad case of stage fright, but several players were caught short when the drug testers came calling at the Wellington sevens last weekend .

Some were unable to give an acceptable urine sample several hours after play ended, in one case not until 3am. Several others were stuck at the Cake Tin until 2am.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) recently upped the concentration of urine that athletes must provide during in-competition testing because samples resembling pure water were being routinely returned, which for testing purposes were useless.

Dehydrated athletes who replace lost fluids by drinking vast quantities of water after competing were the the main culprits, and hot conditions in Wellington last weekend meant several were unable to meet the new threshold.

Previously, if urine was not potent enough, the tester was permitted to abandon the exercise after a set amount of attempts. But now they must persevere until a correct sample is provided, so rugby players, and testers in Wellington, worked into the wee hours to meet their obligations.

None of the Kiwis were caught in the fiasco.

Of the two tested, one returned a sample in time to make the team bus that left the ground on Friday night about 11 o'clock. The other was unable to but made it back to the team hotel about midnight, according to the team's manager.

Drug Free Sport New Zealand's Graeme Steele was aware of the problem, when approached by the Sunday Star-Times. He said a report was being prepared for the International Rugby Board on the incidents.

"Often athletes take a while before they can give a sample. You can imagine how dehydrated they are after an ironman for example. But if it takes a while after an event, and prevents them from missing a function or returning to their hotel, then that's not so bad.

"Where we are concerned though on the weekend is that this [delay] was during an event and may have impacted on recovery and performance the next day. So we will keep watching this and if necessary make recommendations to Wada.

"We don't want testing to be intrusive, and this was the first time we have struck problems with the threshold. But we will be watching this closely."

- © Fairfax NZ News