Climber Banned for Doping, Ondra Weighs In
Adam Ondra and a sports scientist talk about doping in the world of climbing as we head into an Olympics year
The IFSC has banned a climber for the presence of Stanozolol metabolites, saying, “The IFSC have received an official communication from the International Testing Agency (ITA), delegated by the IFSC as anti-doping service provider, about a rule violation in accordance with Article 8.3.3 of the IFSC Anti-Doping Rules committed by Iranian climber Reza Kolasangian.” Read more about it here.
La Crux TV has released a video titled Does Climbing Have a Doping Problem? “We spoke to pro climber Adam Ondra, sports scientist Patrick Matros and head of competitive sports at the Swiss Alpine Club Urs Stöcker about doping in climbing,” La Crux TV said when they released the below video. “Does our sport have a doping problem? Which substances help climbing and which don’t? Is doping even worth it?”
Ondra said that because climbing requires so much technique that doping won’t help as much as other sports like cycling. However, he said that he’s unsure of what the future will hold if climbing continues to get more popular. He said that he’s more worried about a climber in the future climbing the next hardest grade while doping. Ondra goes on to say that because doping is expensive there’s never really been a danger in climbing of athlete’s doping, however if there’s suddenly more money in climbing then climbers might be more inclined to dope.
There was a Current Sports Medicine in 2019 here that said, “To date, there have yet to be any published scientific studies on the topic of doping in modern sport climbing.”
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