The Ruma Marker-System in sports
Doping is as old as competitive sports itself.
In light of this uncomfortable truth, sportspersons all over the world has to undergo strictly controlled drug tests. Urine is the preferred medium even here – with the known negative effects:
- Increased stress for the tested athletes due to degrading visual inspection on the one hand
- Known deficiencies of visual inspection and the associated risk of successful manipulation on the other hand
Stress has detrimental effects on performance
Various studies prove that a significant number of athletes have major problems with doping tests (e.g. Strahler & Elbe, 2007).
The perceived general suspicion is one of the main reasons that put stress on the athletes. But even the drug tests themselves cause stress resulting in psychological disorders such as psychogenic urinary retention. The consequences of these disorders were examined by the Danish scientist Anne-Marie Elbe (Elbe et al. 2012).
Our contribution to clean sports
Doping tests are an important tool in competitive sports and this fact is undisputed. However, we do question the necessity of exposing the athletes to the increased stress of observed urine sample collection. Because there is another option!
Instead of escorting the athletes to the bathroom, the doping inspector just monitors the waiting time of 40-minutes. The inspector can relax and just make sure that the athlete doesn't drink too much fluid during this time or that the athlete does not have access to other substances such as soap or disinfectants that may interfere with the analytical process!
Our detailed, quality assured procedure for the collection and handling of forensic samples also meets the highest requirements regarding doping control.
For more information, please contact us at info@marker-test.de or use our contact form.