Testing time: Sebastian Kienle shares his doping control info from 2019

Sebastian Kienle “followed in Jan Frodeno’s footsteps” and published all of his doping controls yesterday morning.

As there is a lot of half knowledge about doping testing in professional triathlon I want to follow @janfrodeno’s example and publish my doping controls in 2019: 16 in total so far. pic.twitter.com/amyXuBb0pO

— Sebastian Kienle (@SebastianKienle) December 19, 2019

No sooner had he posted that info than Frodeno replied that he could add another test to his 2019 list – he received a visit from the drug testing crew this yesterday, as well.

So far in 2019, the German has been tested a total of 16 times.

• 15 of those were urine tests
• 9 were blood tests
• 11 were authorized by the National Anti Doping Agency of Germany (NADA)
• 1 was authorized by the ITU
• 4 were authorized by Ironman/ WTC
• 12 were out of competition tests
• 10 were “outside the time slot” – presumably at a different time than he had designated in his “whereabouts” profile
• 12 were away from home

It hardly comes as a surprise that the Germany agency would do so many tests on its elite athletes – drug use is especially frowned upon by sports fans in the triathlon-crazy country. At the height of the drug controversies at the Tour de France, all of the country’s television networks dropped coverage of the famous cycling race. The Ironman European Championship in Frankfurt was the first to implement pre-race blood tests, prohibiting athletes to compete if their hematocrit levels were too high.

According to its 2018 Anti Doping program report, Ironman did 1,406 drug tests last year. National Anti Doping programs also do more testing, as will the ITU and the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA).