The doping controls conventional are comparable to traffic speed controls. If the radar detects that the limit has been exceeded, the test is enough to penalize. Just like the presence of a prohibited substance in the urine of an athlete. The biological passport works in another way: it measures the evolution and the alterations in physiological parameters of a person over a period of time. If we go to the previous example, it would be as if a vehicle entered and exited a tunnel at the regulated speed, but the calculations on the total time invested in traveling that section show that inside it did exceed the allowed limit. In the international anti-doping fightwhich is managed from the World Agency (AMA), this tool has the same test validity as a classic control. This is applied in all the countries that have signed the agreement, least in one: Spain. Here, justice has ruled that the biological passport cannot be considered as “only proof of charge”because it is based on “a high probability” and not on “the plane of certainties”. The National Court has thus ratified the ruling of the Administrative Court of Sport (TAD) that exculpated the cyclist Ibai Salasafter having been penalized for four years for the Spanish Agency, currently CELAD.
Outside of Spain, things do work, as shown the sanction that Marta Domínguez received from the IAAF. The contradiction remains. At this point, The case of Salas has frozen other files in limbo, and the control policy of the more than 900 athletes monitored with this method has practically stopped. CELAD believes that the change of the Law in 2021 solve the future, but no one has been sanctioned yet, so it is unknown. Meanwhile, Spain is still in default of the international standard. And that may explode one day.