A Look at CrossFit Anti-Doping and Supplement Safety in 2024
Dec 20, 2024
A Look at CrossFit Anti-Doping and Supplement Safety in 2024
Wherever money flows, the temptation to cheat is seldom far behind and there’s now plenty of money in CrossFit. The winner’s purse for the 2024 CrossFit Games sat at $315,000, with the top team taking home $100,000. This workout methodology has become much more than just a sport; it’s a brand with more than 15,000 gyms across the world. While the cultures might be different, they’re all held to account by the rules set in place by the World Anti-Doping Agency when it comes to the CrossFit Games.
Like all sports, CrossFit is not immune to doping with 11 violations in 2024 including four high profile positive drug tests at 2024 CrossFit Semifinals. This included top finishers Ivan Kukartsev, who tested positive for GW1516 and LGD-4033, and Tyler Lee, who tested positive for GW1516 and drostanolone. Kukartsev, who won the Asia Semifinal, claimed his drink may have been contaminated during the event. This would not be the first time contamination has caused a positive drug test, although the usual culprit is dietary supplement contamination. A recent study compiled data from 50 research studies on dietary supplements and found that 28% of the more than 3,000 products analysed posed a potential risk of an unintentional doping violation. Another study from Norway looked at 18 years of data and found that dietary supplement contamination was blamed in 26% of doping cases and it was the proven cause of inadvertent doping in 14% of cases. Sabotage claims aside, this incident highlights the ongoing risks athletes face from hidden banned substance contamination that may be present in dietary supplements, drinks, foods, cosmetics, medicines, or other consumer products without their knowledge.
CrossFit's Commitment to Anti-Doping and Third-Party Certification
CrossFit has a reputation to preserve and has been committed to a strong anti-doping program from the beginning. CrossFit rigorously enforces an anti-doping policy as outlined in its rulebook, designed to protect its competition's integrity. To deter athletes, they use all sorts of creative punishments. Drug-positive competitors can lose their prize money, get disqualified, be suspended, or be stripped of their results. CrossFit does has a partnership in place with one of the leading anti-doping administrators in the U.S., Drug Free Sport. This arrangement aims to ensure thorough testing to keep the sport clean. When it comes to dietary supplements, CrossFit has taken a strong stance and has a strict liability policy, but is an advocate for third-party supplement certification programs, including those from Banned Substances Control Group (BSCG), and directs competitors to resources they can use to protect themselves. Third-party certification is a means of helping athletes, military service members, first responders or other drug tested professionals verify that their supplements are free from prohibited substances that could cause a positive drug test
The Importance of Caution During Injury and Recovery
The recent Rogue Invitational saw some horrific injuries that will require significant time to recover from. Top CrossFit competitors Gabriela Migala and Henrik Haapalainen suffered torn Achilles tendons, which can take months to heal. It is often during recovery from injury that athletes will seek novel treatments from anti-aging or wellness clinics like peptides, or other experimental substances that are not approved drugs and are not legal dietary supplements. These substances, often sold for research purposes only, are outside the purview of good manufacturing practices that govern quality control requirements for drugs or dietary supplements and are often sold or manufactured alongside banned substances, which significantly increases the possibility of cross contamination. CrossFit competitors, like all athletes, should be wary of these treatments as the risks may be even higher than with dietary supplements and there are no third-party certification options for such products. Third-party certification is an even more important consideration during recovery to ensure you use safe drug-free supplements that can aid your rehabilitation and not cause a positive drug test.
BSCG Certified Drug Free
The BSCG Certified Drug Free program is the gold standard in third-party certification for banned substances in sport. The program starts with a complete audit of product labels, ingredients, Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) compliance, and quality control. Raw material testing and finished product testing is evaluated to ensure a good process is in place to verify label claims and protect against environmental contaminants like heavy metals, pesticides, or microbiological agents. Every lot is rigorously tested for BSCG’s industry leading testing menu covering more than 500 banned substances, pharmaceutical, OTC, and illicit drugs. This multi-faceted third-party certification approach helps ensure supplements meet the highest standards of quality and offer the best security against banned substance contamination. While plenty of brands talk about having the best quality, third-party certifications prove it through analytical testing!
Fortunately, CrossFit’s commitment to anti-doping has kept the sport strong. Positive drug tests are inevitable and are a sign that the anti-doping program works. The growing threat of inadvertent positive drug tests from contaminated supplements, meat, or other sources looms large for CrossFit and indeed for every sport. The simple yet effective approach CrossFit takes to dietary supplement safety educates competitors about the risks but also guides them to tools they can use to protect themselves like third-party certification. By maintaining a strong commitment to anti-doping and guiding athletes to resources to protect against the risks of supplement use, CrossFit aims to provide a level playing field where athletes can compete with one thing on their mind: becoming the Fittest on Earth.
CERTIFIED CLIENTS
Search by Lot, Product, Brand, Category, or Other Keyword.
Certified Drug Free
Certified Quality
Certified GMP
