How practical?

From the WADA Athletes Whereabouts Guidelines

3.3 The overriding principle is that it is the responsibility of the Athlete to make him/herself available for Testing. In particular, if the Athlete specifies a location for the 60-minute time-slot where it is not easy to find him/her, and/or he/she does not remain at that location for the full 60-minute time-slot, he/she risks a Missed Test.

3.4 Residence: The Athlete must provide, for each day in the following quarter, the full address of the place where he/she will be residing (i.e., sleeping overnight). (See IST clause 11.3.1(d)). Usually, that address would be expected to be in the same vicinity as the location specified for the 60-minute time-slot for that day, unless the Athlete will be travelling to another city or town during the day and wishes to specify a location at his/her destination for the 60-minute time-slot. If circumstances change so that the Athlete will be residing at a different place on one or more nights, he/she should update his/her Whereabouts Filing

3.5.2 If the Athlete’s regular schedule changes during the quarter, he/she should update his/her Whereabouts Filing to reflect the change. For example, if he/she changes schedule so that instead of going to the gym every morning from 10 am to noon, he/she goes every afternoon from 2pm to 4pm, then he/she should update his/her Whereabouts Filing to reflect that change.

3.5.3 On the other hand, if the Athlete simply departs from his/her regular schedule on a one-off basis, he/she does not need to update his/her Whereabouts Filing to reflect that. For example, if he/she usually goes to the gym every morning from 10 am to noon, but on one particular day in the quarter he/she goes to the gym not between 10 am and noon but instead between 3 pm and 4 pm, no update is necessary to reflect that.

3.6 60 minute timeslot: The Athlete must provide, for each day during the following quarter, one specific 60-minute time-slot between 6 am and 11 pm each day where the Athlete will be available and accessible for Testing at a specific location. (See IST clause 11.3.2). If circumstances change so that the Athlete will no longer be at that location at that time, he/she should update his/her Whereabouts Filing

3.7 As the comment to IST 11.3.3 states, if an Athlete does not know, at the beginning of the quarter, precisely what his/her whereabouts will be for each day in the quarter, he/she must provide his/her best information, based on where he/she expects to be at the relevant time(s), and then update that information as necessary in accordance with IST clause 11.4.2.

3.8 The Responsible ADO should monitor Whereabouts Filings for patterns of behaviour that may indicate an attempt to evade Sample collection or otherwise to undermine or hinder the Doping Control process. For example, if an Athlete is constantly updating his/her Whereabouts Filings to change the time and/or location for his/her 60-minute time-slot at the last minute, the Responsible ADOshould consider whether this may reflect a concerted effort to undermine attempts to locate him/her for Testing. Such a pattern of last-minute updates should be investigated as a possible anti-doping rule violation under Code Article 2.5 (Tampering or Attempted Tampering) or 2.3 (evasion of Sample collection).

Now, all of us travel. By planes, trains and by road. And we all have had to deal with missed flights, delayed departures and arrivals, traffic jams, fender benders and such like. And we all know that all of these take time to sort out.

Most, if not all, of us have encountered cell phone dead zones. And the odd flaky internet connection.

Now, imagine athlete A. A signatory to the Athlete whereabouts program. Now it is not outside of the realm of imagination that the said athlete will be better placed to detail his/her exact whereabouts ( including the 60 minute slot that is mandatorily required) on a day to day basis as compared to a week to week and month to month basis. Say the athlete makes a commitment to be available at a particular place at a particular time.Say too that the athlete has to drive from point A to point B to be at the particular place at the particular time. Given that the athlete in question is diligent, say that he/she provides enough buffer time to be at the said place at the said time. And then a fender bender occurs.

Now, per the provisions of the WADA ruling, if the athlete is not at the required location in the required time slot, he/she stands in violation of the program. And if the athlete reschedules the Whereabouts Filing, that too is a red flag. Strike 1.

Now assume that our athlete is vacationing abroad, and traveling the local train system. And assume that his/her wallet/purse get stolen at a station that is some distance from his/her place of residence. And he/she does not speak the local language. Happens to the best of us, so why should athletes be exempt. But our athlete has diligently filled out the location and the time when he/she will be available for testing on the Whereabouts form. And his her cellphone is stolen/ he/she does not have a calling plan for the country in question/the battery on the phone is dead. Strike 2.

So finally, our athlete in question is flying from Mumbai to New York. And the flight is delayed at Mumbai because of "technical reasons". So our athlete updates the Whereabouts form following proper procedure. Excepts that he/she goofs up when calculating the correct time difference by not accounting for daylight savings. For the athlete, all is well with the world... Except it is not. And if there is a problem getting a gate at New York because the slot was taken by some other airline ( because of the delayed take off) which adds to the overall delay, what then? As it is our athlete is in hot water because of the mis calculation of time and is therefore not present at the location he/she is supposed to be at the appointed time. Strike 3 and that's a two year ban for our athlete.

Shit happens. All the time.

The whole IRTP is a code put together by bureaucrats. And one thing that is true of bureaucrats is that they lack imagination. As the provisions show. And the other thing about bureaucrats is that they are rigid.If someone can come up with a set of rules that demand an athlete present his/her itinerary for a full quarter in advance, what is to prevent the said entity from flagging the slightest deviation from the norm as a strike?

And then there is the ICC.

10.1 Disqualification of Individual Results in an ICC Event During Which an Anti-Doping Rule Violation occurs Subject to Article 10.1.1, where a Cricketer is found to have committed an anti-doping rule violation during or in connection with an International Match in an ICC Event where the Cricketer also participated in other International Matches (for example, the anti-doping rule violation was committed during or in connection with the final of an ICC Event and the Cricketer had participated in earlier rounds of the ICC Event), then in addition to the consequences set out at Article 9 (in relation to the Disqualification of results obtained in the particular International Match during or in connection with which the anti-doping rule violation was committed), the anti-doping rule violation will also lead to Disqualification of all of the individual results and performance statistics obtained by the Cricketer in the other International Matches that he/she participated in
during the ICC Event in question with all resulting consequences, including forfeiture of any individual medals, individual ranking points, individual prizes obtained in those International Matches and the non-inclusion of his/her performance statistics in those International Matches towards any official individual averages and/or records, except as provided in Article 10.1.1.
10.1.1 If the Cricketer establishes that he/she bears No Fault or Negligence for the
violation, the Cricketer’s individual results in the International Matches other than
the International Match during or in connection with which the anti-doping rule
violation occurred shall not be Disqualified unless the ICC establishes that the
Cricketer’s results in the other International Matches were likely to have been
affected by his/her anti-doping rule violation.

So if I understand this correctly, I can dope myself up, carry my team to the finals of an ICC tournament, and if I get caught, my records will be disqualified but my team will still legitimately contest the finals?

And then there is this

10.2 Imposition of a Period of Ineligibility for the Presence, Use or Attempted Use, or
Possession of Prohibited Substances and Prohibited Methods
The period of Ineligibility imposed for a violation of Article 2.1 (presence of Prohibited Substance or its Metabolites or Markers in a Sample), Article 2.2 (Use or Attempted Use of Prohibited Substance or Prohibited Method) or Article 2.6 (Possession of Prohibited Substances and Methods) that is the Cricketer or Cricketer Support Personnel’s first offence shall be two years, unless the conditions for eliminating or reducing the period of Ineligibility (as provided in Articles 10.4 and 10.5) or the conditions for increasing the period of Ineligibility (as provided in Article 10.6) are met.

and this

10.3.2 For a violation of Article 2.4 (Filing Failures and/or Missed Tests) that is the Cricketer’s first offence, the period of Ineligibility imposed shall be at a minimum one year and at a maximum two years, depending upon the Cricketer’s degree of fault.

So, if I understand this correctly,if I do drugs and get caught the first time, I stand to lose two years. But if I am lax in filling in my forms, but don't do any drugs, I still stand to lose an year?

And people have actually signed up to this nonsense? Oh and there is more - in the case of filing failures or missed tests, the burden of proof lies with the athlete while in the case of an actual dope test, the burden of proof lies with the ICC. how fair is that?