Now blood testing for haemoglobin control by IOF

It has been informed to the world that IOF has taken a decison that it will introduce blood testing for the haemoglobin control in the atheletes. This is an initiative that is part of IOF's anti-doping activities. Even though in lots of sports, the prior testing of athletes’ haemoglobin concentration in the blood of these athelets has been a regular and common procedure since the early 1990’s.

In some sports, specific rules already exist that predefine the terms on how high the haemoglobin levels or the haematocrit levels in the blood of the athelets can be in order to allow them to participate in a sports event. As a first step in this direction, all elite runners that will be participating in the World Cup events in Sweden during July 2007 will be tested for their Haemoglobin concentration in their blood.