ELITE BODYBUILDERS could in the future undergo the full range of doping tests, as the Guyana Amateur Bodybuilding and Fitness Federation (GABBFF) is to adopt the measures handed down by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), who is the governing body trying to clean up sports from drug cheats.GABBFF president Keavon Bess, said the local body is to ratify the anti-doping code that was passed on bodybuilding associations/federations affiliated to the International Federation of Bodybuilders (IFBB).
At the recent congress of the Central American and Caribbean Amateur Bodybuilding Championships in St. Martin, the decision was taken to have all affiliates sign-on to the code and Bess said it will be discussed at the executive level of his federation and also with the Guyana Olympic Association – the body undertaking doping tests in Guyana.
He said in the past, tests were done at local laboratories here to determine whether or not elite bodybuilders were using banned substances, while he could not say if any local bodybuilder here has even undergone the full battery of tests, which cost in the vicinity of US $700.00
No lab in Guyana is equipped to comprehensively test for all banned substances, so samples would have to be sent overseas.
In the meantime, the GABBFF will make use of the GOA’s anti-doping panel to handle all tests, instead of putting together one of their own.
There have been whispers that some local bodybuilders might be or may have used performance enhancing supplements in the past, but as Bess noted, ‘…there always have been claims, but no one has been found using, so we cannot speculate. We cannot prejudice the athlete’.
Bess is hoping with the new anti-doping mechanisms that are to come on stream, elite athletes will undergo random tests, more often.
The aside, Bess, was elected to the legal council of the CAC. He told Chronicle Sport it puts the federation on the right footing as it relates to the body’s obligation to athletes.
Upon Bess’s return from the 42nd CAC championships on Thursday last, he said a number of changes are expected to be made to modus operandi of the federation, whose Annual General Meeting is to be held in early 2015.

(By Leeron Brumell)