Dispatches from Vitafoods Europe 2014

Safe sports nutrition product use is a reality. So are global sports federation rebuttals increasingly ‘outdated’?

12-May-2014 - Last updated on 28-Sep-2021 at 09:11 GMT

Contamination concerns mean most athletic and sporting federations advise against them despite near-ubiquitous use among top athletes and sportspeople. Busted doped athletes continue to finger them. But sports nutrition products are in a better place than ever, says product tester, Informed-Sport.

In six years, no product tested within Informed-Sport’s programme has ever been implicated in a doping case and more than 400 have been tested.

And the certification stands up in court, said business sector manager, Terence O’Rorke.

“As a result of that the athlete cannot then blame those products for that failed doping test,” he said.

“I think manufacturers of sports nutrition products these days are doing very much the responsible thing, they are making sure their products have been tested so that athletes across the world can take them without fear of contamination.”

With such programmes in place, sporting bodies issuing blanket ‘no-go’ statements to their athletes was increasingly, “outdated”, O’Rorke ventured.

"It is a little bit frustrating and I understand it is more frustrating for the athletes themselves to be honest. I think there are perhaps one or two outdated notions of sports nutrition that still exist among the sports organisations and federations."