62 Dinos football players test clean

CALGARY – The Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES) announced Wednesday that all samples received from University of Calgary Dinos football players during an unannounced doping control mission on Feb. 3, 2011 have tested clean.

A total of 62 players were tested during a scheduled dry land training session at the University of Calgary with 62 urine and 15 blood samples collected. All samples were analyzed and were free of any substances on the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) prohibited list.

“We are always working hard to educate our players, so it’s gratifying to see results from that effort,” said Dinos head coach Blake Nill. “I’m proud of our players for taking that education to heart. While we are very pleased with the results of the test, there is still work to be done to promote drug-free sport and a zero-tolerance policy toward performance-enhancing drugs.”

Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) member institutions provide whereabouts information to the CCES for all football student-athletes, who are subject to random, unannounced out-of-season testing at any time. The unannounced Feb. 3 testing took place during a regularly scheduled team workout in the early morning, and all players present were tested.

The Dinos are the second CIS football team to have tested entirely clean in 2011. The CCES also conducted an unannounced doping control at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont. Jan. 12, with no adverse findings announced from the 67 samples collected from Golden Hawks players.

All Dinos student-athletes are subject to mandatory annual anti-doping education and are ineligible to compete until completing it. The University of Calgary is fully supportive of the Canadian Anti-Doping Program and applauds efforts to improve and enhance the testing regimen.

The CCES, with the support and assistance of the Canadian Football League, CIS, and its member institutions, has put in place a rigorous testing program targeted at the sport of football. Since March 31, 2010, the CCES has conducted 324 tests on CIS football players. In previous years, just over 260 anti-doping tests were administered on CIS athletes – approximately 105 of which were in the sport of football.

-UC-

Ben Matchett