To pee or not to pee

I already told you all about my existential angst when I retired but I withheld one minor detail. Apart from the fear and the worries and my identity collapsing there was a moment of absolute triumph, too.

About a week into retirement, I was just getting used to a life of processed sugar and alcohol, I got an electronic letter from the ITF (International Tennis Federation). It asked me to sign a form to take myself off a) the world ranking and b) THE ANTI-DOPING LIST. Normally one to drag out bureaucratic obligations, I never signed a form quicker in my life. Free at last. I felt like Braveheart overcoming the English (yes, I do know it’s a fictional movie).

To understand how liberating signing this form must have felt for me there is some context I need to provide.

When you become a professional athlete you also become a small item to present to the world by federations. Kind of like a handbag. Even as an individual athlete you are part of a national squad. This is important if you want to participate at the Olympic Games for example or play Billie Jean King and Davis Cup. It starts early in life. There are Europe Cups and World Cups and junior BJK and Davis Cups. While you enter tournaments through your ranking and individually, you need to be nominated by the federation to participate in these national team events. And in order to be nominated by the federation you need to sign anti-doping forms.

In the beginning, it’s all quite harmless. They have you pee in a cup after some matches and have you turn in a more or less accurate schedule of your movings about all the while understanding that plans can change. So, they show up at some of your practice sessions but if you happen to be at a tournament nobody really cares. The better you get, the stricter the system becomes. There are 3 anti-doping agencies in tennis. The WADA (World-Anti-Doping-Agency), the ITF and NADA (National-Anti-Doping-Agency). They do not communicate with each other. Multiple times, I had two different groups of testing people in front of my door who were fighting over my urine sample. Relax, guys, there is enough for everybody.

not the cup you want to see at the end of a tournament

Once you hit the Top 100, you are officially in the pool of having to provide your whereabouts. This has to be said: it’s different in every country. Some NADAs are stricter than others. In Germany, I got in the pool of having to provide my whereabouts a lot sooner because the guidelines of the German NADA are more rigorous. What does it mean, having to provide your whereabouts? It’s basically exactly what it says.

There is an online data bank which you access through an app or your computer where you record where you will be on any given day of your life. You register every single practice session, every cinema outing, every event, every tournament. It became so ingrained in my being that every night before falling asleep I would check my whereabouts to see whether they were still accurate. And I still made mistakes when travel plans changed spontaneously. You have to give the agencies one hour a day in which you guarantee to be at a specific place. That’s the reason why you will hear a lot of athletes complain about doping tests being so early. To make sure you are exactly in one place and one place only most athletes provide early hours between 5 and 6 for example when they are sleeping. Athlete to be found in bed.

If the testing agents miss you in this hour you get a strike. 3 strikes and you’re out for 2 years. Now, that’s all nice and dandy and most times it’s entirely your own fault when you miss an hour. You forgot to change the address of the hotel you thought you would stay in but is fully booked. You decided to leave a tournament site early and forgot to change it in your whereabouts. Sometimes, however, it’s not your fault and it can feel like a nightmare of impotency getting stuck in the bureaucracy of it. One time, I was playing team matches for a French club close to Montpellier. Some of us players were sleeping at the club owner’s house in a gated community. I had given all the information on what to say to the security guards and exact descriptions of how to find the house. The testing agents came, couldn’t find the house, left and guess who got the strike? Yeah, not them.

You can appeal and so on and so forth but the agency tends to believe the agents they pay. Not surprising, is it?

about to pee, bowls only, thank you very much

I had one woman always show up 10 minutes late to the hour I provided. The problem with that was that if I was jet lagged (which was often the case) and woke up early, I would normally wait before peeing until my hour was over so I fill the ominous cup right away if they did show up. When they didn’t show I would go to the bathroom just for the doorbell to ring mere moments later. So then, we would have to sit in silence for hours before I could pee again.

All of this is mildly annoying but part of the pact to keep the sport clean and eventually, it just becomes routine like the warm-ups before training and the cool-downs after matches. You don’t feel the needle in your arms anymore and you learn how much you can drink to pee enough (90 ml) but not have it be too clear. If the urine is too white it becomes invalid. You learn to write down all the medications and supplements and protein powders you have ever taken in the form you fill out when you take a test in case something was contaminated. If you are ever in doubt about your favourite athletes who got caught doping whether they have done it or not, whether it was an accident or not, just take a look at the information they gave. If the supplement they got caught on was in the form: honest mistake. If they wrote down all they took but forgot that one specific one: very dodgy.

The first thing I did when I signed the form releasing me from all anti-doping regulations was buy nasal spray. Most nasal sprays have amphetamines and are on the strictly forbidden list. I sprayed, I waited, I inquired. The results were disappointing. 2/10 would not recommend. Black coffee on empty stomach hits way better.

Things that make me happy:

Being off the anti-doping list (yay!) and men who look like birds. Watching the Europe Cup brought to my attention that there are men who have bird-like feature and I love them. The Italian defender Riccardo Calafiori is currently my favourite but Kai Havertz from the German team is a bird man, too, as is Adrien Brody. I am on the fence about Adam Driver but I’m leaning yes.

the poster child for bird men, riccardo calafiori

Things that make me unhappy:

Buying watermelon and finding out it is just a tad too ripe. Boo.

I am flying to London tomorrow where I will be covering Wimbledon for Amazon Prime. I’m looking forward to have this newsletter drop in your inbox dressed in white next Friday. Hopefully your watermelon is just right and try the black coffee on empty stomach thing. The secret drug for people who don’t take drugs.

Yours truly, Andrea