In COVID-19 world, anti-doping gives in-home testing a try

typical day for ah Lyles w looks something like this: Drive to park. Unload weights from truck. Sprint on grassy field. Lift. And, every w and n, head home and take a doping test.

world-champion sprinter is one of 15 American athletes who have volunteered to conduct in-home drug tests on mselves as part of a pilot program being run by U.S. Anti-Doping ncy. 

With anti-doping collections severely curtailed across globe because of coronavirus pandemic, USADA is looking at new options, in this case by asking a group of leading Americans to give urine and small dried blood samples at home.

y asked me to do it, and I wasn't opposed to doing it, Lyles said. 

It's a way to get my drug test in. Athletes are still required to fill out ir whereabouts forms, and under this program, a doping control officer will connect with an athlete via Zoom or FaceTime during a prescribed window.

Athletes receive test kits at home and head into ir bathroom to give urine samples while leaving ir laptops outside room. Under rmal circumstances, officer would come to house (or wherever athlete was at time) and stand outside bathroom.

In this case, officer looks on via camera while athletes are timed and ir temperatures are monitored to ensure y are giving samples in real time.

blood test uses a new techlogy  dry blood sampling  in which athletes prick ir arms and small droplets of blood funnel into a container. Athletes are n responsible for packaging samples and sending m back to testing labs.

USADA CEO Travis Tygart says program gives clean athletes a chance to prove y have remained clean during a time in which anti-doping regulators are having a difficult time reaching numbers of athletes y rmally would. It's an issue that will make return to play   Olympics are rescheduled for 2021 but or events are expected to come back sooner  that much more difficult to navigate.

It was going to unnecessarily create a question when those athletes went to Tokyo and won, where people would say, 'You won but you weren't tested,' during pandemic," Tygart said. 

How unfair is it for athletes who will be in those circumstances? Ors taking part in USADA program include Allyson Felix, Katie Ledecky, Emma Coburn and Sydney McLaughlin.

USADA hasn't been shy about se sort of test programs in past. In 2008, it launched a pilot project that involved testing efficacy of biological passports  which allows authorities to track athletes' blood over time for abrmal changes   likes of which are in common use today.

Tygart concedes new system is far from perfect or ideal. In short, it depends on athletes to do right thing in an industry that has been rife with cheating and manipulation for decades.

people who play clean want to be true heroes and role models, Tygart said. We also kw re are some bad folks out re who will attempt to exploit it. ... For good of athletes, anti-doping has to reinvent itself in times like se to stay relevant.

Lyles recalled days t long ago when he started winning junior competitions and kept waiting for a doping-control officer to show up after race.

I kept thinking, when am I going to get my first drug test, I keep winning gold? he said.

w, drug tests are part of his routine  even if routine is changing in ways body could have imagined a few months ago.

You do your part to show you're clean, and you get to state where it's, 'I'm clean, come test me,' Lyles said.