Author: Alexis Oosterhoff

It’s been a busy couple of months for AURA and its membership. World Trail Championship In May, Lou Clifton (12:09:23), Robyn Bruins (12:09:39), Gill Fowler (12:13:49), David Turnbull (12:25:13) and Jessica Schluter (12:36:08) represented Australia at the 2018 World Trail Championships in Penyagolosa, Spain and did our nation proud. A huge congratulations to them all for finishing strongly and within 30min of each other. I spoke on Tuesday night with David (team captain) about the event, and he had nothing but good things to say about the event organisation and the very tough course: at 88kms with 5000m of ascent, it didn’t look on paper like a tough one, but in his words, it was “brutal” and “technical as … !” In the lead-up to the event, in addition to the event briefings, each national team received an individual briefing on drug testing, and was advised that the top male and female ranked runners would be tested (in our case, that was Lou and David). They were both required to give blood samples. David stated he was grateful to have undertaken the ASADA online training before attending the event because it gave him a solid understanding of both his and the tester’s responsibilities, and also resulted in him being a lot more informed about the risks inherent in using off-the-shelf supplements when it comes to drug testing. I would encourage all...