In a story that has rocked the triathlon world, it has just been announced that American professional Collin Chartier tested positive for the banned substance erythropoietin – or EPO – in an out-of-competition test in February. Chartier, made miraculous strides up the ranks last year, winning the PTO US Open in Dallas.

There had been an immense amount of chatter in this space over the last day or so. And the bottom line is, doping in this manner (in addition to any manner) gives a huge competitive advantage. A clean sport is absolute paramount for fair competition, and our sport. So in this blog, I am going to do a bit of a deep dive into EPO, how it works, and the effect it has on performance – which is why it is often the drug of choice for those seeking to climb up the podium by means other than hard work and discipline in training. I have written a fair bit about EPO recently, after a couple of studies have been published demonstrating that ketone supplements...

Exogenous ketones have generated a lot of buzz in the endurance sports community over the last few years. Exogenous ketones are not to be confused with the ketones that circulate in the blood after adaptation to a very low carbohydrate, high fat, ketogenic diet; exogenous ketones are instead ingested in a supplement like a sports drink in much the same way that carbohydrates might be. There are a number of different types of exogenous ketones (6), with ketone monoesters seeing the most attention.

It was initially thought that, again like carbohydrates in sports drinks, taking on exogenous ketones during exercise might provide us with an alternative fuel source to help power long duration exercise and reduce use of our finite glycogen stores. There has been some indication that exogenous ketones do help us reduce glycogen use during exercise (2), although probably not via direct burning of the ketones to supply energy; the effect instead likely relates to some kind of signalling...