Hinke Schokker
I grew up in the 80’s, in a small village in the north of the Netherlands. I did not compete in sports during my childhood and youth. I grew up with horses, and horses were my biggest interest. I avoided sports: not only did I not like them, but I was also bad. I was the kid that was always chosen last when picking teams in football or volleyball. I sucked at them, and I had no ambition or desire to become better. Besides horses, school and study was important and I went on to study physics and do a PhD. During the final year of my PhD, aged 31, I joined colleagues that went running during their lunch break. Sitting behind the computer all day, I noticed that I was quickly getting out of breath when walking up the stairs and when horse riding and I thought that running could help me a bit. My running hobby did not persist and I quit for a while, but when I got a job as a medical physicist trainee I started again, at the end of 2016.
I quickly learned that I had a talent for running, and I mainly ran half marathons. I met my future husband and, because he was into marathon running, I decided to also sign up for the marathon that he would run: the 2018 Berlin marathon. I enjoyed racing and by that time I had the habit of running a race every weekend. In the summer of 2018 I learned about an event called “The 100k of Winschoten”, which was a 100 km long ultrarun. This race was one week before my first marathon but I became so excited by it that I decided to sign up, two weeks before the race, despite all well intended advice against it as I had no experience with long distances. In hindsight, this race is where all my misery started. If I had not signed up for this race, I would never have been noticed and I would not have been chosen for a targeted doping control, the year after. Of course, anti-doping tests should not be a problem, if you know about the doping rules but I really had no idea. I knew about doping, seeing the news about Lance Armstrong and I had a strong opinion about it. However, doping was not a subject in my life; I never used it, never thought about it and I have never encountered anyone using it. I had no reason to find out more, because I assumed that doping is considered to be deliberate doping, where one intends to cheat and uses a substance that actually enhances performance. I had no idea that there was something like a national doping authority and I had no idea about TUEs.
One week after I won the Winschoten race, I ran the Berlin marathon, my main event for that month. I had to recover from the 100 km for the entire week but at the start of the marathon I felt good enough to run. I finished in 2 hours 50 minutes, which was twice the time it took me to finish a half marathon on a good day. It was 10 minutes faster than my target time of 3 hours. Based on my racing times, this was close to impossible but it felt as if running the 100 km ultrarun a week before had actually made me faster. I was told that it was impossible what I did, and I guess that is why I was suspicious from an anti-doping point of view.
I continued in ultrarunning and won several events. I ran a 100 km in February 2019, followed by a marathon a week later, in March of 2019, finishing a bit faster in both events. My finishing time in the marathon again was much better than I could expect based on my half marathon races, and I finished in 2.46.47. I explained to people that I had the feeling that running a 100 km a week before a marathon made me run much faster in the marathon. Again, I was told that this was not possible and it did not make sense.
In September that year, I ran my second Winschoten 100k. Accidentally, two weeks before that, I learned that the medicine I was using, modafinil, was on the list of prohibited substances. I had used it for many years, but only on week days, when I needed it, and I never took it before a race, so I was not too concerned, as I found that modafinil was only banned in competition, meaning up to 12 hours before the race. It simply does not have an effect anymore after 12 hours. If I had known about how to interpret the doping rules correctly things would have been different and this would not have happened, but I had no idea. I could have never guessed that you are guilty of a doping violation as soon as you get a positive test, even if you can simply prove that you have taken the modafinil many days prior to the race and can prove it has no effect on performance in any way. If I knew who to contact for questions about doping, I could have asked. I did not have a coach, did not know about NADOs and had no family or friends that were top athletes and knew about these things. I did not know you can get something called a TUE, allowing you to use a medicine if you need it.
I won the 2019 Winschoten race, in a new Dutch national record. After finishing, I was asked to follow a doping officer. I can remember finding this kind of exciting and interesting, as I was suddenly treated as if I was a real athlete. When I was following her to a smaller room with a toilet, my enthusiasm diminished, as I learned that I had to pee in a tiny bucket, while she was watching me. I found it quite embarrassing, and no-one had ever told me I would need to do this. But as I was quite tired after running 100 km, I did not bother too much.
Then six weeks later I was called by the national athletics federation. My sample tested positive and they had found modafinil. I told the athletics federation that it made sense, as I used modafinil as a medicine, but that I was not in violation of any rules as I took it four days before the race. The levels where only slightly higher than the level for which they report a sample as positive. It turned out that I interpreted their rules incorrectly: even when you take a substance outside of competition, then you will still be found positive if the medicine is found in your urine. For some substances this means that if you take it 3 weeks in advance, you will get banned, even though the rules state that there is no problem that you take the medicine outside of competition. To me this made no sense at all. What also did not make any sense, was that both the athletics federation as well as the NADO accepted the analyses done by a doping expert, who declared that I indeed took it many days before the competition and I could simply not have had any benefit from it. Why would I still get banned then?
I soon learned that I should have gotten a TUE, something I was unfamiliar with at that time. What was even more of a problem, was that I used the modafinil on my own account and not via a prescription of a doctor. You are allowed to buy and possess modafinil in the Netherlands and I simply bought it and did not think much of it. I started using it when I went from being a student to having a full-time job. I noticed I had difficulties staying awake when I was focusing for longer periods of time, an issue I also had while I was still studying but which was easier to deal with because I could manage my own time. I did go to a doctor once for this but it nothing came out of the blood test that the doctor performed based on my complaint. I am used to solving problems myself and therefore, when the issue with staying awake became a problem with my work, I simply googled on the internet for solutions, and found that modafinil could help, and since then I have been taking it as it helped me a lot and has no side effects at all. I only used it on weekdays, because in weekends I did not have to sit still and focus for a long period of time. In hindsight, I know that it is ADHD but back then I had no idea, and thought that ADHD was very different. ADHD is a common diagnosis now, but this was not the case when I was younger and there was simply less known about ADHD.
In the first meeting I had with the Dutch NADO, the focus was on how I got modafinil. Did I not know that this was illegal? The entire situation felt a bit surreal. Even if modafinil would have been illegal to buy (which was not the case), what did this have to do with doping? There was no performance enhancement and no intent; what was going on here? Not only would I get banned, but the Director of the NADO initially even told me that he could see no other outcome then that I would get a four year ban, unless, perhaps, I would consider accepting the sanction. I considered this, and asked that if I did accept the sanction, could I still participate in horse riding? I was also not good at horse riding, but the idea that I would not be allowed to go to the local horse lessons on Monday was devastating to me. It felt as if my social life was suddenly taken from me. It Is hard to describe the feeling it gives when you are, from one moment to the next, considered a cheat, banned from all social activities in every sports possible. The Director told me that it was not possible to still let me do horse riding, but that accepting the sanction would probably reduce the ban. The only thing I had to do was ‘admit’ my doping use.
Throughout the entire process, I felt pressurized into ‘admitting’, saying that I am sorry, warn other athletes for doping, and set a good example. The message that made me the most angry was an e-mail from the athletics federation, stating that my case would be a perfect example for anti-doping education, implying that I could become a case study exemplar. Of course, I declined: I was not good enough to get informed about doping, have never been given a leaflet, never got an invitation for a doping education course, an e-learning course or anything similar, no one pointed me towards the existence of the doping authority, even though I was a member of the athletics federation and paid my subscriptions for over a year. But now that I was banned, and my life was turned upside down, I should inform others of anti-doping by telling them about my ban?
Yet, this was in my opinion still not the worst part. The worst part was that the athletics federation decided to publish my ban. Because I was almost finishing my medical physics training and was applying for jobs everywhere, I felt that this was the worst moment ever to publish something like this, and I asked, and even begged them, to not publish it at this moment. I knew that I had done nothing deliberate to cheat or break the rules, but I also knew that when I am in a job application, the news items stating that ‘Hinke Schokker was banned for doping’ would simply be devastating. I could not prevent them from publishing, despite the attempts by my lawyer and I was in the national news as a doper, even though I was not even an athlete.
It is hard to explain the impact that this has all had on my life. It felt as if everything I had worked for over the past years came crumbling down. My life was turned upside down and instead of focusing on my academic projects I was full time busy with lawyers, the doping authority and the athletics federation. I became obsessed with the case, and could not think of anything else. I dove into literature, I read the World Anti-Doping Code, I looked up doping legislation, I talked to other athletes that were banned and I did all of this while I should have been finishing my training, finding a job and settling down with my husband. I spent way too much money on trying to defend myself; money that we could have used to buy a house. I had a huge difficulty in finding a job. And in the meantime, the doping case was still not finished. Now, after 1.5 years, I am still waiting for the verdict and I have no idea how long it will take. I have already been banned 1.5 times longer than the time I was active in ultrarunning. I am waiting for result of the appeal I made against the decision to not give me a retrospective TUE. At the moment, I have a TUE for modafinil, but I would need it backdated.
Throughout this process, I have been advised by people to not mention too much about the case, as it could result in a longer ban. But to be honest, the length of the ban interests me the least, as I of course have no intentions of running in events organised by the athletics federation anymore. The damage has been done already but I still continue with the case to get some justice.
In hindsight, what I found the worst part of all of this, is the feeling of being expelled and chased away. My social life has evaporated, and engaging in my hobbies has become a painful reminder of being isolated and banned. In everything I do I have to ask myself if I am even allowed. Second, the feeling of injustice is pretty disabling, and made me obsessed with the case. The opinions from some people do not help here; some people will simply call me a cheat, but most people will call me naive, stating that it is my own fault as I should have read the doping rules. What adds to this feeling of injustice is the fact that the doping authority performed a targeted control on me. Testing in ultrarunning events in not very common as normally it is considered a recreational sport. They were in Winschoten because I was there, and on the form for the doping officers only my name was explicitly mentioned, and they needed to test me even if I dropped out of the race.
Not only did they perform a standard doping test on me, they also added a GC-C-IRMS analysis for the steroid profile specifically for my sample, as if they suspected I was on steroids. They planned this way ahead of the race, but never cared to check if I have had any information or education on doping at all. It almost feels as if recreational athletes are used to crank up the numbers of ‘doping users’ because they at least can get some positive tests there. They are in any case keen on these numbers; before I was even given a trial, my case was already presented in the annual statistics of doping users of 2019 in the Netherlands.
Finally, the impact it has had on my career and my personal life is huge and if I would have known about this in advance, I would of course have never started running in the first place. To not just complain about this, but also be able to use my experience for something positive, I am active on social media and trying to get some attention for the issues in anti-doping. To put it mildly, there is a lot of room for improvement. Anti-doping should be more fair to athletes, and it should do what it was designed to do in the first place: protect athletes.
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