In the war against doping, the next skirmish is never far away.  The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) brought in stringent new rules for sportspeople from 1 January 2009.  Under the rules, all athletes need to notify their hourly whereabouts three months in advance, so the drugs testers know where to find them.  Any changes to schedules also have to be updated.  Anyone missing three drugs tests in an 18 month period can be suspended for up to two years.

The rules have been criticised from various quarters.   Uefa and Fifa are unhappy, as is Fifpro, the association of European football players’ unions.  Leading tennis players, including Andy Murray, have been vocal in their disquiet.  The tennis pro’s world is an itinerant one, making notification of precise whereabouts at any given moment a logistical headache. 

But the sternest challenge so far has come from an assortment of 65 Belgian athletes, cyclists and footballers, who have brought a legal action against the Wada rule in the Belgian courts.  The Belgian refuseniks say the rule infringes the European Convention of Human Rights, which protects an individual’s right to privacy.  No ruling is expected until later this year, and the case is as yet a national one, not at European level.  So for the foreseeable future, diary management will be as important for an athlete as getting the hours in on the training field.