Anti-Doping officials crashed the 2009 NABBA Belgium Nationals Bodybuilding Championships to go through steroid testing. This was not scheduled and so the big competition had been cancelled! The championship was being held at Arsenaal Theater in Vlissingen, Netherlands on Sunday May 17, 2009. Upon the advent of the steroid testers, the 20 bodybuilders competing in this NABBA Belgium sanctioned tournament apparently “fled” the scene!
Hans Cooman, one of the anti-doping officials said that he had never witnessed anything like that and he hoped never to see such a thing again. He further said that doping is common in the bodybuilding world (proved over and over) so it needs to be checked often. Deducing from the flight of the bodybuilders, Cooman concluded that all the bodybuilders in the competition were steroids user.
Cooman also commented that anti-doping officials are often invited by sports federations like the cycling union, but never by the bodybuilding world.
Hans Cooman even charged the organizers of the 2009 NABBA Belgian Bodybuilding Championships by claiming that the organizers intentionally hosted the competition across the border in Netherlands so that they might avoid Belgian doping officials. Cooman said that such attempts are useless as Belgian anti-doping officials are ready to travel to neighboring countries to catch doping athletes and/or aid foreign anti-doping officials to catch Belgian Bodybuilders. But this was the first time Belgian anti-doping officials turned up in the Netherlands.
Cooman said that bodybuilding and doping have been going hand in hand for a long time, and this recent event did nothing to change this idea. Last year 75% of the bodybuilders tested for steroids were positive!
Law enforcement and anti-doping officials rarely paid attention to anabolic steroid use in competitive bodybuilding. But recent steroid arrests by officials in the United States, large scale steroid inquiries in Sweden, and the sudden arrival of anti-doping officials in Belgium hint that they will be monitoring bodybuilding activities from now on.
