This is actually a Canadian article, but it's pretty much the same modus operandi here in the US:
Urinating in front of strangers a fact of Olympic life The Canadian PressBy Donna Spencer, The Canadian Press Posted Thursday, August 20, 2009 6:02 PM ET
Photo Credit: Lefteris Pitarakis / APThe doorbell rang just as Hayley Wickenheiser finished her hair and makeup for her sister Jane's wedding and was about to don her bridesmaid's dress.
At the front door of her parents' house were doping control officers from the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport. The captain of Canada's women's hockey team had to produce a urine sample on the spot.
"I have a wedding photo of me and my bottle of urine and my sister in her wedding dress,'' Wickenheiser said.
"I was nervous I wouldn't make it to the wedding on time because I couldn't go right away. I said (to the drug testers) 'If I can't go, you have to come to the wedding with me.' And they would have.''
Neil MacKenzie of Windsor, Ont., has been a doping control officer for more than 20 years and has witnessed many an athlete urinating into a bottle. He once went to an athlete's home to conduct a no-notice test. The athlete had just been to the washroom and he couldn't produce a sample right away.
"I actually sat on the couch and watched two college football games,'' MacKenzie said. "When the athlete was ready to pee, there was a minute and a half left in the fourth quarter, so (I said) 'Just hang on for a minute and a half. It's a tight game.'''
That's how it goes sometimes in the strange world of drug testing.
When you're an Olympic athlete in Canada, you sign part of your dignity and privacy away to prove you don't cheat.
Collecting a urine sample for testing requires a doping control officer watching an athlete pee into a bottle to ensure the sample hasn't been tampered with in any way.
"People are kind of horrified when they find out you have to do this,'' Canadian women's hockey defenceman Gillian Ferrari said.
Explained speedskater Clara Hughes: "You have to put your pants around your ankles and your shirt to above your ribs and technically they're supposed to watch the flow of urine leave your body.
"I've had people with their head two feet away from the flow of urine. They say 'We have to do this' and I'm like 'You take your job seriously and that's a good thing.'''
Olympians aren't the only Canadians whose professions require them to provide urine samples. The oil industry and the military also conduct drug testing.
But Canada's athletes are held to a rigid standard. In addition to providing samples during competition, they are subject to no-notice, out-of-competition testing in their homes.
They are constantly tested over the course of a year and over the course of their lives if their career is a long one. And a positive drug tests goes public.
Wickenheiser's first drug test was at the age of 12 after helping Alberta win the Canada Winter Games gold medal in hockey and she is now 31 years old. Hughes was tested 37 times one year when she was a competitive cyclist.
Athletes can also be tested up to 18 months after they retire in order to prevent a scenario in which an athlete retires, uses the time to go on a cycle of performance-enhancing drugs before coming out of retirement and competing again.
Doping control officers, or DCO's, strive to make sample collection as quick and non-invasive as possible. But once they find an athlete at home or at a training venue, they want a sample whether it takes five minutes or five hours. The athlete can't leave their sight during that time.
"I've certainly been to people's places where they're going to sit down and have dinner, or they have company,'' MacKenzie said. "The key is, once we initiate the process, we follow the process.
"We try and be as discreet as possible and I know that's not always possible.''
In a headline-grabbing example of bad timing for a drug test, German hockey player Florian Busch was suspended for two years after he refused a doping test because he was sharing what a coach said was "a private moment'' with his girlfriend when the testing team arrived at his apartment earlier this year.
The 24-year-old submitted to a test hours later. His sample was negative for banned substances, yet the World Anti-Doping Agency said refusing to provide a sample when asked was a violation.
Many of Canada's doping control officers have a background in the medical or health care field, so they're not squeamish about what comes out of an athlete's body. MacKenzie, a dietician, admits it's not a comfortable moment, however.
"It would be like asking an athlete if they ever stopped getting nervous when they're about to drop the puck. You don't,'' he said. "You can't get used to an awkward situation. It's still awkward I think every time.
"The reality is it's part of the process. It makes sure our athletes are competing on a level playing field.''
Ferrari, of Thornhill, Ont., doesn't find chatting with a doping control officer makes the process any easier.
"I don't talk. My head is down. No eye contact,'' she said. "I'm focused on the bottle and focused on not thinking too much because you can psych yourself out. You don't want to freeze up.''
Bobsleigh pilot Lyndon Rush, however, finds a little levity helps.
"I chat with them and have a good time with it. I try to make them feel appreciated,'' said the native of Humboldt, Sask. "They've all been people who are interested in sport. They want to talk to you and they think what you're doing is neat.''
Rush feels going to the bathroom in front of a stranger is a small price to pay. Bobsleigh is high-risk for doping because it is a power sport and ripe for steroid abuse.
"I'm more frustrated that athletes use drugs than I am about getting drug tested,'' Rush said. "Last year was the first year that nobody I know has tested positive in my sport. Every year I've been sleighing, I've known someone personally that's been caught.
"When (drug testers) show up I think to myself 'It's good you're doing this.' If you're a Canadian athlete, you have to be very intelligent to cheat. They do a really good job in Canada. We get tested a lot.''
Ferrari agrees that producing a urine sample is the price of doing business as an Olympian.
"It's athletes' fault that is had to be this invasive because people cheated and people do cheat and people are always looking for a way around the system,'' she said. "It's hard to say what would be a better method.
"I would rather let people know we are a drug-free sport by letting it all hang out in front of a stranger than have people question the integrity of our sport.''
Athletes must fill out an online form with the CCES, called the Adams form, and constantly update it as to their whereabouts on a given day, so doping control officers know where they are and where to find them.
"I consider ourselves in a partnership with athletes as opposed to at war with athletes,'' MacKenzie said. "I think athletes should be able to compete as themselves on a level playing field without having to go to extreme measures as far as doping or things that could be potentially hazardous to their health.
"You shouldn't have to contemplate cheating to keep up with the cheaters.''
The CCES conducts seminars with development and junior teams to prepare young athletes their first drug tests. But MacKenzie says some don't listen that closely and when they're approached by the CCES, they're like a deer in the headlights at the prospect of having to provide a urine sample.
"The reality is, you can be tested anywhere, any time, any place,'' he said.
