The idea of self-administered anti-doping testing seems like a headline from the satirical website The Onion, but the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency announced this week that it has developed just such a system to ensure that no one gets a "free pass" to reduced testing during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic The organization announced that it has developed just such a system to ensure that no one gets a "free pass" for reduced testing during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

According to Reuters, athletes participating in the voluntary pilot program are conducting their own blood and urine tests while doping control officials monitor them live via FaceTime and Zoom.

"We are going to push the program and reinvent ourselves in the midst of this crisis, but we hope to gain long-term wins and understanding from this project that may ultimately have a real positive impact on the future of anti-doping worldwide," USADA CEO Travis Tygart told Reuters. [According to Reuters, Katie Ledecky and 200-meter world champion Noah Lyles are already part of the program.

The near-complete shutdown of testing during the social distancing and mandatory self-quarantine brought on by the pandemic raised serious concerns for USADA and Tygart.

"No one should assume that there is a free pass during this period, but we also need to be realistic that the significant reduction in inspections and the shutdown of inspections in some places created serious concerns," he told Reuters.

"What [the Biological Passport] is looking at is variation in a person's natural constitution, and if there is extreme variation, it can be caused by periods of doping, periods of non-doping, periods of death, whatever the case may be," Tygart said. 'Certainly, that could be conclusive evidence.'

Tygart told BBC Sports News editor Dan Roan that the virtual test was born out of staff frustration over losing the ability to test athletes according to normal protocols.

"So our team came up with the idea of virtual testing, literally sending blood and urine kits to athletes. Then, during the one-hour window, we would call them and through Zoom - we did it a couple of times through FaceTime because of technical difficulties - we would Zoom the virtual collection and monitor the process."

Tygart told Roan that for privacy reasons, doping control personnel do not virtually monitor athletes as they actually urinate as they do in person, but they do measure how long it takes and whether the temperature of the urine matches the proper body temperature He said that the system has the ability to monitor the temperature of the urine and whether it matches the proper body temperature.

Doping officers monitor the process of sealing and preparing samples for mailing while collecting data such as sample numbers. According to Tygart, a similar process will be followed with blood samples.