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NOT THE TIME TO RUSH TO JUDGEMENT
The way the world has been reacting to Asafa Powell’s adverse finding this week, one would think the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had finally cracked the case of a serial killer who had been on the prowl for years. His case was one among five Jamaicans who returned adverse findings from tests conducted at the national championships in June but the world hardly cares about the others, not even Sherone Simpson, the Olympic 100-metre silver medalist from 2008.
The international media and local media have been feeding like piranha on every morsel of new information that emerges; some have seemingly even manufactured their own information in this media frenzy that has been at full tilt since Sunday, July 14. The doubters have also come out, people like the head of British Athletics Niels de Vos, who has called for four-year bans for both Powell and Gay. This, when much of the information about the cases are still to be known. This guy is a throwback to the day when they used to burn people at the stake just because someone said they were witches.
Look, in this world of professional sports and performance enhancing drugs, not every one who fails a drug test is a cheat. If you believe that you will also believe that every murder suspect is guilty of murder. That is why there are so many degrees of murder – first degree, second degree, manslaughter etc. And just like in those cases there are varying degrees of guilt when it comes to doping cases.
Here is what we know. Asafa Powell’s agent Paul Doyle hired a physical trainer on a temporary basis for a period of one month in May to keep the former world record holder healthy. The whole world knows that Powell has been having groin and hamstring injuries for the past few years and had hardly been able to finish a race since he strolled across the finish line in the finals of the 100 metre finals at the London Olympics last year.
The trainer Chris Xuereb is a Canadian who claims to have expertise as a fitness and strength trainer as well as skills as a nutritionist. Xuereb joins the MVP camp in Jamaica, preparing Powell for the national championships where he finishes seventh in the 100m finals and does not make the team as an individual representative for the World Championships in Moscow but could be considered for a relay spot considering the uncertainty surrounding defending world champion Yohan Blake’s participation at the upcoming championships.
Xuereb travels to Italy with Powell and is administering to the athlete providing him and subsequently Sherone Simpson with ‘new’ supplements that he claims were cleared when he had them checked out on GlobalDr.org, a site that lists supplements and whether they are safe for consumption by athletes. Simpson also checks the site and finds nothing to suggest that the supplements are unsafe.
On July 14, Powell and Simpson and three other Jamaicans are informed that they returned adverse findings. Powell and Simpson release statements naming the drug Methysynephrine as the stimulant that was found in their urine samples. Later that same day, news broke that Italian police raided the hotel where Powell, Simpson and Xuereb are staying and seize supplements and medication that were tested for the presence of banned substances.
On Monday, July 15, Paul Doyle, the agent who represents Powell and Simpson reveals that it was the two athletes who alerted the World Anti-Doping Agency WADA about the possibility that the supplements supplied by Xuereb could have resulted in the positive tests. WADA then alerted the Italian police who raided the trainer’s room.
On the same day Stephen Francis says publicly that he blames the athletes for breaking MVP’s supplement protocol wherein all new supplements have to be cleared by its medical team before being ingested by any athlete who is a member of the club.
Now when I look at that information, I see where Powell and Simpson have been very aggressive in trying to get to the bottom of the situation that resulted in their positive drug tests. Each athlete has been tested approximately 200 times throughout their careers and have never failed a test before now. Simpson I am told cried all night when she was informed of her test results shortly before she was supposed to compete in Madrid Spain on Saturday, July 13. She withdrew from the race and has since been very cooperative with authorities.
People will argue that their actions are only being taken now because they have been caught and they want to try to lessen any possible sanctions against them that might come after a disciplinary panel hears the case against them. But based on the comments from Francis, who says he will back his athletes’ integrity and the information coming from Doyle, who has taken responsibility for hiring someone he clearly didn’t know enough about, and the actions of the athletes in helping the authorities get to the bottom of this drug scandal as the media is calling it, suggests to me that there was no intent to cheat from either of these athletes. I say that too, because I happen to know both personally and believe them to be people of the highest integrity.
Yes, they were negligent and let their guards down and are now facing the potential consequences for their actions but that is the only thing I believe they are guilty of. Still, those actions have cast a darker shadow over the sport that has put food on their tables this past decade. I am sure they are aware that their actions will cost them in more ways than one, but to call them cheats and to treat them like they have always cheated and intended to cheat again is wrong.
Maybe it’s time for track and field athletes to form a union and push back. Yes, there are cheats among track and field athletes but for those who aren’t there needs to be some kind of justice. Leading up to the London 2012 Olympics athletes from across the world came together to force the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to provide with a greater share of the revenue that these athletes generate for the Olympic movement, they should also rally around the idea of it being unfair to lump all athletes into the same boat when it comes to doping offences.
In Major League Baseball, the players’ union looks out for the best interests of their players and does its best to protect it’s athletes from being raked over the coals until the full story is known. Perhaps it’s time track and field do the same.
http://gleanerblogs.com/sports/?p=2010
The way the world has been reacting to Asafa Powell’s adverse finding this week, one would think the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had finally cracked the case of a serial killer who had been on the prowl for years. His case was one among five Jamaicans who returned adverse findings from tests conducted at the national championships in June but the world hardly cares about the others, not even Sherone Simpson, the Olympic 100-metre silver medalist from 2008.
The international media and local media have been feeding like piranha on every morsel of new information that emerges; some have seemingly even manufactured their own information in this media frenzy that has been at full tilt since Sunday, July 14. The doubters have also come out, people like the head of British Athletics Niels de Vos, who has called for four-year bans for both Powell and Gay. This, when much of the information about the cases are still to be known. This guy is a throwback to the day when they used to burn people at the stake just because someone said they were witches.
Look, in this world of professional sports and performance enhancing drugs, not every one who fails a drug test is a cheat. If you believe that you will also believe that every murder suspect is guilty of murder. That is why there are so many degrees of murder – first degree, second degree, manslaughter etc. And just like in those cases there are varying degrees of guilt when it comes to doping cases.
Here is what we know. Asafa Powell’s agent Paul Doyle hired a physical trainer on a temporary basis for a period of one month in May to keep the former world record holder healthy. The whole world knows that Powell has been having groin and hamstring injuries for the past few years and had hardly been able to finish a race since he strolled across the finish line in the finals of the 100 metre finals at the London Olympics last year.
The trainer Chris Xuereb is a Canadian who claims to have expertise as a fitness and strength trainer as well as skills as a nutritionist. Xuereb joins the MVP camp in Jamaica, preparing Powell for the national championships where he finishes seventh in the 100m finals and does not make the team as an individual representative for the World Championships in Moscow but could be considered for a relay spot considering the uncertainty surrounding defending world champion Yohan Blake’s participation at the upcoming championships.
Xuereb travels to Italy with Powell and is administering to the athlete providing him and subsequently Sherone Simpson with ‘new’ supplements that he claims were cleared when he had them checked out on GlobalDr.org, a site that lists supplements and whether they are safe for consumption by athletes. Simpson also checks the site and finds nothing to suggest that the supplements are unsafe.
On July 14, Powell and Simpson and three other Jamaicans are informed that they returned adverse findings. Powell and Simpson release statements naming the drug Methysynephrine as the stimulant that was found in their urine samples. Later that same day, news broke that Italian police raided the hotel where Powell, Simpson and Xuereb are staying and seize supplements and medication that were tested for the presence of banned substances.
On Monday, July 15, Paul Doyle, the agent who represents Powell and Simpson reveals that it was the two athletes who alerted the World Anti-Doping Agency WADA about the possibility that the supplements supplied by Xuereb could have resulted in the positive tests. WADA then alerted the Italian police who raided the trainer’s room.
On the same day Stephen Francis says publicly that he blames the athletes for breaking MVP’s supplement protocol wherein all new supplements have to be cleared by its medical team before being ingested by any athlete who is a member of the club.
Now when I look at that information, I see where Powell and Simpson have been very aggressive in trying to get to the bottom of the situation that resulted in their positive drug tests. Each athlete has been tested approximately 200 times throughout their careers and have never failed a test before now. Simpson I am told cried all night when she was informed of her test results shortly before she was supposed to compete in Madrid Spain on Saturday, July 13. She withdrew from the race and has since been very cooperative with authorities.
People will argue that their actions are only being taken now because they have been caught and they want to try to lessen any possible sanctions against them that might come after a disciplinary panel hears the case against them. But based on the comments from Francis, who says he will back his athletes’ integrity and the information coming from Doyle, who has taken responsibility for hiring someone he clearly didn’t know enough about, and the actions of the athletes in helping the authorities get to the bottom of this drug scandal as the media is calling it, suggests to me that there was no intent to cheat from either of these athletes. I say that too, because I happen to know both personally and believe them to be people of the highest integrity.
Yes, they were negligent and let their guards down and are now facing the potential consequences for their actions but that is the only thing I believe they are guilty of. Still, those actions have cast a darker shadow over the sport that has put food on their tables this past decade. I am sure they are aware that their actions will cost them in more ways than one, but to call them cheats and to treat them like they have always cheated and intended to cheat again is wrong.
Maybe it’s time for track and field athletes to form a union and push back. Yes, there are cheats among track and field athletes but for those who aren’t there needs to be some kind of justice. Leading up to the London 2012 Olympics athletes from across the world came together to force the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to provide with a greater share of the revenue that these athletes generate for the Olympic movement, they should also rally around the idea of it being unfair to lump all athletes into the same boat when it comes to doping offences.
In Major League Baseball, the players’ union looks out for the best interests of their players and does its best to protect it’s athletes from being raked over the coals until the full story is known. Perhaps it’s time track and field do the same.
http://gleanerblogs.com/sports/?p=2010