Why Jenny Simpson should NOT get the gold from Moscow WC

It's bizarre and slightly amusing to me that so many people are overlooking this. JS can whinge and act righteous all she wants but based on the current evidence she has no right to an upgrade and she hasnt been cheated out of anything at all.

Unless she has raced Awegari since 1st Jan 2016 she has no involvement in this case at all.

You could probably have started with "Why Aregawi shouldn't lose her Gold". Sounds like you were about to go on an anti-Jenny rant. Still makes sense though. Could lead to others thinking she may have been using other things.

People could and should whinge about it.

The odds that this is all she's ever taken are so slim they're probably negligible.

At the end of the day Aregawi is a cheat and Jenny was beaten by a proven cheat on that day, but because the tendency for cheats is to lie once they've been caught, there will be no way of knowing if Aregawi was cheating in 2013 so we'll never know and she can't be stripped of the title.

But whinge about it, that's perfectly reasonable.

I totally agree with all 3 of you here...

Several media outlets reached out to Simpson for a comment, so she supplied it. She's actually far less of a "whiner" than almost anyone in the sport. She doesn't like to talk about this stuff at all -- which is probably why she sent a prepared statement rather than satisfy individual interview requests.

But in answer to the original point, unless something ELSE is discovered, Aregawi is not going to lose her gold.

she lied about her marriage, her residency status, her earnings, and her drug use concerning this substance. What possible reason could you have for believing this compulsive liar about other substances or earlier doping?

One is innocent till proven guilty.

If anything, Simpson should be denied gold for using such horrible tactics in that race. Who does she think she is? Steve Scott in LA '84? On second thought, placing second despite using those tactics is quite remarkable. Upgrade her at once!

ThoseGuys wrote:

So Aregawi was busted for meldonium, as surely none could have missed. Right away there was an outrage (very understandable) of people demanding life-time bans and to bump Jenny Simpson to gold in the Moscow 2013 WC. But, ponder this:

Say Aregawi only used meldonium, and no other PEDs. Meldonium was first added to WADAs prohibited list on January 1st, 2016. That would mean that Aregawi was not in breach of any WADA/IAAF rules up until that date (given meldonium was the only substance in her system). This would further mean that Aregawi was "clean" when she won the WC 1500m final in 2013. Sketchy? Perhaps, but perfectly "legal". Therefore, there should be no need for Aregawi to return her gold from 2013.

If that was the case the positive would never have been announced. WADA is not going to announce a positive for a substance not on prohibited list. Also, rarely is it just one drug, dopers are usually on a cocktail; however, they usually don't list everything until after the fact.

How do athletes know when a drug is placed on the banned list? Does WADA send out warnings before banning something or is it a game of gotcha?

I think you are missing the point. They announced that she tested positive sometime in January, for a drug that has only been on the list since January 1st of this year. So the substance is now on the list, but was not on the list in 2013. That is the point.

And again, this is all with the assumption that she was on nothing else. While she may well have been, that is all speculations at this point

Are you jealous of CU's Barringer and Decker?

how do athletes know? wrote:

How do athletes know when a drug is placed on the banned list? Does WADA send out warnings before banning something or is it a game of gotcha?

They announce it.

WADA announced it in September-

It was covered in the press.

jjjjj wrote:

she lied about her marriage, her residency status, her earnings, and her drug use concerning this substance. What possible reason could you have for believing this compulsive liar about other substances or earlier doping?

From personally having met her, she doesn't strike me as the "mastermind" of this. In fact, she always had someone by her side who would speak for her. Other people (manager, her real husband etc) seem to have been the people to push this.

So we are now convicting people of being dopers for their entire career because they were taking a substance that was just recently added to the banned list? That's preposterous. What kind of idiotic thinking is that? She was using a substance that WAS legal and recently (as in the same month) banned. What does that have to do with her past performances? Let me ask you this, so if caffeine were to be banned today and Rupp and Farah tested positive for it next month, then all of their wins should be vacated? You can't say "well this person used substance x in 2016 so they must have been on other banned substances in the past." That's not how the world works and there's no reason to believe it's true.

What's preposterous is that you think it's okay to take blood boosters if they aren't yet banned. It may be the rule, but no one ever accused the governing bodies of making rules in order to clean up the sport.

ThoseGuys wrote:

So Aregawi was busted for meldonium, as surely none could have missed. Right away there was an outrage (very understandable) of people demanding life-time bans and to bump Jenny Simpson to gold in the Moscow 2013 WC. But, ponder this:

Say Aregawi only used meldonium, and no other PEDs. Meldonium was first added to WADAs prohibited list on January 1st, 2016. That would mean that Aregawi was not in breach of any WADA/IAAF rules up until that date (given meldonium was the only substance in her system). This would further mean that Aregawi was "clean" when she won the WC 1500m final in 2013. Sketchy? Perhaps, but perfectly "legal". Therefore, there should be no need for Aregawi to return her gold from 2013.

There is nothing 'perfectly' legal about it. It has been listed as a performance enhancer. It was found in her system. The laws are against PEDs. Just because it hasn't been listed, doesn't mean it didn't enhance her performance. If it was in her body then she wasn't clean when she ran. And the stuff didn't come down in a rain storm. She didn't accidentally take it thinking it was a legal PED. There are none.

All athletes are accountable for what they ingest, and it turns out illegal later, then they should suffer the consequences. How ever far from the event.

webby wrote:

What's preposterous is that you think it's okay to take blood boosters if they aren't yet banned. It may be the rule, but no one ever accused the governing bodies of making rules in order to clean up the sport.

It's ok to take caffeine which has been shown to enhance performance.

Yes it is. Within legally defined limits.

Was it okay to take more than legal limit, even before the limit was set? Probably not.

Do we need to be comfortable with seemingly arbitrary thresholds in order to make rules? Yes we do.