Is the latest film by ARD/Hajo Seppelt vindication for Alberto Salazar? You can test positive after someone touches you

casual obsever wrote:

Yes - but ironically, Salazar showed that it cannot with testo. Will be interesting to see which substances were tried, and how large the resulting concentrations were.

For the record, Salazar got banned for three anti-doping rule violation: using a forbidden method, tampering with the anti-doping process, and traficking with testosterone.

The outcome of the testo experiment had no impact on the ban. In fact, even without the testo experiment, he would have gotten a four year ban, as explicitly spelled out in AAA's decision.

Would be cool if they could do the same type of steroid attitude that they do with track and field with the steroid infested powerlifting community.

So many people within the powerlifting community are on light to heavy doses of steroids that basically any gym I go to now has at least 5 to 6 of them with their 3D shoulders and stupid grunts over 15 reps. Then they take like a 2 second rest and go do some other dumb 15 rep exercise with like 20 pounds.

Doing 15 reps is a beginners program. No wonder they do it.

rojo wrote:

The newest ARD doping film apparently shows it's easily to test positive after someone rubs cream on you.

I haven't had time to watch it. Someone please do (it's got English sub-titles) and let us know what it says.

Rojo — have you watched it by now? Seems like this story should get more traction than it has. It’s a reversal of reporting from the journalist who has done about a half dozen documentaries in Kenya, not to mention Russia and the IAAF.

Regardless of what you think about the credibility of past doping excuses of banned athletes, scenarios like toothpaste or masseuse sabotage, and pork burritos can easily happen to otherwise innocent athletes, and the current anti-doping system is not designed to make detecting and defending against such scenarios easy.

The current “guilty until proven innocent” standard of “strict liability” in the WADA-code, automatically invoked after the presence of substances in samples A and B, will come at great cost to the innocent athlete, who is required to conduct an investigation and evidence collection, and pay for lawyers and tests, in order to convince some arbiter, or panel of arbiters, that the ingestion was not intentional. Such a process can have one of several outcomes: 1) too poor to defend; 2) too poor to complete the defense; 3) too unknowledgeable how to properly defend; 4) unable to collect sufficient evidence to convince a panel of arbiters on the balance of probability; 4) if the athlete is fortunate, a successful defense in front of sympathetic arbiters; 5) if the athlete is really lucky, a successful appeal due to an expert giving false testimony.

In the best case, even the best outcome for the athlete of a genuine no-fault finding comes at non-negligible expense, and becomes a “scarlet letter” for the athlete, in the eyes of the most sceptical fans, and still comes at significant cost to athletes, most of which do not earn much more then poverty level income from their profession.

Just a suggestion, but it seems like a good idea for the “letsrun” team of journalists to do a balanced write-up on it.

Wada doesn't seem to be impressed: https://www.wada-ama.org/en/media/news/2021-07/wada-statement-on-german-broadcaster-ard-documentary

WADA acknowledges that some athletes may be concerned when viewing this documentary. However, this possibility is well known within the anti-doping community. It is considered to be a very rare occurrence based on the small number of such cases that have arisen historically, and its potential is scientifically limited to a very small number of prohibited substances that could be absorbed through the skin into someone’s system (for example, the anabolic steroid, clostebol).

Here WADA, or rather the WADA code, is on the defense, rather than being an outside third party with a right of appeal in cases it views unjust.

It’s not surprising that WADA would defend the code it wrote, and defend a principle that swings the balance heavily in WADA’s favor, when determining guilt, against all accused athletes, whether guilty or innocent.

“Rare occurrence” acknowledges that it can happen, and probably has happened.

“Strict liability” is an important principle for WADA. It makes prosecution efficient by keeping their prosecution costs down, and shortening the time to sanction. The downside is that this increases the defense costs for innocent athletes, in these rare cases, assuming any defense, on the balance of probability, is even possible.

Again, look at the case of the first German athlete in the documentary, taking legal medication that was contaminated with a banned substance, at a level allowed by German law, and how fortunate he was to have one tablet left, which could be tested, permitting him to clear his name, at the great personal cost of his career earnings.