UVA Coach Serving Doping Suspension

I wonder if the NCAA tests for SARM? I wonder how the UVA throwers would do with a surprise test for it....

Was Fetzer coaching at MISS STATE when Mullings got busted??

birds of a feather wrote:

I wonder if the NCAA tests for SARM? I wonder how the UVA throwers would do with a surprise test for it....

Excellent research, Rojo. It only seems as if "most people don't view doping as that big of a deal." There are plenty of us who DO view it as a big deal, and we commend you and Wejo on the hard work you do in the fight to keep sport clean. Keep up the good work.

EVERYBODY DOPES. STOP PUNISHING CERTAIN PEOPLE

I don't dope. Your premise is false.

Rojo,

Have you ever seen information about an NCAA athlete testing positive for a performance enhancing drug? In track and field I only ever remember an athlete one time losing the 200 NCAA Championship for testing positive for caffeine. I have no memory of a football player ever being reported as testing positive. Do we think the NCAA even actually tests for these substances or are they just running basic tests for elicit drugs and simple things like caffeine.

That being said, if the throws coach at UVA has access to this substance what is to stop him from supplying it to his athletes? No one has brought up the curiosity and potential suspicion in how much the athletes under his direction improved last year.

Could it be possible that UVA is employing a drug cheat who could be supplying drugs to NCAA athletes who he knows will never test positive for the substance?

No one seems to care that this seems like a logical path of possibilities. Not WADA, not USADA, not the NCAA, not UVA.

Rojo-

I suggest you follow up this story with a public records request under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act. The University of Virginia is a state university and is subject to the act. Here's some info about the Act:

http://communications.virginia.edu/foia/index

http://www.opengovva.org/

Some of the information about Maric likely falls under the exemption for personnel records, as the AD said, but it would be informative to see what information there is about the UVA's anti-doping policies for athletes and coaches (if there are any), disclosures UVA has made to recruits about having a banned coach, emails concerning Maric, emails concerning inquiries about Maric, etc.

Of course it's possible. But it's possible any coach is supplying drugs. I guess it's more likley if one is actually on drugs themselves.

Thanks for the FOI act idea. I had thought about that myself. I initially contacted them because if there was a good excuse for him testing positive, I wanted to hear it and wouldn't have published a story. They basically said to me, there is a good excuse but we won't share it with you which made me logically conclude that most likely there wasn't a good request.

I've never done a FOI request before. What do you suggest I ask for?

I looked into it briefly this summer to make sure you don't have to be a virgnia citizen to get it, but as a member of the media, I think I could get it even though I'm not living in VA as explained here:

Mom of HS Thrower wrote:

All of this is why, as the mother of a highly-recruited HS thrower, UVA was eliminated early and decisively from the list of potential schools for our daughter. She simply didn't want any association whatsoever with a banned thrower as a coach.

This deserves to be quoted.

Intentional doping is a 4 year ban and Maric was banned for two years. I suspect it was unintentional. The rules against him coaching are new to WADA this year.

Your daughter chose not to go to UVA because the coach was banned? I call BS but glad you can pretend thats why she went wherever. I hope your friends like the story.

He supplies PED's to his athletes? Could you be more of an idiot? Lets contemplate it for just a second shall we, guy tests positive and goes back to coach and has the two best multi event throwers in NCAA and feeds them PED's because its a great idea especially when they both compete internationally. Very well thought out. What ACC school do you coach at? I suspect your a competitor.

Lets be clear, the rule was intended to keep people away from athletes that have a history of cheating in the assistance of athletes. So, some doctors or coaches that repeatedly fed stuff to their athletes. This was a guy who competed in two olympics and competed internationally for about a decade and tested positive at the end of his career and was given a two year suspension. I suspect he probably passed 100+ tests as a thrower.

By george, you're right! That means he's clean, of course! silly, silly me. ok rojo, move along, nothing to see here, an apologist has explained it all, let's all go back to singing the SARM kumbaya!

R-U-Serious wrote:

I suspect he probably passed 100+ tests as a thrower.

The four-year ban for a first time offense is new. It only occurs under the new WADA code in force as of January 1, 2015. As Maric was banned in 2014 he received the standard sanction, the same as for other first-time intentional users.

Well no smart guy, clearly he wasn't "clean" because he tested positive but that doesn't make him a "cheat". The WADA code goes into fairly extensive detail regarding unintentional versus intentional and you have no evidence one way or the other but chose to assume he is a cheat. Why is that? Lets start discussing every NCAA coach who has ever tested positive and discuss that they are all cheats. In fact lets expand that to any coach or teacher in america who ever tested positive in any sport and lets call them out. It doesn't matter if it was intentional or not does it? They are all cheats. So why don't you take the first shot at some names because I am sure you know them all. Is your name on that list? Clearly WADA is out of their minds for saying there could be such a thing as unintentional. If they were ever a positive for any reason they are a cheat and everyone around them probably does PED's as well. Thats your point isn't it? Anyone that hired any of those people is also dirty so they should be fired too right? Surely the entire US sprints team should all be removed from competition permanently. Who's next? Jill Camerena tested positive for taking fertility drugs I think, guess she should be banned too. Throws coach at Florida State lost a medal for THC positive test so he should be fired and I bet he smokes weed with his throwers by the rationale on here. Lets keep working through names and out all the cheaters.

Seriously, find something better to do than try to vilify people who made a mistake.

From what little I can understand about ostarine, a SARM, it does not seem to me to be the kind of thing that could be inadvertently consumed. Are the supplement factories going to have their processing equipment contaminated with SARMs? Or was it toothpaste?

no pretty much impossible for a SARM to be accidentally ingested. Kinda like epo or growth hormone, it doesn't just "Accidentally" get there, despite the ostrich brain who posted right above you.

He doped, got caught, and got the standard punishment, 2 years. No accidental doping here. Present some evidence or accept that UVA are a bunch of liars.

Blow smoke much?

Armstrong passed hundreds of tests. And he has admitted to have been doped from 1993 to 2005. Michael Rasmussen never tested positive, he used every substance and method available to him for 13 years. And even in Rasmussens time the testing was much tighter in cycling than in athletics. To not have tested positive for years doesn't mean you're clean. All it means is that you haven't been caught. Even WADA admits only a small percentage of dopers are getting caught.

The four-year ban for "intentional doping" came with the 2015 CODE. The standard ban for first ADRV was 2 years up until 31 December 2014.

Marić ‎got exactly the same length ban as the other track and field athletes banned for SARMs positives in 2014.

* Svetlana Denyaeva-Biryukova (RUS), banned 2 years for SARMs positive 26 February 2014

* Tatyana Dektyareva (RUS), banned 2 years for ostarine positive 9 December 2014

* Polina Dontsova (RUS), banned 2 years for SARMs positive 26 April 2014

* Martin Maric (CRO), banned 2 years for SARMs positive 13 July 2014

* Nadezhda Mokeeva (RUS), banned 2 years for SARMs positive 23 March 2014

* Roman Semakin (RUS), banned 2 years for SARMs positive 26 February 2014

* Irina Yumanova (RUS), banned 2 years for SARMs positive 22 March 2014

He also got exactly the same length ban as first time offenders caught for EPO in 2014. The Swedish race walker Andreas Gustafsson was for instance caught for EPO 14 December 2014. He admitted he'd taken the EPO. He got a 2 year ban for intentionally doping w/EPO.

rojo wrote:

We all make mistakes. But when we make big ones like this, there need to be consequences. Fess up to it, be honest about it, don't just act like nothing happened and tell others the evidence can't be shared as it's part of his personnel file.

This right here is where we need to focus. On one side of things we have people acting like coaches previous behavior doesn't matter and they are allowed to carry on coaching like their previous violations never happened. On the other side we have those who feel any violation should result in the offender being tarred, feathered, and banned from any involvement in sport for the rest of their lives. There is a middle ground to be found, unfortunately it seems as though we live in a world of extremes.

For what it is worth I don't think Maric should be anywhere near athletes right now, certainly not college students. Once his ban is up then he should be able to return to coaching.