The Issam Asinga Case: Did The Fastest High Schooler Ever Test Positive After Eating Gatorade Gummies Or Is It An Evil Coverup?

automorphic wrote:

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There's a HUGE difference between this case and the Houlihan case. Do I think both are dirty? Yes, when it comes down to it.

But Houlihan blamed her positive test on a small burrito stand that, as far as we know, did absolutely nothing wrong. Houlihan claimed she was given the wrong order and that it was contaminated; likely, neither of these was true--not to mention that burroti stands don't typically have a mission to protect professional athletes from doping positives.

Meanwhile, in this case Gatorade:

• Labelled a batch of supplements as NSF certified when they weren't
• Refused (or more likely, were unable) to provide a sealed jar of that batch

Gatorade is a multibillion dollar company that specializes in sport nutrition. For them to screw up this much should be a huge scandal, completely independent of whether Asinga is dirty and tried to cover it up (which, again, if I had to choose I would say he did). There are two stories here, one about possible doping and the other about corporate malfeasance.

****

Let's go just a bit farther for a moment. One of the following two things is nearly certain to have happened:

1) Asinga contaminated his own supplements to try to cover up his doping. Why these particular supplements? He either somehow knew that they were falsely labelled or just happened to choose them as the ones to contaminate. Gatorade could have easily proved him wrong by providing a sealed jar of the same lot, but again it just happened that they didn't have such a jar, even though they were required to and had jars of the other lot from the same batch.

2) Gatorade and Better Nutritionals are lying, and the two lots are NOT essentially identical. This explains why they are unable to come up with a sealed jar of the same lot--they are intentionally withholding it.

If Option 2) were correct, it could be related to Asinga's alleged contamination or there could be some unrelated reason. But I will say that the only way to get past the improbabilities from Option 1) is if Asinga is telling the truth.

****

To return to the original question, yes, Asinga is more likely dirty than not. And it makes sense that the AIU needs more than manufacturing irregularities before it is willing to throw out a positive test. So AIU's resolution was probably the correct one, given the circumstances. But Gatorade has gone really wrong here, to the extent that a deeper coverup is not impossible. We shouldn't let them off the hook just because the most likely possibility is that Asinga doped.

Trollminator wrote:

It would be impossible (and inappropriate) for the AIU to try to rule on his innocence based on testing and investigation of an opened package. I think they actually went too far by uncessessarily speculating there might have been likely tampering, as this opened the doors for Asinga's team to poke holes wherever possible. It's like starting to argue with a conspiracy theorist at that point.

The labeling issue is not so surprising when you consider the multi-layered process of manufacturing and the supply chain involving various players. It happens a lot more often than we could imagine. Gatorade seems to have been exposed here as not running a well controlled process (assuming the mislabelling is true). However, no way this can be used to explain the doping, as GW is not an ingredient and again, when you cook tens of thousands of gummies there is no plausible way you get the testing variation they found across gummies.

This is just Asinga's lawyer jumping on a $ opportunity against Gatorade, which may well prevail... but they'd likely have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Gatorade used GW at the factory. Dead on arrival IMO.

HappensAllTheTime wrote:

I’m not sure how likely a lawsuit is. Things are mislabeled all the time and few people seem concerned. I’ve had at least 9 containers/bottles (3 companies) over the past few years that had the Informed Sport logo, but those lot numbers weren’t listed on the Informed Sport website. My ratio of mislabeled products leads me to believe this is very common. I’ve contacted the companies and Informed Sport and I’ve never gotten the impression anyone thinks it’s a big deal. One company just simply told me I was mistaken even after I showed them screenshots of my bottle with the lot number and the Informed Sports Lot numbers tested. NSF isn’t perfect either. For example, The Vital Proteins Chocolate Collagen powder doesn’t even list Lot numbers. The NSF page simply says “Certified Lots- All” which defeats the purpose of checking your specific lot number. Anyways, Gatordade isn’t unique at all for having a discrepancy with their labeling.

rojo wrote:

HappensAllTheTime wrote:

I’m not sure how likely a lawsuit is. Things are mislabeled all the time and few people seem concerned. I’ve had at least 9 containers/bottles (3 companies) over the past few years that had the Informed Sport logo, but those lot numbers weren’t listed on the Informed Sport website. My ratio of mislabeled products leads me to believe this is very common. I’ve contacted the companies and Informed Sport and I’ve never gotten the impression anyone thinks it’s a big deal. One company just simply told me I was mistaken even after I showed them screenshots of my bottle with the lot number and the Informed Sports Lot numbers tested. NSF isn’t perfect either. For example, The Vital Proteins Chocolate Collagen powder doesn’t even list Lot numbers. The NSF page simply says “Certified Lots- All” which defeats the purpose of checking your specific lot number. Anyways, Gatordade isn’t unique at all for having a discrepancy with their labeling.

Correct. It happens all the time for you and it's not a big deal. When the athlete loses milllions in endorsements, it's a big deal. And Gatorade messed up by outsourcing this to some now bankrupt company.

Optics matter. Young, black HS guy - Big rich corporation. Who is the jury going to go for? Now if Assinga is dirty and Gatorade has faith in this manufacturing plant, it's just a matter if they've got the guts to not offer a settlement.

rojo wrote:

Kid from somewhere wrote:

I think this is a bit more than that, and Assinga will eventually be in court for defaming Gatorade/Pepsi Co. Taking Assinga seriously, we have to believe that Gatorade/subcontractor took a drug so deadly it got pulled from trials, and put it in at least one batch of gummies, despite the fact that the facility doesnt use this drug in any other product. This just doesn't seem plausible, but is the argument Assinga has publicly stated.

You make a great point.

I'm sure the manufacturer (which admittedly is not Gatorade) knows if this excuse is legit or totally made up. So does Assinga's camp. It would take huge cahones for Assinga to file suit if he knows it's not true.

When we talked with the interns about this on the podcast, I was surprised they were inclined to believe Asinga. They were impressed how he was declaring his innocence which I laughed at.

Saying you are innocent means little to me. People lie all the time. But paying for expensive lawyer is another. How expensive is Paul Greene? If you were guilty, would you really hire this lawyer, doctor the pills? That's pretty brazen. Of course giving a cancer causiing substance to a teen also would be brazen.

That's why this case is interesting. The two possible conclusions are just so so far apart.

rojo wrote:

automorphic wrote:

There's a HUGE difference between this case and the Houlihan case. Do I think both are dirty? Yes, when it comes down to it.

But Houlihan blamed her positive test on a small burrito stand that, as far as we know, did absolutely nothing wrong. Houlihan claimed she was given the wrong order and that it was contaminated; likely, neither of these was true--not to mention that burroti stands don't typically have a mission to protect professional athletes from doping positives.

Meanwhile, in this case Gatorade:

• Labelled a batch of supplements as NSF certified when they weren't
• Refused (or more likely, were unable) to provide a sealed jar of that batch

Gatorade is a multibillion dollar company that specializes in sport nutrition. For them to screw up this much should be a huge scandal, completely independent of whether Asinga is dirty and tried to cover it up (which, again, if I had to choose I would say he did). There are two stories here, one about possible doping and the other about corporate malfeasance.

****

Let's go just a bit farther for a moment. One of the following two things is nearly certain to have happened:

1) Asinga contaminated his own supplements to try to cover up his doping. Why these particular supplements? He either somehow knew that they were falsely labelled or just happened to choose them as the ones to contaminate. Gatorade could have easily proved him wrong by providing a sealed jar of the same lot, but again it just happened that they didn't have such a jar, even though they were required to and had jars of the other lot from the same batch.

2) Gatorade and Better Nutritionals are lying, and the two lots are NOT essentially identical. This explains why they are unable to come up with a sealed jar of the same lot--they are intentionally withholding it.

If Option 2) were correct, it could be related to Asinga's alleged contamination or there could be some unrelated reason. But I will say that the only way to get past the improbabilities from Option 1) is if Asinga is telling the truth.

****

To return to the original question, yes, Asinga is more likely dirty than not. And it makes sense that the AIU needs more than manufacturing irregularities before it is willing to throw out a positive test. So AIU's resolution was probably the correct one, given the circumstances. But Gatorade has gone really wrong here, to the extent that a deeper coverup is not impossible. We shouldn't let them off the hook just because the most likely possibility is that Asinga doped.

GREAT POST.

rekrunner wrote:

go to the original wrote:

Speak for yourself. I downvoted your post because of its extreme bias, full of half truths and omissions all designed to make the banned doper look better. Your typical MO. Pretty much like Jon's piece. Not surprising that rojo liked it.

This sounds like someone in the past called you an extremist drawing conclusions based on half the facts, and you are projecting it back.

I made a post expressly about "what I find most troubling". Do you think I omitted other things I find most troubling? Were you expecting me to copy/paste every point in the 43 page decision?

Do you think that it is biased to point out what the Panel wrote, that the Panel wasn't convinced of the adulteration scenario, even though that played no role in their decision? For something that had no impact on their conclusion, they went out of their way to say they weren't convinced, providing at least some moral comfort for the Athlete.

If that is extreme and biased, is the neutral position to call for a lifetime ban for tampering, as several posters in this thread have done? Seems fairly unbiased to side with the Panel stating that this scenario was not clearly established and that there were significant caveats.

Do you think it was biased to show that the Panel expressed awareness of the Athlete's difficult, if not impossible, burden to establish elements for the "unclean trays" hypothesis?

If the Panel went out of their way to acknowledge the Athlete's position and difficulty, why do you think the neutral and unbiased position is to demonize the Athlete?

My MO is to look at this as a precedent through the lens of future innocent athletes found positive for a banned substance through no fault, negligence, intent, or knowing use, of their own, wondering how likely it is that adjudication according to the WADA Code will find them innocent.

I find it most concerning that the Athlete tested the supplements declared on his DCF forms, and they were found to contain the banned substance, and that still played no role in reducing or waiving his sanction. In most contexts, finding a contaminated supplement would have been sufficient, rather than having to drill down even further, to establish how and when these gummies were contaminated, and by whom, to meet the balance of probabilities. Is there any similar precedent, when an athlete found a likely source by testing what he ingested and declared on his DCF form, but still got no partial or full credit for it? What kind of precedent is this setting for the available defenses for future innocent athletes?

Furthermore, any potential adulteration is not required to have been performed by the Athlete himself. It could have been done by someone from his entourage with the intention of helping the Athlete to avoid being sanctioned and it could have even been performed by an amoral trained chemist that may have been hired for such purposes.