Breaking: CAS bans Erriyon Knighton four years for epitrenbolone

Yeah, there's no way any major sport would allow a star to be banned for 4 years in accordance with WADA rules.

ya, he was hot from the get go.

19.5 not far off kindergarden,

never made a big fuss, the sprints are like that.

dudes out of nowhere in india are the nee flavor of the month.

zero shocks.

🙄

This can go both ways. Both the CAS and WADA were created by the IOC, and CAS members were initially appointed by the IOC and the International Federations (e.g. WA), and IOC members often come from the IFs, and vice-versa. See David Howman for example. It's all rather incestuous.

Facts and as a massive Ethan strand fan this has me a bit worried. I’m biased because he won the 1600 by like 30 seconds at my first ever middle school track meet (and beat every guy at my HS for 4 years straight), and I’ve thought he had it in him to be a top 1500m guy in the country since he was a sophomore (his 7:46 outkicking Wolfe at ACCs).

But to go from 3:35 to, if he’s to be believed, 3:27 shape (his USA splits make me believe it) is still an insane jump. Whenever anyone is accused of doping, I always like to say that they’re passing the same tests everyone else is, but when something like this comes out and we see USADA might be protecting people, it makes it so much harder to even believe that.

A few thoughts on this case:

1. USADA charged him but I'm not convinced they would have if they weren't currently feuding with WADA over the Chinese swimming case. USADA has criticized WADA for its handling of that situation. So I suspect they didn't not want to appear to be going soft on a top US sprint star.

I did think it was notable that, when the arbitrator cleared Knighton, USADA CEO Travis Tygart said he hoped that WADA would be satisfied with the outcome. If USADA/Tygart thought Knighton was blatantly doping, you would think he'd be pissed off that Knighton was allowed to go free. This is what Tygart told me at the time:

Particularly since we were under a tight timeline to investigate and have this resolved in advance of the Trials, we felt that it was best for the technical scientific evidence on this question to be fully presented to an independent arbitrator as the process calls for and to allow WADA, in particular, who has appeal rights, to also be satisfied with the outcome as determined by that independent arbitrator. I would certainly hope they would be following our robust investigation and thorough presentation of the relevant evidence but only time will tell.

That said, WADA was not the only party who appealed this decision to CAS. World Athletics did as well, via the AIU.

2. A lot of the time in these cases where the athlete claims meat contamination, it is hard for them to prove anything because it's impossible to test whether a meal you ate several months ago contained a banned substance.

But in this case, a USADA investigator -- not Knighton's team -- was able to source a sample of oxtail meat from the bakery and it did test positive for trenbolone. Granted at a very low amount, 0.1 ng/g. Obviously this was not the exact meal Knighton ate, but the sample was from relatively close to Knighton's meal (six weeks later).

This was one of the main reasons -- if not the main reason -- that Knighton was cleared.

Look at paragraph 178 from the New Era arbitration decision:

As an initial matter, what is known is that there is a direct connection between the oxtail Respondent consumed and the oxtail served at Moreno Bakery where it was purchased. The irrefutable evidence is that the oxtail served by Moreno contains trenbolone. Respondent tested positive for epitrenbolone, a metabolite of trenbolone. This is significantly more evidence than what was available in other meat contamination cases where the athlete was found to have No Fault or Negligence. Thus, it is reasonably concluded that Respondent ingested meat contaminated with trenbolone.

3. I can't help but compare Knighton's case to the Jarrion Lawson case. And of the two Knighton actually has the stronger case for contamination yet Lawson was the one who was cleared by CAS.

Both tested positive for the same substance. Lawson's sample had a lower concentration (.65 ng/mL compared to 1.14 ng/mL for Knighton), but both of those are considered low levels. WADA's guideline says that in potential meat contaminations, anything u
For cases of clenbuterol, ractopamine, zilpaterol or zeranol or its metabolite(s) at a concentration at or below (≤) 5 ng/mL, WADA-accredited laboratories shall report the result as an Atypical Finding

Based on what we've seen so far -- the CAS decision has not been published yet, so we don't know if there is any new evidence -- Knighton provided more evidence than Lawson did. Because Lawson was never able to show that the meat he ate was contaminated. One of the key reasons Lawson was cleared was because his team was able to show that some of the testimony of one of the key witnesses in his initial AIU appeal was inaccurate.

Now I'm sure that the AIU/WADA argued that the level of trenbolone in the meat sample collected by USADA was not high enough to explain the trenbolone levels in Knighton's samples. And maybe that is the case.

But the inconsistency between this case and Lawson's is troubling to me. And CAS is now raising the bar for meat contamination cases. Even if you can show trace amounts of the same substance you were banned for, that wasn't enough for them to clear Knighton.

Also, some have asked about the arbitrator who cleared Knighton. It was a sole arbitrator, Jeanne Charles.

Original arbitration decision:

Without commenting on Strand in particular, I think this is a good point. Many fans want to think the best of the athletes they support and kind of suspend critical faculties a little. I really want to believe in Georgia Hunter Bell because she represents a British medal hope. But if we anonymised her results, I'd be suspicious as hell just based on the numbers. It's actually ludicrous to come back to the sport after 8 years, at age 30, and within a year become one of the best mid-d runners on the planet.

There's other cases, and we then head into various levels of rationalisation because we want to believe, despite ourselves. You see it with Cooper Lutkenhaus. If you were presented with his results anonymously, you would have huge suspicions - 1:42 at 16 is absurd. Add to that the fact he hasn't been getting tested. I get it, you want to believe because the story is amazing and he's American, and it may turn out that he's a generational freak. But if he was popped next month, would you really be surprised?

WADA performs another hatchet job on a young athlete who threatens a certain nation that more or less controls the sport.

As I said. Sh*tty sport full of sh*tty people from top to bottom but especially at the top. A fish stinks from the head down.

Yes Tygart's / USADA's role is quite fishy. Not for the first time of course. First the charging, then in the hearing the arguing that the tren concentration was too high by a factor of 380(!) (see point 113), then the being pleased with the non-guilty verdict. Quite strange.

Notably, USADA as the Claimant argued in the Knighton arbitration specifically that the panel made the wrong decision in the Lawson case:

194. Claimant argued strenuously that it disagreed with the Lawson panel’s reasoning finding that the athlete bore No Fault or Negligence and that this Arbitrator should not follow it. As to the legal reasoning, Claimant argues that the Panel in Lawson erred because it disregarded the plain language in the Code that requires athletes to establish, inter alia, the source of their positive test. Second, the Panel ignored evidence that the meat the athlete consumed very likely did not contain sufficient levels of the prohibited substance to cause the positive test. Third, the Panel credited factors that CAS panels have routinely declined to accept such as the athlete’s protestations of innocence, clean testing history, and, to a lesser extent, a negative hair test.

As a side note, none of that has anything to do with Ayotte, whose "inaccurate" statement was simply discarded by the panel. In the end, Lawson got away despite his positive test because the CAS panel couldn't decide which of the two conflicting boar experts' opinions to believe, and then - because in doubt - sided with the defendant. They explicitly wrote that. Same story as in the Jeruto case actually (conflicting testimonies of the hct experts), while Houlihan couldn't find a boar expert supporting her contamination theory.

If athletes didn't participate in the slaughter and consumption of animal flesh they wouldn't test positive.

They also have to not dope, and Knighton seems to have failed on that end of things.

If he didn’t eat meat the USA doping agency would have had to work a lot harder to cover it up.

I agree with your thoughts on USADA and Tygart, and the inconsistency. Like USADA said, Lawson should have remained banned. That was a sad decision back then.

But, CAS is not really raising the bar. Nothing new there. First, if you can only account for 0.003 ng/ml of the 1.14 ng/ml of steroids (using USADA's expert's factor of 380 (point 112)), you really didn't prove the origin of "the Prohibited Substance" (the Code's language) but only of a small fraction of it. Third, as USADA pointed out, there is lots of precedence where the panel concurred that the amount did matter (remember Houlihan?):

As for new evidence, I bet there was none, just different experts debating the same points again.

However, to verify that Knighton's meat might indeed have contained 38 ng/ml instead of the 0.1 ng/ml found six weeks later, they could have taken a sample every 4 weeks or so, plot the results and determine the range and standard deviation. If that range would have been 0.1 - 100 ng/ml, Knighton should have walked. Between 0 and 0.1 ng/ml - guilty. Between 0 and 1 ng/ml - guilty. Between 0 and 10 ng/ml - debatable.

The test was in March 2024, so they could have collected lots of data before the CAS proceedings. I bet neither party did that though for obvious reasons: WA and WADA didn't need to, and Knighton knew better (again, see Houlihan).

He should have been BANNED FOR LIFE!!!!!

Once again, defending the tribe.

Are you really this gullible/naive? Or just covering for the guy?

Nothing to do with "the guy", but more to do with how little we can conclude from arbitrations under the WADA Code.

I thought he was a commentator. Isn't Jarrion Lawson the guy who used to tell people to "go down to your local track" and see how long they could hold whatever pace?