ALBERTO SALAZAR BANNED FROM ATHLETICS FOR FOUR YEARS FOR DOPING VIOLATIONS

As I was asked explicitly for my opinion ("do you have an opinion on any of the NOP athletes?"), of course it is correct for me to answer that it is my opinion. As it is a yes/no question, I could have simply answered "yes", but I went one step beyond what was asked of me. Likewise, as a student of law, you must also understand: - the principle of "innocent until proven guilty" - the need for "compelling" evidence to support allegations, arguments, findings, and judgments Here's what USADA thinks the applicable standard for anti-doping is for NOP athletes: “Every athlete is entitled to a presumption of innocence, until their case is concluded through the established legal process” USADA CEO Travis Tygart said. I actually do not need evidence, nor any further information, under this presumption, but you need evidence to overcome it -- evidence you concede will not be found in the USADA case, and it seems to date has not been found elsewhere. As you note, even the IOC agrees that it needs to collect further evidence, before it can act.

Armstronglivs wrote:

You are correct to say that it is your "opinion" that no NOP athletes doped. It is not and cannot be incontrovertible fact. As a student of logic you will understand that we cannot rule out the possibility that athletes doped, even if the likelihood was that they didn't (which I remain sceptical of). The evidence did not and could not cover Salazar's career as a coach. However, the circumstantial evidence, which was not and could not be part of the USADA case, means further information would be necessary before it could be confidently proclaimed that no NOP athletes doped. That is currently the position of the IOC.

This isn't about law or laws, this is about rules set by non-governmental organizations to promote and monitor clean sport.

Referencing Tygart's statement is a nice thought, but since WADA/USADA sets their rules for what clean sport is, it's also up to them (not what you point out as governmental law) what "presumption of innocence" means and what the "legal process" is.

Alberto broke rules set by USADA/WADA and received a 4 year ban. It seems Alberto was trying to find the exact line between the right and wrong side of the rules and he found himself on the wrong side.

The rules set by WADA/USADA fall under the overarching mission statement of the IOC which includes "the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles" (full statement below). There are legitimate medical reasons why WADA/USADA rules have certain allowances. Those allowances are being used as loopholes by a**hat cheats like Alberto at the cost of what sports are/should be about.

His athletes have not been found to have broken the rules, this is true, but this does not mean they are innocent or make it wrong to be suspicious. At best, they chose association with a likely and now outed cheat.

OLYMPISM IS A PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE, EXALTING AND COMBINING IN A BALANCED WHOLE THE QUALITIES OF BODY, WILL AND MIND. BLENDING SPORT WITH CULTURE AND EDUCATION, OLYMPISM SEEKS TO CREATE A WAY OF LIFE BASED ON THE JOY FOUND IN EFFORT, THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF GOOD EXAMPLE AND RESPECT FOR UNIVERSAL FUNDAMENTAL ETHICAL PRINCIPLES.

You are confusing legal rights with a factual inquiry. I say this not as a "student of law" but as a qualified barrister. The presumption of innocence is a legal process that puts the onus on the prosecution to prove guilt "beyond reasonable doubt" in a court of law. The accused person would usually have to be facing criminal charges for the presumption to apply. It is therefore not relevant into an inquiry as to whether the sky is blue - or, in this instance, whether any of the NOP athletes were involved in Salazar's activities. The standard of proof in that kind of inquiry is not the same as in a court because it isn't a legal prosecution of any individual, with a consequential penalty if the charge is proven. The question could be satisfied based on what is probable or likely, or what follows from the information available.

That said, if the question was answered affirmatively it could produce cases against individual athletes, but that would be an entirely separate matter. That is apparently what Tygart is referring to but his comment confuses the issue because the question of whether Salazar involved his athletes in his illicit activities is separate from the doping liability individual athletes may or may not have incurred. He is reticent to answer the general question because of its implications for individual athletes. He is likely concerned about the possible damage to reputation. But as none of us here is a prosecuting authority we are quite free to speculate - and properly so, according to the principle of free speech. You are not Tygart, so your coyness on this question is out of place.

What further shifts the argument away from the principle of a presumption of innocence in doping cases is that the process is closer to what is known as "strict liability". Guilt is presumed from a positive doping test and the onus shifts to the athlete to establish a credible defence.

The main point with regard to the question we are discussing about Salazar's athletes is that the presumption of innnocence, as such, isn't available to your argument. If you want to maintain his athletes aren't involved you will have to use another argument. The investigation based its findings on the evidence available to it; the evidence did not cover the entirety of Salazar's coaching career and the activities of all of his athletes. It is possible therefore that events occurred for which there was no evidence obtained. It would not be the first time that an investigation failed to discover the whole story. Hence the IOC request for further investigation by WADA. It clearly doesn't feel constrained by Tygart's reservations.

If you want to argue NOP athletes are guilty, seems like a qualified barrister should know how to build a case on the merits, and then argue it.

Presumption of innocence isn't a legal process, but a legal principle. It is the default position in the absence of any established contradictions. Tygart didn't make that statement about USADA, but intended it as a message to the general public, concerning questions of athletes doping. Seems like the presumption of innocence is even more appropriate for athletes where there is no known case or investigation, like Rupp, Farah, Hasay, and Hassan.

Different contexts may require different standards of burden of proof, but this is only a question of degree. The onus is still there to affirmatively build a case that overcomes the default presumption of innocence with compelling evidence, reasons, facts, arguments, etc. Has a qualified barrister ever argued a case otherwise? Would a qualified barrister rely on a ruling without understanding the findings and scope of the ruling?

You speak of factual inquiry in hypotheticals, but you need to speak of it in the past tense, and talk about the resulting facts found, and start building a case around that.

The IOC investigation is also respecting this process, collecting evidence first, to see if they can overcome this presumption of innocence that all athletes are entitled to.

It appears the IOC suspects them now to be dopers, or at least more so than before Alberto's ban.

Again, this isn’t about laws. It is not a legal matter. I would let the law decide if laws were broken.

The legal principle of innocence until guilty doesn’t matter here.

This is about an organizations rules not being followed and the organization banning someone from it as a result. The same organization is now researching athletes who were coached by the banned party.

If Alberto or anyone else feels they’ve been or are being wronged in this and wishes to make this a legal case, there seems to be civil court options to do so. The burden would be on the accusing party to prove, and once in court you agree to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Wouldn’t it be great if this were all to happen under oath? Isn’t it interesting that Alberto and/or crew haven’t tried to put this in court yet.

Yes, this is not about laws or the courts, and of course this legal principle matters outside the courts. Tygart, the leader of one of these anti-doping organizations, responsible for enforcing the rules, tells us, the general public, that athletes are entitled to this same legal principle.

Yes - because they have seen so much evidence that they think it's worth the extra effort of focusing on these suspects.

Lol. That's a good one.

Nike even pulled the plug before starting an appeal. The cheater's group has been dissolved, finally! That speaks for itself. Nike knows...

Wouldn't a barrister argue that someone is guilty before it's proven that that someone is guilty? The same thing, more or less, is happening here.

In fact, that's what USADA did in front of AAA.

I would think so. That's what seems to be missing here -- an argument on the merits. Instead, I'm getting lectured that "guilty until proven innocent" is the unspoken principle outside of the courts.

casual obsever wrote:

Wouldn't a barrister argue that someone is guilty before it's proven that that someone is guilty? The same thing, more or less, is happening here.

In fact, that's what USADA did in front of AAA.

You can't be innocent until proven guilty until accused of something. Anything that is said here is public opinion based on whatever is seen and believed. IOC is just investigating, no accusations. I'm guessing USADA is involved in the investigation, but again, no accusations. The principle of innocent until proven guilty does not matter here.

It's great that USADA uses innocent until proven guilty as a starting point for rule violations, but they aren't required to. USADA is an arm of the USOC which is essentially an arm of the IOC, so the sake of clarity, let's think of them as one organization, or "business."

In their business, do you think athletes/coaches have some sort of legal right to be involved outside of what I'm sure are very duration defined contracts? I'll answer for you. No, this is not a right and is not guaranteed in any way. It's entirely by whatever rules IOC/USOC,etc... have in place/decides.

Imagine how much money IOC/USOC stands to lose because its own investigating arm banned maybe the most famous couch in the world who is closely tied to the largest athletic company in the world. They simply could've ignored or made an exception to their own rules, so how bad did it have to be for this to happen? If you can't see why public opinions are shaped by this and allowably expressed here or anywhere, your nuts man!

You are shifting the argument. As you do.

I am well aware the presumption of innocence is a legal principle; I decscribed it as such and the point didn't need correction. It is also part of a legal process because because otherwise it has no practical application. But this is a discussion board, not a courtroom and we don't need to be overly concerned with professional terminology - and particularly when the principle raised has no direct application to the issues we are discussing.

But you also misunderstand it when you describe it is a "default position"; it is not, it is substantive right within a legal context. It is a protection for a person charged with an offence; it is not a default position for "resolving contradiction", as you put it, when the issue concerned is an inquiry of fact and not a prosecution or legal dispute. You can't use it to end inquiry, by saying that it resolves the matter or stops further discussion. In this context, you need to put it out of your head.

You go on to say that as a barrister I should know how to construct a case that Salazar's athletes doped. Firstly, to clarify - I qualified as a barrister but my career was journalism; the former was a training in argument, the latter in experiencing the world - which is relevant to understanding how and why people like Salazar do what they do.

Despite what you seem to understand, I have not claimed all of Salazar's athletes have doped. I have not tried to make a case that they have - which I wouldn't do because it isn't a legal matter - but neither have I sought to argue that specific point.

What I do say is that there is a valid question as to whether any of his athletes have been involved in the sorts of practices he has implemented for their apparent benefit and the question has not been resolved definitively by the findings of the panel on the evidence available to it. But at this stage we are not concerned with issues of law but of fact; what actually happened in the work Salazar was doing with his athletes. We need more information about that.

To further clarify, the IOC position does not "respect the presumption of innocence", as you suggest; its position is that it simply does not prejudge the issue but seeks further information. No athlete is presumed to have doped at this stage and nor does any face sanction; so the presumption of innocence doesn't apply. It would apply only if an athlete were to face a charge they had doped. That would only follow if there was a prima facie case that they had, based on information obtained from a prior general inquiry into their activities with Salazar. We are a long way from that.

Somewhere along the line, we've dropped the word "presumption": “Every athlete is entitled to a presumption of innocence" While this principle of presumption of innocence exists for the accused in the courts, and in anti-doping arbitrations, it also exists in a similar form outside of the courts, in virtually all contexts where a question has been raised and doubts have been expressed. Everyone, everywhere, in every context can make presumptions of innocence, or presumptions of guilt, even in the absence of any direct accusations. For example, association with a "convicted doping coach" is enough to trigger a change in this presumption, based on some perception of a shift in probabilities. Out of fairness to clean athletes, all athletes are also entitled to a presumption of innocence also before any accusations. In any case, NOP athletes have been constantly accused of doping under Salazar for more than a decade. You say "public opinion based on whatever is seen", but to my knowledge no one has ever seen Salazar dope any NOP athlete, not even the whistleblowers. You also say "and believed" which is precisely a point I've made for many years. I don't deny how public opinions are shaped, and that freedom of speech gives broad rights in public forums. This does not prevent me from expressing my own freedom of speech opinion that many public opinions are shaped by beliefs and imagination and fallacies, rather than a result of strong evidence and robust arguments.

I think you are mistaken to treat "presumption of innocence" as a principle of fairness that only exists in narrow legal contexts. I'm talking about an analogous form that exists in the court of public opinion. Maybe we should come up with a different name, but the principle of presuming athletes are clean, lack of any substantial showing otherwise, is the only one that guarantees fairness to athletes who really are clean. A change to a presumption of guilt of NOP athletes by association with Salazar should be recognized as a change, which is based on, what we call in the domain of logic, a logical fallacy. Everyone is free to prejudge what they want, but what interests me most is the basis for such decisions. If the basis appears to be insinuation, imagination, misinformation, fallacies, and tabloid gossip, I am unlikely to be compelled to change my default stance. As I explained above, NOP athletes have faced doping accusations from a skeptical public for a decade now. Figure out how you want to call it, but there can be no doubt that the accusations exist, raising the question of prejudging guilt or innocence in the court of public opinion. I don't agree that in non-court contexts, the applicable standard is "guilty until proven innocent". The position that is most fair to clean athletes is that the burden of supporting such accusations belongs to the accuser, and the strength of such accusations depends on the evidence and arguments, and is itself subject to judgement.

EDIT: Or rather "... an analogous form that should exist in the court of public opinion as a matter of principle"

In your next reply to Armstronglivs, you reference Court of Public Opinion. I referenced Public Opinion. This is not a court, this is a message board where I and you and anyone else are free to express our opinions. In opinions, people can presume whatever they want.

In regards to Seen and Believe: I have 'seen' the Alberto ban, and I 'believe' it did not happen in a vacuum. Someone could also say that they saw so and so use an inhaler, therefore they think so and so is a dirty athlete. Everyone is entitled to their own interpretation. WADA's rules are an interoperation. I find that what most people are accusatory of is a violation of what they find is and isn't ethical in sport.

Can you straight faced say you feel good about what is explicitly known to be taking place in this sport? Do you find that because no NOP athlete has been 'caught,' what they are doing is right for the sport? And this isn't a NOP hit job, a certain female athletes response to a question about visiting a certain doctor is right there as well, and on and on....

I'm advocating for clean sport, that is my ethical stance. If someone finds a loophole in the anti-doping rules that allows them an advantage without breaking the rules, that to me isn't ethical. That 100% has taken place.

We are getting overly-concerned with procedural terminology here; this isn't about "presumptions", "prejudgments" and "principles", although it is quite easy to be diverted by these. In essence, the question is that which we would apply in any situation where we are trying to arrive at the truth; we ask, what do the facts tell us. This is not prejudging the issue; it's seeing where the facts take us. Your version of the truth is based on your understanding of what constitutes the facts; others may have a different view. However, it seems to me that the only facts that you consider relevant are the findings of the panel (coupled with the presumption that athletes must be considered clean until it is proven otherwise). But you have then wedded your understanding of the truth to what was confirmed by the panel and nothing extrinsic to that. Yet the panel's findings were not exhaustive; they were confined to the material put to it. There is information that wasn't part of the investigation and the panel's findings which can be considered relevant.

Unlike you, I am not confident the panel has successfully and definitively revealed for us the full extent of Salazar's activities and the involvement or otherwise of his athletes. I have suspicions that there is rather more to it but at this stage I would have to say that remains speculative and is yet to be proven. But that also means that, for me, the issue is far from being resolved by the panel. Laura Muir put it in a nutshell; "there is a cloud over the races in which his athletes have taken part". We need to know more, to either dispel the cloud or confirm our worst suspicions of what lies behind it.

Agreed.

Maybe it is a little easier for you to understand if you stop talking about "what is explicitly known to be taking place". My issue has never been with the panel decisions of Salazar's 3 violations, or other things that are explicitly known to be taking place. When I say principle of "presumption of innocence", it is for situations where many things are not explicitly known, where there remains a significant amount of uncertainty or doubt. Since, "presumption of innocence" seems to be unpalatable for you, how about giving athletes the "benefit of the doubt" in cases where the doubts are substantial? After having seen the Alberto ban, do you find it appropriate to point a finger at, for example, Hassan? She was not there for the infusions, L-Carnitine, or the testosterone experiment. There is no testimony or evidence that she is getting private massages, or taking infusions, l-carnitine, asthma or thyroid medication. Any finger pointing toward Siffan Hassan is almost completely based on things not "explicitly known", combined with guilt by association with a coach who was not found to have doped any if his NOP athletes after a lengthy investigation. I'm fine with advocating for clean sport, but how is pointing the finger at innocent athletes part of advocating for clean sport? Doesn't advocating for clean sport also mean protecting the reputations of clean athletes? I think the finger pointing without explicit knowledge is done far too often, based on far too little substantial knowledge, and this causes substantial collateral damage to the sport. This has 100% taken place.