Bahrain's world 400m champion Salwa Eid Naser (48.14 pb) suspended for whereabouts failures

casual obsever wrote:

YMMV wrote:

WRONG. It is THREE whereabouts failures within 12 months. Gaming the system.

True, but let's not forget that Coleman got away with it, and Thomas and Stevens got lots of supporters even here on letsrun for the same infractions.

Fans will be fans.

It doesn't take much investigating to know that Coleman regularly travels with the Kentucky track team. I can't think of any excuse for Salwa

Jeff Wigand wrote:

I hope they’re able to get her for an earlier test and vacate her gold from Doha. Miller-Uibo is the best women’s long sprinter on the planet.

You think Miller-Uibo ain't doping?

Hassan?

How about (going back) Bolt, M Johnson?

I would guess they all are dirty -- and many, many more.

Sir Mo for example.

I know this will be viewed as racist but is anyone really shocked by this? Also will not be shocked if she is left off

casual obsever wrote:

Yowzzzza wrote:

Matt London was touting her performance as the fastest from a clean athlete.

Amazingly, given the stuff he says, I knew that this was the most absurd.

Flagrant!

This guy?

matt_london_413 wrote:

Do you see me here roasting alot of todays female olympic sprinters? No you don't. Because the majority of them are doing this naturally.

LOL

he was calling Naser the clean WR holder...!?

Surprise...surprise...her agent is Juan Pineda.

Same guy that was Kiptum’s agent and the whole detritus fallout from Aden’s group.

At what point is a coach or agent held accountable for this? Don’t tell me that “he didn’t know”.

lb202 wrote:

It doesn't take much investigating to know that Coleman regularly travels with the Kentucky track team. I can't think of any excuse for Salwa

That's neither an excuse for a whereabout failure nor for a missed test.

In fact, Coleman got off because of a double technicality:

1) The incompetent USADA tester wasted his time, and began the "test" one minute after the special hour window. That changed the missed test to a whereabout failure.

2) That whereabout failure was then backdated by to April 1st because of a loophole (which is being closed now), formally changing the three whereabout failures within 10 months to three within 13 months - which is permitted since the rule was changed from 18 to 12 months.

The fact I'm not even surprised by this is very worrying indication of where the sport is now.

There shouldn't have to be this ever present cynicism and doubt about incredible performances by incredible athletes, but time and time again we are let down we give the benefit of the doubt.

Case in point, the top 400m (women) performers ever are

1. 47.60 Marital Koch GDR, East German, all you need to know...

2. 47.99 Jarmila Kratochvílová CZE, While not as infamous as the East Germans, Czechoslovakia did have a secret state sponsored doping program like other nations behind the Iron Curtain. Jarmila is famous not just for her world records, but also for her very masculine appearance, which could just be genetics (which some speculate could be Semenya Syndrome), or could be caused by doping from a young age.

3. Salwa Eid Naser 48.14 BRN, Middle Eastern nations have been "buying" African athletes for awhile, not without scandal including high profile doping cases like Ruth Jebet. Naser is now suspended for whereabouts failures...

4. Marie-Jose Perec 48.25 FRA, the first athlete on this list not embroiled in some doping controversy. The legit WR.

5. Olga Bryzgina 48.27 UKR, ran this time representing the Soviet Union. One again, the Soviet Union, just like their satellite states, had state sponsored doping programs, and even following the the collaspe of the USSR Russia state sponsered doping has continued, and is still an issue right now.

6. Shaunae Miller-Uibo 48.37 BAH, not connected to any doping controversies. Ran this time finishing second behind Naser.

7. Tatána Kocembová 48.54 CZE, Czechoslovakian, Eastern Block, you get the idea at this point

8. Cathy Freeman 48.63 AUS, no connection to any doping scandals. This time was won finishing second behind Perez in Atlanta.

9. Santa Richard's Ross 48.70 USA, the only scandal she's been involved in was when she claimed every female athlete she knows has gotten an abortion.

10. Valerie Brisco 48.83 USA, While she is not connected to any doping scandals, I do want to add that the USA wasn't exactly a bastion of clean sport in the 80s (and beyond), and the USOC quite infamously helped enabled dopers.

So of the top ten 400m performers ever, 4 were from the Eastern Bloc and it's state run doping programs, 1 is a likely doper and is now suspended for whereabouts failures, 1 is from the most infamous era of cheating in US athletic history, and only 4 have no asterisk on them in one way or another.

Half of the top 400m performers ever are cheaters. This sport needs to wake up to it's sad reality...

Labenthraub wrote:

I know this will be viewed as racist but is anyone really shocked by this? Also will not be shocked if she is left off

It seems that people have a decent chance to get away with whereabouts failures (or at least receive very mild sentences), so I am pretty sure it will not be the end of her career but if there is a ban she will miss Tokyo because it can hardly be less than one year. It could also depend on the local association. Meraf Bahta (Sweden) was given a one-year-ban for missed tests that was precisely termed so that her bronze from the Euros 2018 was not endangered and that she could have in principle qualified for Doha 2019 at the last minute (which she failed to do but still it was fairly obviously tailored for that).

Their Track Federation was notified.

I am shocked Juan was not aware of the pending suspension.

Perec trained with John Smith. Enough said.

Miller should not be considered as a clean athlete. She was close to Nasser in Doha.

So obvious.

My post from that thread: “Gross, just like CC and SAFP. The 3 stooges of the meet”.

CC: busted, whereabouts

SAFP: busted, oxycodone

SEN: busted, whereabouts

I am still basically 100%.

I do have some false negatives, which were tepidly negative: one guy from JAM, and Lawson of USA. Lawson has subsequently been “cleared”, so that’s some vindication on that one.

Basically, 100%.

So obvious.

Sprintgeezer wrote:

Of course she’s massively using, but over there they only care about the money they make. A ban of several years is a real biff to their wallet.

I say give her 4 years, minimum. She can live off her ill-gotten gains because there is zero possibility of executing any foreign judgment in Bahrain.

This should be made a criterion of IAAF membership, the domestic execution of foreign judgments—otherwise they just don’t care, go as long as they can before they get caught, and live happily ever after.

“Naser”, disgusting.

I prefer a lifetime ban which, if the athlete cooperates and tells all, could be lessened in exchange for the information.

It just reinforces that no top performances can be trusted to be legit. Cynicism is the winner.

Jeff Wigand wrote:

I hope they’re able to get her for an earlier test and vacate her gold from Doha. Miller-Uibo is the best women’s long sprinter on the planet.

And Miller Uibo is clean?

lb202 wrote:

What excuse could she possibly have?

Social distancing from testers

Anyone who has been in the sport sees her as the obvious sham that she is. Just another of Pineda’s problem kids: Kiptum, Naser, Souileman, Dibaba, etc. Also represented a 1500m guy that got busted, but whose name escapes me. Pineda also had an athlete that he represented die from a mysterious illness at 22 years of age (Hadis- one of only 5 ever <13, <27, and <59).

casual obsever wrote:

YMMV wrote:

WRONG. It is THREE whereabouts failures within 12 months. Gaming the system.

True, but let's not forget that Coleman got away with it, and Thomas and Stevens got lots of supporters even here on letsrun for the same infractions.

Fans will be fans.

Coleman should be banned.

Kenyans FTW wrote:

The fact I'm not even surprised by this is very worrying indication of where the sport is now.

This sport needs to wake up to it's sad reality...

+1

100 m, male, top 10 all time:

Bolt (doped trainer partner, Jamaican clen scandal)

Blake - doped

Gay - doped

Powell - doped

Gatlin - doped

Coleman (3 whereabout failures in 10 months)

Carter - doped

Greene - doped

Mullings - doped

Thompson - ???

Work Commute Track Club wrote:

This is why the sport needs better, fairer and more evenly distributed wealth. And need to allow athletes multiple sponsorship avenues

When you have most athletes barely able to support themselves and then the elite few above them buying sports cars for fun, it makes short cuts mighty tempting.

This is exactly on point. Athletes get zero share of TV revenue, are at the whim of race directors for appearance fees, can only have ONE sponsor on their shirt in a tiny box. The sport is a fucking joke - and that's why it is almost dead (no one cares outside of an Olympic games).

So to capture the small amount of $ - you pretty much need to dope. It's almost a winner take all market.[/quote]

As a counter argument, is this not an argument to make the sport strictly amateur again? I think that sports like pro soccer or cycling or NFL have more money the track and field yet they also have huge drug problems.

If the sport had no possibility to earn a living then I think that the parasite managers and agents who are a big part of the problem would largely disappear. The culture of the sport would likely change for the better.

Philosophically as well it makes more sense in terms of absolute performance to make the sport amateur. Someone like Usain Bolt is the greatest sprinter of all time and yet he only runs about twice a fast as a jogger who could run a 100m in around 20 seconds with virtually no training. There is no real rational justification for paying someone literally billions of dollars for an activity when someone who does the same activity 50%, 75%, or even 90% as well gets paid nothing by the sport.

In terms of fairness to the athletes, the amateur principle should be applied to the sponsors, organizers, and TV networks - they should not make money out of the sport either. In this way you would likely have mainly the government-funded channels and news networks as the main option for covering events and this could make the sport more mainstream and popular again. This is basically how the sport was covered in the 1950s when you literally had packed stadia to watch guys like Zatopek and dual meets etc.