Gabby Thomas - formerly of Harvard - is cleared for 3 whereabouts failures after "new evidence" is provided

LetsRun.com wrote:

https://twitter.com/aiu_athletics/status/1279106112420229120

Anyone know where she can go to get her reputation back?

After the 4th of July holiday, we hope to figure out what the "new evidence" was.

These whereabout failure tests are getting to be a bit annoying. It shouldn't be that hard to figure out. We are advocating that testers use phones to document their attempts to test. With GPS and modern phone technology, what is debate about these days? There really should be almost next to zero debate about these things.

In theory, it seems like the process should be straight forward and not open to debate, but as a practical matter, it really isn't. As a professional athlete, if you are in the testing pool long enough, you are going to miss a test. The 2 primarily methods of missing a test are: (1) Basically, your plans change at the last minute and you fail to update your calendar. After a couple drinks, a girl decides to stay overnight at her boyfriend's apartment and sleeps in late. To make matters worst, her phone dies and she can't charge it. Either it's because she had too many drinks and forgets to change her calendar or she assumes it's highly unlikely a tester is going to show up tomorrow morning. (2) The athlete has not been tested in several months, forgot they are suppose to be at home at 9:00 AM and literally goes for a run, a cup of coffee, shopping or whatever. Another potential problems is, the tester is having trouble reaching the athlete either because they can't gain entrance to the apartment building, housing development or the athlete is in the shower at the exact moment the tester shows up. Whereabouts misses are in many cases young athletes being irresponsible like young people can be sometimes. Btw, testers do not go out of their way to test an athlete for the simple reason whatever they do for one athlete, the testers would have to do for all athletes.

With that said, the imperfection in the whereabouts system is understood, which is why you get multiple changes. Generally, one missed test wakes an athlete up the seriousness; the 2nd missed test causes most athletes to orient their routines around not missing another test. While missing a test is easy, missing 3 in a 12-month period is not.

LetsRun.com wrote:

https://twitter.com/aiu_athletics/status/1279106112420229120

Anyone know where she can go to get her reputation back?

Haha, yeah leave this pathetic sport and its inept overlords far behind and use that Harvard degree for a rewarding career path! Not like she was going to make the 'lympic team without drugs, anyway.

LetsRun.com wrote:

Anyone know where she can go to get her reputation back?

After the 4th of July holiday, we hope to figure out what the "new evidence" was.

These whereabout failure tests are getting to be a bit annoying. It shouldn't be that hard to figure out. We are advocating that testers use phones to document their attempts to test. With GPS and modern phone technology, what is debate about these days? There really should be almost next to zero debate about these things.

This is the downside of public transparency.

If the ADOs are going to backtrack on these decisions in the normal course of the athlete defending themselves, is it the best thing for the sport and for the athletes, to publicly publish preliminary suspensions?

hate to break it to you but most runners nowadays are doping

The whole matter is not simple as it is a breach of human rights.

rekrunner wrote:

This is the downside of public transparency.

If the ADOs are going to backtrack on these decisions in the normal course of the athlete defending themselves, is it the best thing for the sport and for the athletes, to publicly publish preliminary suspensions?

There should be more, real transparency, not even less.

As usual, there were months of non-transparent haggling behind closed doors between the third whereabouts failure and the provisional ban.

Then, several weeks after the provisional ban, new evidence (allegedly that one of the three whereabouts failures doesn't count for whatever reason) was submitted and accepted, again behind closed doors.

There should be a lot more official transparency (other than the suspect's twitter), not less, including the circumstances of all three missed tests/filing failures, the new evidence and why it was submitted so late. Then the public could come to an informed opinion about this case (let's hope that is still coming). Now? Not so much, other than that someone screwed up badly or is still outright corrupt.

Public transparency needs to be balanced against the rights of athletes.

Announcing the provisional suspension, only to withdraw it, has caused damage to both the AIU and to Gabrielle Thomas, essentially for nothing.

rekrunner wrote:

Announcing the provisional suspension, only to withdraw it, has caused damage to both the AIU and to Gabrielle Thomas, essentially for nothing.

I am not arguing against that conclusion, but argue that that is not the fault of transparency (which is too little, as described above).

Assuming Gabby's short twitter note is correct:

Then it's the fault of Gabby who chose to not submit her evidence earlier. Remember that the last case (Kipsang) took eight months from the missed test to the announcement of the provisional ban, with lots of back and forth between the parties.

It also has to be the fault of the tester, one way or the other, because he/she claimed for months that Gabby wasn't available for getting tested, only to be finally proven wrong.

Frankly, that both is hard to believe. Why would she withhold the evidence until after the embarrassing announcement of her provisional ban? How/why would the tester either not ring the doorbell or go to the wrong address without noticing it?

If the story is not correct, then we are back to the good old deals behind closed doors, again, exactly not transparent.

Finally, even when accepting all that, that still leaves the mark of two whereabouts failure on her resume. See Coleman.

Privacy is central to human rights; having to publicly explain were you were when your wife did not know is never required in any other form of life.

Why is it that Doping Control demand rights that don’t exist anywhere else.

You can’t sign your rights away.

Sorry Rule, but your understanding is overly simplistic.

No, I won’t elaborate. You can, however continue to further develop your understanding. I encourage you to do so, you are on a good path.

ronpaul 2020 wrote:

Are you guys...disappointed she got cleared?

I say hooray, I'm sure she provided great evidence to get the decision reversed, and her reputation is restored in my mind.

Officials do whatever they can to clear sprinters if they are from anointed groups.

Judging from her earlier tweets, she was where she was supposed to be, and said that phone tracking and multiple witnesses would confirm that, and that the DCO failed to follow proper protocol.

This sounds like it could be the evidence "not previously been disclosed to the AIU through the results management process". I didn't understand her to withhold evidence, or fail to submit it earlier. Given the rapid announcement of the provisional suspension, in the name of transparency, it's not clear she had an opportunity to submit phone tracking and multiple witness evidence earlier.

In another tweet, she made it sound like she had undeniable evidence that she was present for 2 of the 3 missed tests.

At what point does public interest kick in justifying public transparency? I don't think it should be in the public domain, if there is a chance that 1 or 2 can be reconsidered as not missed. That's just a lose-lose-lose scenario.

rule reader wrote:

Privacy is central to human rights; having to publicly explain were you were when your wife did not know is never required in any other form of life.

Why is it that Doping Control demand rights that don’t exist anywhere else.

You can’t sign your rights away.

I guess athletes can still chose privacy. The consequence is a filing failure or a missed test.

What makes you think that was a rapid announcemount? Again, it was eight months in the last case (Kipsang) from the 3rd missed test to the provisional ban. Similar for Naser.

So far, it never was rapid, and so far, the AIU to its credit has never withdrawn a provisional ban for three whereabouts failures. All very strange, transparency for sure would help.

Normally the athlete is where they said they would be, and then no explanation is required.

Sprintgeezer wrote:

Sorry Rule, but your understanding is overly simplistic.

No, I won’t elaborate. You can, however continue to further develop your understanding. I encourage you to do so, you are on a good path.

You are a condescending trumponium .

Try going from Kant to Rawls and then return to this thread.

Her statement following the provisional suspension announcement referred to phone tracking data and multiple witnesses that would conclusively show that she was exactly where she was supposed to be.

The specificity of this evidence then, and the rapidity with which her charge was withdrawn, leads me to think she already had the evidence prepared, but was not given the opportunity to present it before the provisional announcement.

That seems more likely than a conclusion of withholding evidence that she felt was conclusive enough to invalidate at least one of the missed tests.

The athlete, and the DCO, are not robots. Humans often make mistakes. The very nature of these out of competition tests are that they are unannounced, and uncoordinated, and it is not mandatory to attempt to contact the athlete, for example, by phone, making it prone to human errors.

Bit of disagreement about whether the tester called at the right address or whether the athlete was actually there but failed to answer the door . That sort of thing.

Problem is the the system seems to be a proper law enforcement type system with all the checks within it and challenges when it goes wrong but it is a super cheap version.

The athlete signs away their rights and this should not be allowed.

rekrunner wrote:

rule reader wrote:

Privacy is central to human rights; having to publicly explain were you were when your wife did not know is never required in any other form of life.

Why is it that Doping Control demand rights that don’t exist anywhere else.

You can’t sign your rights away.

I guess athletes can still chose privacy. The consequence is a filing failure or a missed test.

The athlete does not chose privacy or not to have privacy.

It is their right unless the law says otherwise.

You can’t sign your rights away.