Elijah Manangoi provisionally suspended for whereabouts failures

Coevett wrote:

Thankfully, it appears there are few doping apologists in Kenya itself.

When so many elite profiles are busted that means Kenya is on the right track testing-wise.

"The Whereabout rule was received with both smiles and frowns in equal measure. Initially, athletes felt the regulation would make it hard to lead a normal life and that it was a serious invasion of privacy."

Coevett, the problem is that, still now, several Kenyans live the whereabouts in the way the article describes the past : in too many cases, the past is still the present.

I don't justify the superficiality of many athletes : they are wrong, many are proud in the wrong way, thinking that whereabouts are the invasion of their privacy, and in other cases are not one of their priorities if there is some other sudden problem, frequent in their life.

They need to learn, and probably many examples, and the activity of information of AK, can change the behavior in short time.

Therefore, I totally agree for the sanction, but I don't agree with the automatic idea that athletes banned for not respecting their whereabouts use to take some doping.

I know the life in Kenya and the normal level of specific education of the most part of Kenyan athletes, and I say there is still long way to do, before the use of (for us) easy apps becomes a normal behavior for athletes that, till now, are used to delegate to their management all these administrative operation.

I've not posted on this thread once so I am unsure how you have generated an opinion for me.

I am strongly of the opinion that those who fail the whereabouts system should be banned for at least 4 years if not for life and those caught doping should be banned for life.

I said the same thing on the Coleman thread. No excuses. If you can't play the game correctly then find another job. Athletics is a sport for the entertainment of fans and it has rules, it is not a human right to take part in this sport.

I have no idea why athletics tolerates doping.

ex-runner wrote:

I've not posted on this thread once so I am unsure how you have generated an opinion for me.

I am strongly of the opinion that those who fail the whereabouts system should be banned for at least 4 years if not for life and those caught doping should be banned for life.

I said the same thing on the Coleman thread. No excuses. If you can't play the game correctly then find another job. Athletics is a sport for the entertainment of fans and it has rules, it is not a human right to take part in this sport.

I have no idea why athletics tolerates doping.

This sort of strong, zero-tolerance stance seems noble at first, but ...

- what about when the lab makes a mistake? It was apparently the case way back when with Lagat, and more recently appears to be the case with athletes like Steven Colvert.

- what about when athletes are forced to dope against their will, or worse, without their knowledge?

- what about sabotage by an enemy or an unethical rival?

- what about contamination of legal supplements or contamination in the food?

- what about when the DCO is in the wrong place?

Zero tolerance and lifetime bans only make sense when doping detection and prosecution is error free. Until then, a code which intends to protect athletes fails to achieve this goal if many clean athletes end up with lifetime bans through no fault of their own.

"Many"? "No fault of their own"? A claim that is full of assumptions. There speaks a doping apologist. How about - "very few who break the rules with 3 missed tests will be clean"? That is the rationale behind the rule or WADA would not treat it as seriously as it does.

Armstronglivs wrote:

"Many"? "No fault of their own"? A claim that is full of assumptions. There speaks a doping apologist. How about - "very few who break the rules with 3 missed tests will be clean"? That is the rationale behind the rule or WADA would not treat it as seriously as it does.

Note the use of the word "if", making it a conditional statement, not a claim.

I wasn't talking about rules or rationale, or letting dopers off the hook, but about the potential downside of lengthening existing bans for existing rules with existing rationales.

I don't see how your speculation, and needless name calling is a proper response.

rekrunner wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

"Many"? "No fault of their own"? A claim that is full of assumptions. There speaks a doping apologist. How about - "very few who break the rules with 3 missed tests will be clean"? That is the rationale behind the rule or WADA would not treat it as seriously as it does.

Note the use of the word "if", making it a conditional statement, not a claim.

I wasn't talking about rules or rationale, or letting dopers off the hook, but about the potential downside of lengthening existing bans for existing rules with existing rationales.

I don't see how your speculation, and needless name calling is a proper response.

Your claim - including with the condition of "if" - is highly speculative. Without being name calling, it is consistent with doping apologism, that seeks to white-wash likely doping offenders. On the facts we have, the most that could be claimed is the possibility that some offenders may be clean - but there is nothing in the framework of the offence and the nature of doping generally that supports a claim that "many" who break the rules will be innocent.

Even if drugs are given to athletes without their knowledge they have gained an unfair advantage over other athletes in the race and deserve to be banned.

Do I think Kenya should be banned, yes. Do I think athletes such as Christian Coleman or Ajee Wilson Deserved a ban, yes. Should Christine Ohoruogo have been banned in 2007? Yes. Backdating the bans is wrong, and creating special races to allow banned athletes to compete in major champs is unfair. Athletics needs to clean up otherwise the sport (for professionals) will no longer exist

Of course doping bans remain open to appeal. Lab work can be reviewed and when there is an A and B sample it is extremely unlikely that a mistake will be made with both samples.

The other things you posted about are fringe, outside the norm cases. Sabotaging competitors etc is basically impossible it's not worth discussing.

However I stand strong on my opinion against all cases you presented. It has absolutely nothing with appearing noble.

This stance would be for the good of the sport as a whole. You do not have a human right to compete. The sport should be able to expel anyone for any reason just because. If no team wants a footballer to play for them the player can't go to CAS and demand he be signed by Chelsea. It's madness.

The impact of the negative doping press surrounding athletics is so huge it is affecting the value of contracts for every single athlete in the sport. It is affecting funding available for grass roots. It is affecting the marketability and the pull from TV networks to sign up to show athletics.

Nobody wants to touch athletics at the moment. That is partly the fault of dopers. It needs to be stopped.

I would go further and say that proportional fines should be imposed on athletes depending on how much they have won in the sport (the contracts signed at the beginning of one's career would accept these terms). And ALL results should be annulled. I think you'd find the whereabouts process works just great after that.

I'm all for increasing the penalties of doping to eliminate the intentional doping, but don't believe the current systems in place are adequate and robust enough to protect innocent and clean athletes from false accusations and convictions with guaranteed access to due process and self-defense.

You say "lab work can be reviewed" but apparently that is not the case today, according to the published information from the cases of Norwegian speed-walker Erik Tysse, Czech triathlete Vojtech Sommer, German runner Benedikt Karus, and Irish Sprinter Steven Colvert, who could not get access to the raw data used to convict them.

These cases also highlight that it is expensive and lengthy for athletes to exhaust all of their legal remedies, especially when their sponsors drop them, so many just give up. We have seen many examples of Americans being able to defend themselves in ways that are not possible for athletes from poorer countries.

Even "fringe" cases are collateral damage that must be avoided, if the penalty is going to be a lifetime ban on the first offense.

We need to ensure due process for clean athletes in a system that has as its primary goal to protect clean athletes.

I think we should also look beyond just punishing the athletes. Not enough attention is paid to the "pushers" and "suppliers". If "negative press" is also an issue, maybe stiffer penalties need to be imposed on yellow journalism that doesn't pan out under scrutiny, and paid experts who overstep their boundaries of knowledge and expertise.

I think that programs geared towards education, and support provided by the national federations, and/or coaches and/or agents could also go a long way to addressing whereabouts, and doping.

DMulvee wrote:

Even if drugs are given to athletes without their knowledge they have gained an unfair advantage over other athletes in the race and deserve to be banned.

Do I think Kenya should be banned, yes. Do I think athletes such as Christian Coleman or Ajee Wilson Deserved a ban, yes. Should Christine Ohoruogo have been banned in 2007? Yes. Backdating the bans is wrong, and creating special races to allow banned athletes to compete in major champs is unfair. Athletics needs to clean up otherwise the sport (for professionals) will no longer exist

You can annul results without imposing a lengthy ban, as they did with Ajee Wilson.

This eliminates any profit from any unfair advantage.

In the case of Christian Coleman, lacking any evidence he took drugs, your logic fails.

Avoiding doping tests is as bad as doping itself, different only a technical sense. Lets get real here, the scenario you describe is plausible. Dieter Braumann's toothpaste is plausible. Is it likely though? Occam's razor says that an athlete who is glowing would rather get a whereabouts failure than a doping test positive. Which is more likely an athlete who's career depends on taking doping tests doesn't take precautions to insure that a career ending one isn't missed or that the athlete deliberately missed a career ending one to avoid testing positive. A doping test always leaves a specter of doubt whereas a positive does not.

I think you mean well, but you come off as a doping apologist. Even if an athlete misses a final test, it must be treated as a positive, or the testing has no weight as any athlete who is doping could just flaunt the tests. If the only athletes who were tested were those who were clean, the tests would have no value. Unfortunately, in this scenario, for antidoping to have value, the worst must be assumed. This means that Elijah Manangoi is a drug cheat in all but technicality, regardless of what peds he was taking, whether it was every ped on the planet or none at all, the result is the same, Elijah Manangoi IS a drug a cheat.

Excellent post. I agree 100%

Armstronglivs wrote:

Your claim - including with the condition of "if" - is highly speculative. Without being name calling, it is consistent with doping apologism, that seeks to white-wash likely doping offenders. On the facts we have, the most that could be claimed is the possibility that some offenders may be clean - but there is nothing in the framework of the offence and the nature of doping generally that supports a claim that "many" who break the rules will be innocent.

A conditional statement that expresses a consequence "if" something happens is not a claim that "something happens".

Using the word "if" is appropriate when the "something" is possible, or even if something is impossible, and is not a claim about the likelihood in the spectrum of impossiblity to absolute certainty.

In fact, it is most appropriate to say "if" when, as in this case, we don't really know the true magnitude.

Rather than "highly speculative", it is the polar opposite, not speculating one way or another about whether "something happens", but addressing the case "if" it ever does.

And finally a conditional statement that speaks only about "many clean athletes", while not commenting one way or another about athletes who dope, has absolutely nothing to do with doping apologism.

What does Occam's razor say about athletes who are not glowing?

I note here that Renato is all for penalizing whereabouts, so your concern about flaunting the tests is not valid.

You can punish Manangoi for whereabouts, without calling him a drug cheat.

To use the famous IAAF parlance, can we say 'likely doper'?

I couldn't agree less.

Athletics is a professional marketed sport. You can be fired from your job for far, far less than a doping scandal.

Yet we treat athletes as if they have a divine right to compete in the sport, even after they defraud their competitors, sponsors and the fans.

A and B sample testing means that the number of false positives is extremely low. I don't care if someone swears they were clean, it's irrelevant.

Fringe cases do not have to be avoided at all costs. The impact to an individual might be great but the impact to the sport is insurmountable every time an athlete is caught doping. Nobody takes this sport seriously anymore.

It is extremely likely over the next 25 years we see track and field fade to a sport like curling or lawn bowls which is only competed in at the Olympics - considered an amateur past time. Because that is where this sport is striving to go.

Failure to comply with the whereabouts system should be a fatal error in my opinion. I don't care whether the athlete was doping or not. The negative impact to the sport is huge.

Athletes should know what they are signing themselves up for from the start, if they don't like it then play a different sport.

ex-runner wrote:

Failure to comply with the whereabouts system should be a fatal error in my opinion.

Agree 100%. There is really no valid excuse.

I guess it is unlikely we will find common ground then. I usually hate the phrase "agree to disagree", finding it's a cop-out, but here it seems appropriate. I can admire the sentiment and the passion, but simply think it is not realistic without some reforms in testing and due process, and massive efforts in athlete education. I see it similar to the death penalty in the states: even the threat of death is not a very effective deterrent, and the cost of getting it wrong is irreversible.

Divine right is a bit much. Don't forget that athletes are still banned -- it's not like there are no penalties today for doping. And just a few years back, penalties were even more lenient.

You can't really compare sports to regular jobs.

If I get sick, and go to the doctor, and he prescribes me drugs, I don't get fired from my work.

If I start bodybuilding, and take legal over-the-counter supplements from GNC, I don't get fired.

Athletes are in a difficult situation, where even if they try to stay clean, doping can often be inadvertent.

These are not rare cases in the fringe: "Athlete Ombudsman for the US Olympic Committee (USOC) John Ruger said that between 40% and 60% of US doping cases are inadvertent".

That's in the USA where awareness of anti-doping obligations is pretty mature.

I assume you are not familiar with the cases I've mentioned. It's not just the athletes who said they were innocent -- according to experts who reviewed lab results after the fact, the WADA labs made clear errors that led to declaring negative results positive. The adjudication process makes it very difficult for athletes to get the raw data, or a true independent opinion. Before any lifetime bans, lab error rates leading to a false conviction have to approach the limit of ZERO.

The sport took the biggest hit in credibility thanks to Diack and co., "colluding with the Russians". Would you punish just the Russian athletes?

I often wonder what people expect track and field to become -- outside of the Olympics, it's not like it is a popular sport generating revenue like football, basketball, baseball, soccer, rugby, cricket or cycling. Most track athletes live in poverty. And its not like any of these sports are clean, or work harder than athletics to keep their athletes clean.

And I wonder what sport banned athletes should go to? One that allows doping to defraud their competitors, sponsors and fans?

And finally, here are some reasons why lifetime bans will not work: