USADA covers up Eliud Ngetich positive for nearly 7 years

SDSU Aztec wrote:

Did I look at the results for the wrong guy? If not, Ngetich is a C-level Kenyan. Why the outrage? It's like getting worked up over a Single A baseball player.

The "outrage", from what I can tell, comes from the fact that USADA kept a ban secret.

I can't type. Oops.

I meant a secret ban. I don't see the benefit to the USADA here.

polevaultpower wrote:

I still have a lot of issues with Tyson Gay's case, but at least USADA could point to Jon Drummond's ban and say what the "substantial assistance" was. What substantial assistance was offered here?

He gave them the name of the food truck his nandrolone-laced “authentic” pork burrito came from.

To you, maybe; to me, no.

"heavy burden"? I disagree; the athlete merely needs to come up with a scenario that is more likely true than not.

The first part was irrelevant: Lawson did not deliver what was demanded.

The second part was also irrelevant: her testimony was discarded.

You crack me up. Are you still seriously suggesting, despite all we have learned, that her roids were in the burrito?

No, it does not. But I would expect, in a really thorough investigation that takes several years and leaves no stone unturned, that the sexual and emotional abuse gets noticed, and SafeSport and maybe even the police gets informed. But alas, nada.

Yes... but that doesn't really include any details

Hmmmm... sounds like he wants:

1) that the athlete does not get publicly charged with a violation in a no-fault case;

2) (and) that the system is fairer for athletes.

Ad 1) One would have to determine first whether it's a no-fault case or not. Meaning, any provisional ban would be kept secret for months if the athlete claims to be not at fault.

That's actually exactly what was done in the Houlihan case: everything was kept behind closed doors until she lost her appeal. Not a very desirable scenario. In fact, one of the reasons for the creation of the AIU was to increase transparency by having a semi-public process, where - as per policy - provisional suspensions get published immediately, then the DT decision gets published, with all being documented timely on the AIU page.

Or, no provisional ban until fault is proven. Meaning, a cheat could test positive in March, compete in the US Trials, win Olympics, and then return the Gold some time later. Even worse.

Ad 2) That doesn't really mean much. Maybe it's already included in point 1).

Tygart did not say anything about decreasing the burden for the athlete to come up with a likely scenario.

What we learned from Lawson’s case is that the tag-team duo of the AIU and Prof. Ayotte steered the Tribunal to a wrong decision that that CAS panel overturned.

With Houlihan, what we did not learn was the source of the nandrolone. The CAS did say it probably wasn’t from corn-fed boar meat or stomach muscle.

Some more quotes:

“… the Code in certain cases, railroads innocent athletes into four year sanctions. At our last count, we recorded 27 cases where athletes did absolutely nothing wrong but were treated like intentional cheats.”

“As Tygart highlights, the Code treats athletes as guilty of a doping offence unless they can prove that they are innocent.”

“As a result, that 0.6% (of ADRVs) also includes athletes that were sanctioned as they couldn’t conclusively prove that they are innocent. Assessing intent in anti-doping is hugely problematic, as an athlete’s first line of defence will always be that they didn’t intentionally cheat. However from conversations with NADOs over the years, it is estimated that somewhere between 5% and 15% of cases are considered unintentional.”

More quotes from another sportsintegrityinitiative link about the recent history of “intent”, and the shifting of the burden of “intent” to the athlete:

“Proving intentional doping is notoriously difficult.”

“This difficulty in proving intent was why the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) abandoned the ‘aggravating circumstances’ provision within the 2009 World Anti-Doping Code that allowed the standard two-year ban to be scaled up to four years. The burden of proof in establishing ‘aggravating circumstances’ was so high that it was almost never used. Instead, the 2015 Code opted for a standard sanction of four years that could be reduced down if – for example – an athlete could prove that use of a substance was non-intentional.”

“In effect, the 2015 Code reversed the burden of proof from innocent until proven guilty. An athlete is now considered guilty unless they can prove that they are innocent.”

“This is dangerous to athletes.”

“Not every athlete that is sanctioned for doping intends to cheat.”

“For the same reasons that it is difficult to prove intentional doping, it is difficult to put an exact figure on the number of athletes sanctioned for doping who did not intend to cheat.”

“At Tacking Doping in Sport 2013, Athlete Ombudsman for the US Olympic Committee (USOC) John Ruger said that between 40% and 60% of US doping cases are inadvertent – i.e. non-intentional.”

https://www.sportsintegrityinitiative.com/life-bans-doping-will-not-work/

Steve The Addict^^^^^^^------- wrote:

The handling of the BTC ordeal was incredibly suspicious as it tool 6 months for them to announce Shelby was positive and there's rumors of other positives in the group. When you see a guy like Jager mysteriously not competing with other BTC such as Quigley (after Fancy Bears revealed he was tagged likely doping) , you have to wonder. There's definitely dirty work being done. Part of it is getting USADA and WADA/members paid and part is trying to maintain a bit of integrity because if everyone's caught, then fans will tune out and most importantly revenue is lost.

The entire BTC should be banned for 4 to 10 years and Nike should be fined a few billion dollars for their part in the cover up. If the sport's governing bodies don't do their job why can't governments step in and enforce bans from competitions? This has been done before. The USA is generally regarded as the most moral country in the world and it was government law enforcement that brought down Lance Armstrong. Compare this to the British who basically covered up doping even after the Russian leaks with Bradley Wiggins and Froome and the Sky cycling team when instead they could have stepped in with their agents to enforce bans and confessions.

The USA government authorities could quite easily step in and ban Kenyan and other eastern African athletes from stealing prize money in the USA. A requirement of 10 years without a positive test from those nations should be set in place before they are allowed to compete on US soil and the same should apply to any athletes training in those nations. Similarly a ban could easily be enforced on the BTC and all members could be interrogated to get to the bottom of the doping ring in operation.

Lance was a dick who was willing to ruin other people's lives to keep the truth secret. F that guy

SlowFatMaster wrote:

OK, I noticed a few things:

1) Headline describes him as a "US Track and Field Athlete" but says he lives in Kenya. I looked him up on World Athletics. He is listed as Kenyan. Was he an American when he was competing and when he was tested by USADA?

2) He's not that good. His best performance is 43:31 for 15k road which is worth 1101 points.

3) They spelled the town in Kenya "El Doret" when it's actually Eldoret.

4) (What polevaultpower asked) What is the "substantial assistance" he offered and what drug bust(s) did it lead to?

1. He is Kenyan, he was able to get visas to compete in the US because he kept getting invites to races. USADA can test any foreign athlete on US soil, though they usually don't unless a foreign NADO pays them, or they have intel that they think will go somewhere.