WEJO IS A RADICAL

It's one thing for them to bust into just anybody's place looking for such things...However, you CHOOSE to join the sport. If being a IAAF-eligible athlete required waiving the right to not have your home/room searched, then by becoming a participant you accept that concession and nobody's rights are violated. If I were elite I'd certainly accept that concession to improve the chances I'm competing against clean guys. Now if I were a non-athlete citizen and those tactics were used, I'd have problems with it.

i often think that opening the doors to all drug use might be the way to go. if you're desperate enough to win a gold, then go for it. if you want to subject your own body to whatever chemical you feel necessary to win no matter what the cost, go for it. who knows, maybe the possiblity of someone dropping dead from a heart attack in the 10000 or some over-steroided fool ripping a limb off in the sprints or pull vault would draw over the nascar fans and then we'd see some attendance at track meets. better attendance through better chemistry.

or pole vault

Here are the rules that I would recommend:

-random testing at least twice per year for everyone who runs a top-100 time for the year.

-lifetime ban for being caught with a blood and urine test

-lifetime ban of that person's coach

-2 year ban for everyone on the same team as the person who was caught using drugs (if they are on the same team, they probably know about it and did not report it)

AH,

You would be a fool then. First, the IAAF is not a government. It doesn't have jurisdiction over any country. It doesn't have a police force. Etc. The idea that the IAAF would go around busting into athletes homes willy nilly is assinine. Are you an American? Have you read the Bill of Rights? Do you understand the profound ideas it puts forth? Without the guarantee of privacy, who is to say that justice will be served. All it takes is one crooked IAAF cop, on the payroll of some national sports organization, to plant the evidence and then disqualify wejo from his quest for the gold medal in Athens. He will be unjustly denired of seeing pay off all of those years of running really really slowly.

I agree with you that the athletes must submit to some form of examination. Draw their blood. They have to show up to have it drawn. Their doing so indicates consent to the examination. If athletics federations were serious about catching cheats, frequent testing would quell the problem. For the most part, the cycling world has been cleaned up. Not by hotel raids but by frequent testing.

So you would not mind the police entering your house searching for drug use, sexual devices, and until recently, the type of sex you prefer?

Sorry, the US Constitution still needs to be kept intact. Drug testing at events does not infringe on the 4th Amendment since the athlete is given a choice: he/she can choose not to compete. Now, if someone wants to make an argument that athletes waive all their rights, let's see how far that goes.

How about Wejo, which amendment to the Constitution do you want to do away with next? How about the First Amendment--you know the one you probably use every day?

XCpotential wrote:

Here are the rules that I would recommend:

-random testing at least twice per year for everyone who runs a top-100 time for the year.

-lifetime ban for being caught with a blood and urine test

-lifetime ban of that person's coach

-2 year ban for everyone on the same team as the person who was caught using drugs (if they are on the same team, they probably know about it and did not report it)

Wow, pretty draconian...I mean I could be on a team with someone and never see him/her.

I also think you would need to prove the coach was involved.

Man, there are a lot of scary people who sound like they would have worked well in the Iraq Olympic Committee.

There is right to privacy anywhere in the Bill of Rights or anywhere else in the US Constitution. That said, I do believe the Founding Fathers believed it (based on writings of Madison anyway).

Cycling does not test for drugs more aggressively than anyone else; the UCI has a "health" rule for upper limit of hematocrit (Skiing and Biathlon have similar rules). However, the consensus is that the cheaters are titrating their rhEPO (and similar compounds) so that hematocrit stays just under the limit (50%, but really 51%).

Most of the intrigue has surrounded the Tour de France where the French police have been quite active in searching hotel rooms and cars.

All due respect, I know a little bit more about the testing regimen in cycling than you do. Let's say a lot more. But not everyone has the benefit of personal experience. So I'll refer you only to the standard protocol at Le Tour. Top three riders every day are tested, blood and urine. Random tests occur without warning throughout the tour, blood and urine. It's not uncommon that the vampires descend in the evening and keep a team up past their bedtime but since 1998 they've pretty much refrained from the middle of the night raids. (Same thing can't be said in Italy.) So, for somebody like Lance, who may win 3-5 stages in a Tour. He'll be subjected to as many blood and urine tests, not to mention the occasional random test. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've never heard of any such draconian measures at any IAAF event. Get your facts straight.

I forget to mention the mandatory test, blood and urine, of every rider on the day before the Tour starts. Cycling is cleaner now than running, no doubt about it. It's the testing not the raids that are doing it. (Oh, and the occasional border crossing fiasco. A la Raimondas Rum-sauce.

While Europe, as it is, doesn't have a constitution, there is a charter of human rights which is far more rigorous than its counterpart in the US. (to wit, the EU's first draft of a formal constitution was just released last week).

Police in the EU simply CANNOT barge in, as you describe, in the "hope" that they might find something illegal. Search and seizure is taken very, very seriously by member states and the onus of police to have prior evidence before a warrant is issued - especially outside the UK - is incredibly stringent. The lessons from the fascist/nationalist past of many member states is still very fresh in the memory of policymakers for that to change anytime soon.

As for testing in sport -- it's a fiendishly tricky issue. Blood testing violates the protected rights of EU citizens, as well as the religious faith of many, many others around the world. It's also inherently dangerous - (imagine the reaction if and when an athlete is infected with HIV or hepatitis by a dirty needle?).

However, I agree that invasive searches (be they home, kit car or locker) are beyond indefensible: participating in sport does not ? or should not ? require anyone to surrender their rights under the law.

Martin

HARRY, for sure low 28 in the 10k is not a world record, but is FUCKING HARD TO DO IT!!!!!! you must be a frustrated 35 minute runner.....you have no idea how fast WEJO is !SHUT THE FUCK UP!!

luv2run, people like you baffle the living hell out of me. If you want to solve a drug problem, the people you are testing are going to have to cooperate. That means submitting blood tests, allowing their belongings to be searched, things like that. WE CAN'T CATCH PEOPLE BY JUST USING ANNOUNCED URINE TESTS. If you want to get drugs out of the sport, we're going to have to UP the ante to make sure they are nowhere to be found!

Either support strong tactics to remove drugs from the sport or never, ever complain about people being "dirty". It's that simple.

The point of penalizing the people around the drug user is not only to punish their probable involvement with, or knowledge of the drug use, but also to alienate drug users and ensure that coaches and teamates turn in drug users. If a team comes forth and turns in a drug using teamate, the rest of the team obviously would not be penalized. The idea is that nobody will allow a drug user to be on their team, or coach a drug user for fear that they too will be punished. If you knew a teamate of yours might get you a 2-year ban, wouldn't you turn them in for cheating? Or if someone who is a suspected drug cheat wants to train under you or with you, wouldn't you refuse to train with them? It alienates the drug cheats and gets everyone involved in catching them.

*no

XCpotential wrote:

The point of penalizing the people around the drug user is not only to punish their probable involvement with, or knowledge of the drug use, but also to alienate drug users and ensure that coaches and teamates turn in drug users. If a team comes forth and turns in a drug using teamate, the rest of the team obviously would not be penalized. The idea is that nobody will allow a drug user to be on their team, or coach a drug user for fear that they too will be punished.

*If you knew a teamate of yours might get you a 2-year ban, wouldn't you turn them in for cheating? *Or if someone who is a suspected drug cheat wants to train under you or with you, *wouldn't you refuse to train with them? It alienates the drug cheats and gets everyone involved in catching them.