Did the USATF Really Violate Its Own Rules by Reinstating Gabe Grunewald?

I happen to be a lawyer with a knowledge of the history of the sport and I can tell you that you are confusing two fundamentally different issues: (1) selection for the team and (2) reinstatement in the results of the race.

You seem to be assuming that the latter is required for the former when, in fact, nothing is further from the truth.

For example, in 1997, Steve Holman was DQd on the track at National Outdoors after he crossed the line in second place. Holman happened to have the qualifying standard for Worlds from a prior race. When only one other American could meet the standard, Holman went to Worlds.

But he of course was not reinstated in his second place finish on the track. One issue has nothing to do with the other. The IAAF does not care about internal selection procedures, only with whether its standard has been met.

By same token, nothing would have stopped USATF from selecting GG once Hasay withdraw and no one would have questioned that step in itself. The issue is the unprecedented reinstatement without re-examination of the jury's decision.

There are other interpretations you are making that I could also question, but that is the main one.

This is probably a stupid question but does IAAF rule 60 cover national meetings, or just international ones?

Rule 60.2

(d) any protests or other disputes arising out of the field of play, including, without limitation, protests concerning the result or conduct of an event. Pursuant to Rule 146.3, the decision of the Referee in such cases shall be subject to a right of appeal to the Jury of Appeal.

The decision of the Jury of Appeal (or of the Referee in the absence of a Jury of Appeal or if no appeal to the Jury is made) shall be final and there shall be no further right of

appeal, including to CAS.

Not a Coach wrote:

This is probably a stupid question but does IAAF rule 60 cover national meetings, or just international ones?

Rule 60.2

(d) any protests or other disputes arising out of the field of play, including, without limitation, protests concerning the result or conduct of an event. Pursuant to Rule 146.3, the decision of the Referee in such cases shall be subject to a right of appeal to the Jury of Appeal.

The decision of the Jury of Appeal (or of the Referee in the absence of a Jury of Appeal or if no appeal to the Jury is made) shall be final and there shall be no further right of

appeal, including to CAS.

IAAF rules really only cover meets held under the auspices.

bizarro world wrote:The issue is the unprecedented reinstatement without re-examination of the jury's decision.

So let's take a more egregious hypothetical situation (I'm not suggesting that this actually happened):

The Jury of Appeals is secretly paid a bribe to DQ someone after a race is over and because of the DQ, the athlete isn't selected for an international team. It's all videotaped and there is no dispute that the DQ had no real basis and was only the result of the bribe. The Jury of Appeals refuses to change its DQ decision.

Leaving aside who gets picked for the national team, are you saying that no one has any authority to change the DQ and the DQed athlete has no recourse under the USATF's rules to seek reinstatement?

Response to Home Page Article wrote:

bizarro world wrote:The issue is the unprecedented reinstatement without re-examination of the jury's decision.

So let's take a more egregious hypothetical situation (I'm not suggesting that this actually happened):

The Jury of Appeals is secretly paid a bribe to DQ someone after a race is over and because of the DQ, the athlete isn't selected for an international team. It's all videotaped and there is no dispute that the DQ had no real basis and was only the result of the bribe. The Jury of Appeals refuses to change its DQ decision.

Leaving aside who gets picked for the national team, are you saying that no one has any authority to change the DQ and the DQed athlete has no recourse under the USATF's rules to seek reinstatement?

No, that would raise a different issue. The point here is that the USATF press release reinstating GG also supported the legitimacy of the jury's decision re the DQ.

If evidence of the sort you describe came to light, there may well be some rule that would allow reconstituting the jury with different members to consider the new evidence.

bizarro world wrote:No, that would raise a different issue. The point here is that the USATF press release reinstating GG also supported the legitimacy of the jury's decision re the DQ.

If evidence of the sort you describe came to light, there may well be some rule that would allow reconstituting the jury with different members to consider the new evidence.

It seems to me like it's the same issue, just with a clearer example of the Jury of Appeals disregarding the USATF's procedures.

Also, with your Steve Holman example, it's not the same thing because no one else had the standard. In this case, if Sara Vaughan had the standard, how could the USATF have let the GG DQ stand and put GG and Rowbury on the team for Sopot instead of Vaughan and Rowbury without again violating its rules? Or if Hasay hadn't declined to go, how could it put Rowbury on the team instead of Hasay if GG is still disqualified? The DQ and team selection are not unrelated issues as long as you have more than 2 qualified athletes who want to be on the team. Without Hasay dropping out, the validity of the DQ also had to be decided.

As for what the USATF says in its press release, it sounds like when parties settle litigation and everybody says it's without admitting any wrongdoing or liability, but money gets paid, employees get rehired, or whatever. To settle the dispute, and with the agreement of everyone involved, USATF can claim in its press release it did nothing wrong but actually vacated the DQ and reinstated GG.

There are too many confusions in your post to be worth straightening out.

As a bottom line: if the best you can come up with is that USATF is claiming one thing and doing another, that doesn't really resolve the complaint people have with USATF.

Although it seems like USATF did the right thing, they have now created a bad statute. Could you imagine if a Superbowl outcome was reversed a week later? Think about it. In every other major sport with tv cameras, the teams and fans live with the decisions made on the field. Noone changes the outcome later, even after the most blatant blown call. USATF was weak to be bullied into the initial dq, and weak for being pressured into overturning their own ruling. How is that governing?

I'll put it another way. GG filed for arbitration the day everything was settled according to this story:

http://www.runnersworld.com/elite-runners/grunewald-reinstated-as-3000-meter-champ

On what basis did she file for arbitration? Did she actually have no basis to file for arbitration but did it anyway? That's what the story on the home page suggests.

It looks to me like the stuff quoted in my first post would have been the basis for seeking arbitration. Would it have been something else?

It doesn't say anywhere in the rulebook that a dog can't play basketball

Is Grunewald's arbitration petition available somewhere to see what it says? Who was her lawyer?

The USATF rules for an appeal are that an athlete can file an appeal if he/she thinks the athlete was impeded or interfered with. If the person filing the appeal disagrees with the decision of the official deciding on the appeal, that decision can be appealed to a 3 person appeals committee. The decision of that committee is final unless additional evidence is presented. After the appeals committee ruled in favor of Grunewald, there was no basis under USATF's rules to change that decision and DQ Grunewald, and I believe that was the basis for the Arbitration petition and the comment from Rojo that USATF violated its own rules.

I was actually at the meet and didn't know anything at the time, but the whole episode--and more of it than was on letsrun--can be viewed on Steve Magness' twitter as there were updates from Grunewald's agent, among others. There was an attorney hired, and an arbitration petition was fired. There was an arbitration meeting with USATF with USOC present.

One of the tweets from Grunewald's agent said that at the arbitration proceeding, USATF Board/Personnel, including Max Siegel, were still defending Nike/Salazar, even with the USOC breathing down their neck.

Getting this back to the USATF, one thing that should be expected from the USATF as part of the whole transparency thing is a public explanation of the legal basis for reinstating Grunewald. Is there something in the bylaws that let them do it or did they try to fix one rule violation with another rule violation?