Tyson Gay Gets 1 Year Doping Ban from USADA - 50% reduction for "fully and truthfully cooperating"

The 1 year ban in this case is illegal, all bans according to the rules of WADA and USADA require a 2 year ban on steroid useage. Such a slippery slope we see here being created if this penalty is allowed to stick. I bet WADA fights this one on steroid issue or its got no reason to exist.

Shows yet again sport not willing to fully punish big names vs small fish who have committed less of a violation and gotten much stiffer punishment.

Why is it that posters always pretend to know rules and enforcement better then the officials? The punishment is eligible for appeal by wada.

great, so he could soon be a USA team coach with Dennis Mitchell!

seriously, this &*&*^_ is going to be competign this summer?

Good lord I am done with sprinting. done. I will fast forward through every race 400 meters and under.

he did lose his sponsoship - that's good. I hope no company touches him.

Doping enforcement a joke wrote:

The 1 year ban in this case is illegal, all bans according to the rules of WADA and USADA require a 2 year ban on steroid useage. Such a slippery slope we see here being created if this penalty is allowed to stick. I bet WADA fights this one on steroid issue or its got no reason to exist.

Shows yet again sport not willing to fully punish big names vs small fish who have committed less of a violation and gotten much stiffer punishment.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Is it really true that it's illegal? If that's the case, then it owuldn't be offered, would it.

He's being rewarded for apparently not lying and denying like everyone else.

I do think the concept of allowing people to be honest and help take down the entire system is key. You have to encourage that. He'd be eligible for 2015 worlds regardless so is this really too light??? I don't know.

We'll try to get in touch with David Epstein and see what he thinks.

Here's another article on his ban.

One other thing. It's not like he hasn't already missed a worlds. He has. See below.

USADA wrote:

On the same day that Gay was notified of his positive test result, he agreed to assist USADA in its investigation of the circumstances of his positive tests. Gay provided substantial assistance as outlined in the WADA Code including being interviewed on several occasions by USADA and providing all of the products he was using at the time of his positive tests.

“We appreciate Tyson doing the right thing by immediately withdrawing from competition once he was notified, accepting responsibility for his decisions, and fully and truthfully cooperating with us in our ongoing investigation into the circumstances surrounding his case,” said USADA CEO Travis T. Tygart.

Title of Thread changed and link changed to LRC article that contains Gay's results from 2012 and 2013 (to show when he supposedly started doping) and the USADA press release on Gay's ban

nicely buried on a friday afternoon at closing time USA and sleepy time in europe. They must be embarrassed about this. One year.

agip wrote:

great, so he could soon be a USA team coach with Dennis Mitchell!

seriously, this &*&*^_ is going to be competign this summer?

Good lord I am done with sprinting. done. I will fast forward through every race 400 meters and under.

he did lose his sponsoship - that's good. I hope no company touches him.

how about USA having an all doper 4 x 100 at worlds next year? That would be awesome!

Mike Rodgers leads off, then hands to La Shawn Merritt who extends the lead. Gatlin runs the curve furiously, but in second behind Jamaica! But Gay nails Powell from behind FTW!

Did anyone else notice he admitted to being on the juice for almost a year?

"Gay has also been disqualified from all competitive results obtained on and subsequent to *July 15, 2012*, the date he first used a product that contained a prohibited substance, including the forfeiture of all medals, points, and prizes. Gay has already returned his Silver Medal in the men’s 4x100m relay from the 2012 London Olympic Games, which is now in the possession of the United States Olympic Committee."

I think the USADA/USATF/WADA needs to be a lot more transparent about this one. How was it not detected at the London Olympics? If he was unknowingly taking a banned substance then he should have had a positive at the games! If someone was giving him the banned substance under the guise that it was legal then why would he not question coming off a supposedly legal supplement just in time for the Olympics? These are reasons for the maximum penalty.

Mango wrote:

Did anyone else notice he admitted to being on the juice for almost a year?

I think the USADA/USATF/WADA needs to be a lot more transparent about this one. How was it not detected at the London Olympics? If he was unknowingly taking a banned substance then he should have had a positive at the games! If someone was giving him the banned substance under the guise that it was legal then why would he not question coming off a supposedly legal supplement just in time for the Olympics? These are reasons for the maximum penalty.

Great point. We updated the link above to our article.

that has Gay's results from 2012 and 2013. It means he competed clean at the Trials, was dirty at the Olympics, enver tested positive, until they caught him 3 times in 2013. Interesting. Plus he had to start doping mid-week while in Europe according to this timeline.

The only grounds for such a significant reduction in penalty is if by "cooperation" USADA means he has outed the next BALCO or at minimum a major doping network. That is unless he failed during a trial run for a new doping test that will end up catching a lot more. Could it be the test that is rumored to have caught a number of Olympians? Was his silence about the test bought by a promised reduction? It is very strange that they never said how he was caught or what exactly caused the positive.

Article 10.5.3 of the WADA Code allows for a sanction to be reduced by up to three-quarters, based on 'Substantial Assistance'.

Hence, a one-year sanction is certainly not illegal.

Substantial Assistance is defined as: For purposes of Article 10.5.3, a Person providing Substantial Assistance must: (1) fully disclose in a signed written statement all information he or she possesses in relation to anti-doping rule violations, and (2) fully cooperate with the investigation and adjudication of any case related to that information, including, for example, presenting testimony at a hearing if requested to do so by an Anti-Doping Organization or hearing panel. Further, the information provided must be credible and must comprise an important part of any case which is initiated or, if no case is initiated, must have provided a sufficient basis on which a case could have been brought.

This may or may not have been covered elsewhere, though I haven't seen it, but doesn't the whole USA 4x100 have to turn in its silver medals now?

Jon Drummond was his coach for part of this time. Hang his tired old drug cheating ass out to dry, would ya please!

Oh, lordy, lordy...sprint geezer was right, it seems. Nobody wants to seriously punish their own, and nobody wants to keep out meet headliners. Gay should have gotten a 4 year ban, just the same as anybody caught with the metabolites of a banned substance in their system.

There shouldn't be any of this plea bargaining going on, because ultimately then only the biggest fish gets meaningfully sanctioned--and in this case, that biggest fish won't even be meaningfully within the jurisdiction of WADA! If they are, it will only be in a capacity that is incidental to their main profession.

So USADA and USOC and USATF are all in on it, as is the IOC.

To me this is just like the catholic church sex abuse investigations, where instead of just complying immediately with local law enforcement, they strike committees that spend years b.s.'ing while the rapes continue.

Same here. OOOOHHHH, they got some names from Gay? Who cares! GAY is the name, he is the competitor. So he gets some doctor's and therapists' names? Who cares? The doctors, if there are any, won't be touchable, because they are thorny, defensive, represented, and cloaked in good will. Check out that track facility in Clermont, it is owned by...A HOSPITAL. What a complete joke. Is everybody in track really so colossally stupid to not see this for what it is?

So Gay gives up some useless names, and we find out what we knew all along, that is, how the system works. And the situation that there isn't a damn thing we can do about it, other than banning athletes, is unchanged.

They should stop trying to bring down the suppliers and enablers as though the athletes were kids who were gullible and impressionable, and needed to be protected. These are ADULTS. Gay is effing 30 years old or something.

BAN THE F OUT OF HIM, AND ALL THE OTHERS, NO MATTER WHAT THE SUBSTANCE IS.

I will even go so far as to say that the ban should be 5 or 6 years from all sanctioned competition, and lifetime from the Olympics.

BANNING THE F OUT OF ATHLETES WILL BE THE ONLY THING THAT HAS A SHOT IN HECK OF WORKING, AND EVEN THEN THERE WILL BE DOPERS.

Also, their lives should be made a legal mess, and everything they earned, directly or indirectly, from track should be confiscated and used to fund anti-doping efforts.

Let's face it, at the pro level it is all about MONEY. If you don't know that, you're either young, stupid, or both. Yeah, sure, winning and competing are great, until you grow up and need to put food on the table, a roof over your head, and even more so if you have kids to support. Hit them in the wallet, and they will be much more likely to pay attention. Maybe 50% of their earnings should have to go into a trust administered by a governing body, so that at least some of the funds are easier to recover. They could be paid out on a sliding scale after retirement is declared, and suspended if eligibility is regained. Kind of like a forced pension fund, in which the funds are unilaterally transferable.

I've been thinking about this a lot, and I decided that if Gay got anything less than 4 years, that sprint geezer was right. Remember when 2 years was the span of time that was bargained down to? Remember when 2 years was a reduced sanction? What happened to that? Then we slid to 18 months. Now we have slid to 1 year. Obviously 6 months is the next increment.

What a joke, I can't even take it anymore.

Wow Unbelievable wrote:

This may or may not have been covered elsewhere, though I haven't seen it, but doesn't the whole USA 4x100 have to turn in its silver medals now?

Silver medals are gone. This is confirmed by Nick Zaccardi

Does he have to pay back all earnings like Liliya Shobukhova was ordered to do. I mean an honest agent would insist his client do so.

This is not in any way a defence of Gay, but the maximum applicable sanction here is two years.

I 100% agree that a longer sanction should be possible (as will be the case from 2015 onwards), but at the moment a two-year ban was the maximum possible for him, as a first offence, in this case.

Just to actually put some context around the ban.

Doping enforcement a joke wrote:

The 1 year ban in this case is illegal, all bans according to the rules of WADA and USADA require a 2 year ban on steroid useage. Such a slippery slope we see here being created if this penalty is allowed to stick. I bet WADA fights this one on steroid issue or its got no reason to exist.

Shows yet again sport not willing to fully punish big names vs small fish who have committed less of a violation and gotten much stiffer punishment.

I guess you know the rules better than WADA. I resisted makeing a comments to allow the official channels to speak first. What I heard was that he snitched big time, athletes, coaches, distribution, processes and I also heard that WADA was able to prove he use was a short window and that technically he had a leg to stand on if he had choose to fight, which would exhusted WADA money and time. I have suspected all along that he would not get the max.