What to do about banned sprinter Steve Mullings? Do you think he's crazy or is there a huge conspiracy in Jamaica?

He's a cheat.

He's just upset he's the only one that's been busted.

He's got a point, of sorts.

Well if he was an American then I'd immediately reinstate him, give him a book deal, give him a coaching position at USATF or some large NCAA program, and idolize him for being such a good person making a comeback!

areusure? wrote:

Well if he was an American then I'd immediately reinstate him, give him a book deal, give him a coaching position at USATF or some large NCAA program, and idolize him for being such a good person making a comeback!

+1

I suggest you guys reach out to Al Schmidt, who coached Mullings at Mississippi State and appears to still be running the Mississippi State track program today. Schmidt isn't an entirely disinterested observer, but he must know Mullings well, and I would find his opinions interesting.

You guys were quite hard on Schmidt back in 2005 when he kept Mullings on his roster and ran him at NCAAs after the positive test. Perhaps Schmidt was simply taking advantage of loopholes in NCAA rules to maximize points for his team, but it could also be the case that he legitimately thought Mullings had been set up.

LetsRun.com wrote:

It's hard to imagine someone who was guilty still fighting like this years later in what seems to be a losing battle. A lot of his accusations are pretty far fetched, but some things he says sound at least plausible. To us, we don't see why the JAAA would refuse his request for a DNA test.

There are thousands of innocent men and women who have spent decades in prison for crimes they haven't committed.

Editor's note: We are merging 2 threads on this subject. The other thread was titled "Steve Mullings claims Jamaica framed him for a positive drug test for not signing with Nike"

4-years after being banned, Jamaican sprinter Steve Mullings has started a GoFundMe page to raise $250,000 to pay for an investigator and legal fees to prove his innocence: https://www.gofundme.com/gs5fcjuz

Mullings contends that he was sabotaged both in 2004 and 2011 by some higher ups within the Jamaican Athletics Administrative Association (including  Dr. Paul Auden and Dr. Herb Elliot) because he wouldn't sign a contract with Nike and instead went to compete in the NCAA. He has quite a few outrageous claims including that MVP coach Stephen Francis was involved, that his urine sample was swapped with Asafa Powell's and that Nesta Carter tried to pressure him to give up his spot on the 2011 Worlds team.

Mullings' story isn't new as he's claimed sabotage all along and done some interviews in the past. He has been so adamant about fighting for his innocence that he paid for his own lie detector and hair follicle testing, wrote a book, "Banned for Life", and tried to have a DNA test done on his positive samples. However, apparently JAAA refused to allow the DNA test.

So we'd like to hear thoughts from the LRC community on all of this. Is Mullings just a doper gone mad or is there some truth and conspiracy here? It's hard to imagine someone who was guilty still fighting like this years later in what seems to be a losing battle. A lot of his accusations are pretty far fetched, but some things he says sound at least plausible. To us, we don't see why the JAAA would refuse his request for a DNA test. If it's just going to prove that Mullings was rightfully banned, then why not do it? On the other side, we're not sure why Mullings is so sure a DNA test would help his case since his sample could have been contaminated rather than swapped.

What do you think and what, if anything, should be done with Mullings' story? If there is truth to what he says and a conspiracy to uncover, how could we help him (besides raising $250,000 for lawyers and investigators)?

You should read his book.

It's funny, Ben Johnson claimed the same. He said that had he not signed with a lesser brand (I believe that he signed with Diadora), he would have been protected.

tl;dr

We know from the Russian scandal that samples were swapped so this isn't far fetched.

We know from cycling and Floyd Landis the federation tested until they got the results they wanted.

We know positives are for sale. The athlete's claim is therefore reasonable. It's also possible it's the athlete trying to weasel out of a positive.

Both Doctor Auden and Elliot were scheduled to receive money from Nike if I had signed that professional contract.

Interesting if true.

Athlete was denied any DNA testing of the sample. He's doomed. He should have signed. You can go to college at any age.

I heard Fredo Corleone (a.k.a. John Capritto) whines like a little bitch if you don't sign. Is that true?

If he had only one positive I might believe him, but he had two.

Untrustworthy wrote:

If he had only one positive I might believe him, but he had two.

Well he says the same people framed him twice. Both his positives came at Jamaican national championships where JADCO handled the testing. Meanwhile he passed tests done by the IAAF and WADA.

Not that it means he's telling the truth, but if you believe it could have happened the first time, the fact that it happened twice doesn't really hurt his story.

Jamaica Track and Field denied his request for a DNA test. Swapped samples is a real possibility.

Re-read the IAAF's Russian anti-doping scandal. Swapping samples was routine.

Does that mean he's clean? No.

Do NCAA programs get signing bonuses if a T&F athlete goes pro?

I'm more interested in seeing the amount of corruption that could be unearthed from an investigation than proving whether he really doped or not. We already know the system is broken (not just in track & field of course) and that the JAAA is not a solidly run organization. Never mind that a small island somehow has been extremely dominant in the sprints for so long. After it was revealed that the JAAA did little to no testing for all these years I lost all my faith. Jamaica is a small island with so much talent and so much focus on the sport which in my opinion inevitably attracts a mafia-like structure. I wouldn't be surprised if he's innocent and his allegations are true. He's fighting a huge uphill battle so even with $250k he's likely screwed forever. This would be embarrassing for WADA and the sport so I'm sure they would like nothing more than to keep this in the wraps. I am curious about his lie detector test, anyone know the results?

Pop_pop!_v2.1 wrote:

We know from the Russian scandal that samples were swapped so this isn't far fetched.

We know from cycling and Floyd Landis the federation tested until they got the results they wanted.

We know positives are for sale. The athlete's claim is therefore reasonable. It's also possible it's the athlete trying to weasel out of a positive.

I haven't read up on this story but the general hypothesis isn't far-fetched at all

Nike allegedly paid 500,000 to have lance armstrong protected

Trollminator wrote:

This would be embarrassing for WADA and the sport so I'm sure they would like nothing more than to keep this in the wraps. I am curious about his lie detector test, anyone know the results?

Just so it's clear, WADA has no authority to do anything. They are a standards-setting body.

JADCO, the National Anti-doping agency in this case has no authority. All of the authority rests with Jamaica's Athletics federation. The anti-doping authority can vary somewhat, but, please understand the only org with sanctioning powers are the sports federations.

Renee Anne Shirley did great to point out the terrible, terrible administration and corruption in JADCO and JAAA. Her twitter profile is ripe with offenses. Underfunding athletes, unfair treatment, I suggest you take a look. I stopped following her because she tweets a lot of other stuff, but sift through her feed to get a sense of the organization.

I totally believe it he could have been sabotaged.

I think it is more likely he doped and was sabotaged too, but that's onyl a hunch