WADA Report Live Thread

basically if Russia can prove that it has put its house in order by Riotime, it will be allowed to compete

parkerclay wrote:

Does the report say how long this has been going on and/or if every Russian athlete was involved?

They all dope and its been going on for 50 years.

This wont end until Bekele and the other big names do jail time

OK, we are going to leave the live blog there for now. Here are some of the main findings today:

Russia should be banned from athletics competition

Pound described what has happened as “state-supported doping”

Vitaly Mutko, the Russian sports minister, issued direct orders to “manipulate particular samples,” according to the commission.

Wada says London 2012 were “sabotaged” by the “widespread inaction” against Russian athletes with suspicious doping profiles

Sebastian Coe has taken the urgent step of seeking approval to consider sanctions against the ARAF

Wada recommend that Moscow’s anti-doping lab should lose its accreditation. It accused the lab of the “intentional destruction” of 1417 samples

Russian response is to say it was a few bad apples and to throw the athletes under the bus. :

The acting head of RusAthletics, Vadim Zelechenok, has told R-Sport channel the following:

Any suspension should be discussed at the meeting of the IAAF [International Association of Athletics Federations] in November .It should be proven that any violations were the fault of the federation and not individual sportspeople. We should be given a chance to clear our names.

From August article:

"A December documentary by ARD (Seppelt)included allegations by a former discus thrower that 99% of athletes representing Russia used banned substances. "

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/aug/02/valentin-maslakov-russia-singled-out-doping-drugs

With 1,400+ samples destroyed (that we know of), there is no way to confirm the full exent with evidence, but it looks as if the 99% figure was not hyperbole. We know they have been doping teenagers for years.

agip wrote:

the worry here is that Russia will be indeed be banned, but only until the day before Rio.

So another slap on the wrist and then onward. is the fear.

I'm personally strongly anti-doping, but I think Russia would have a right to be furious if they were banned as a nation. Not that they don't deserve it, but you have to look at it through the lens of politics, and note the hypocrisy involved - where is the punishment for the USA's organized doping in 1984, for example?

Russia is hardly the first country to have a massive doping problem - maybe theirs is more centralized than Western countries, but when all is summed up, the hypocrisy still looks bad. The US, which has tons of dopers also, is allowed to compete, but Russia is not? Not to mention Spain, Morocco, Italy, etc, ...

How would it feel to be a Russian citizen, informed that your country cannot compete in the Olympics because you are a bunch of cheaters, and then have to watch the Olympic 100m final on TV with Justin Gatlin, Tyson Gay, and whichever other dopers make the final, lining up to compete for glory and riches?

Though I think the Russians should be punishedin some way I do not think punishing individuals is fair unless they get caught. Possibly only allow one entrant in different event.....or do special testing of Russians. If you have ever been falsely accused of something you cannot support banning someone because of the location of their birth. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the IAAF to catch the cheaters and, obviously, to punish. The first part was done in 2012, the second was not.

Redditt and Twitter have un-moderated discussions not censored by racists.

Not sure what you are talking about. Not a single post has been removed from this thread.

The issue that the IAAF cares about is only one: is Russia compliant with IAAF and WADA guidelines. Right now Russia is not. So I suspect when Russia can prove it is back in compliance then it will be allowed to compete.Can they do that before Rio? It isn't clear.

The US is currently compliant, as is every other country apparently. There are question marks around Kenya certainly.

You seem to think that banning Russia would be out of a desire to punish - I think that is wrong - Banning is an administrative maneuver to prevent noncompliant nations from competing.

Does anyone know where Lance was in 2012? I bet he is behind this, somehow. Maybe George will testify against him again if I can find something to sweeten the deal.

I'm not sure about my position. While I want Russia banned, like you I don't like the hypocrisy of it. But there are a few things to sort out first:

Systematic doping is different than lots of independent/entrepreneurial doping. The Russian Federation is responsible for the Russian doping crisis: it was directed, led, and facilitated by management and leadership just like any other policy. That is different than Drummond's group, or BALCO, or AW facilitating their own doping.

Negligence is different than incompetence is different from malice. Russia acted against the code, on purpose, methodically. I don't know whether Kenya is negligent (they don't have their own lab, their own organizational anti-doping infrastructure), incompetent (they actually believe foreign doctors and agents are the problem) or acting with malice (Officials have been shown to accept bribes to cover up positives, defy regulation to "get back" athletes who lobby against the federation, shown to coordinate evasion of international testers.) Each is different and not every problem deserves banning.

Russia, and their refusal to acknowledge the problem is clear cut, while US (USADA inability to control independent doping), UK (UKAD inability to control independent doping, loosening controls before 2012 Olympics), Ethiopia (an government inability to set up the organizational structure, and no interest from international federation), Jamaica (JADCO acting with malice to not test their athletes, systematically, but showing reform and presumably tightening their system), Morocco (apparent systematic doping, but no interest in the governing bodies to do anything about it) or whoever are less so.

I think it is good precedent to ban Russia, to then realistically be able to threaten a ban to the above nations if they aren't making progress. You're right that Russia is not alone, and right when you say that Russia deserves a ban, but wrong in saying the hypocrisy of it should prevent the ban. Not my final opinion, so I'm open to be convinced one way or another.

Did anyone ask who the other non compliant nations are?

Well. A long history of a doping culture. Lets' see, take one American sprinter after another, a doper (Gatlin, Montgomery, Gay, and most of them who are running today). UK, Froome and Farah, inexplicably rising to the top without any indications previously. Well documented allegations of doping in Nike camp. So based on WADA recommendations these national federations should withdraw as well from Olympics. Who is going to be left?

twitter.com

larkimm wrote:

Putting wealth of the nation to one side, if there is one country which stands out for having athletics success throughout some of the periods in time where drug use is believed to have been prevalent, it's the USA. Perhaps that's where Dick Pound and his team need to look next...

I couldn't agree more, and I'm from the USA

Fairness accross wrote:

Well. A long history of a doping culture. Lets' see, take one American sprinter after another, a doper (Gatlin, Montgomery, Gay, and most of them who are running today). UK, Froome and Farah, inexplicably rising to the top without any indications previously. Well documented allegations of doping in Nike camp. So based on WADA recommendations these national federations should withdraw as well from Olympics. Who is going to be left?

not state sponsored doping

not out of compliance with IAAF and WADA

I probably agree with you on a philosophical level. Yes, there is certainly a difference between organized national doping versus a bunch of freely organized clubs who decide to dope. There is a little bit of a "devil is in the details" factor - we'll probably never know for sure exactly how many of the runners from the US are doping, but suppose it was as some suggest (basically, everybody dopes) - then effectively, you are saying to Russia that you guys are banned, not because your athletes are any more or less doped than ours, but because of the way you organize your doping. You see, doping has to be a free enterprise type of thing, not a centralized thing.

If, on the other hand, the amount of dopers on the US team is much less than 100%, that changes the argument. But I don't think you can underestimate the political effects in an already inflammatory situation. Russia's population probably isn't going to be likely to take a philosophical view and say, well, I guess it's fair, because our doping was too centralized. They're going to say, look at the US - all their top sprinters dope, and get an occasional slap on the wrist, and then are allowed to compete again without missing a beat. Our athletes need to dope to be able to keep up with the cheating Westerners, and then when Russians win medals, the Westerners get all pissy and ban us.

I must say, I have a lot of sympathy for the Russians if that is the case.

I don't think there is a good solution to the case. But I would say, if Russia agrees to make some sort of effort to clean up, you have to let them compete. Any Russian athlete against whom there is no convincing evidence of doping would just have to be allowed to proceed, no matter how much their competitors might suspect them. Just like the athletes from the "good" countries, if they pass the doping controls, their results stand. It's not a pretty solution, but let's face it, many of the medals won at the Olympics are going to be won by PED users.

Shutting Russia out is just too politically inflammatory.

larkimm wrote:

Putting wealth of the nation to one side, if there is one country which stands out for having athletics success throughout some of the periods in time where drug use is believed to have been prevalent, it's the USA. Perhaps that's where Dick Pound and his team need to look next...

Except that in the US, athletes are not nearly as 'centralized' as they are in some other countries. Here, everyone develops and trains on their own or as part of smaller teams scattered across the country. Sure we have cheaters but they tend to be individuals rather than part of some wider state sponsored program. Mainly because there isn't a very strong state sponsored program.