9 am ET Thursday morning: Official 2nd WADA Press Conference Live Discussion Thread - How bad will it be?

To recap where we stand wrote:

- All handling of results pre 2009 renders them useless - so we know nothing of the cleanliness of the sport.

It depends on the lie you want to believe from the IAAF.

They sanctioned athletes using samples from that era as evidence under the WADA system. And then, when they needed to explain why they permit doping, they declared the sample system unfit. Like Paula's explanations, facts change all the time to suit the circumstances.

Russia should be back just in time for the Olympics.

We know plenty about the state of dopers and doping in the IAAF. It's a free for all. Just have enough money for bribes.

"Corrupt" doesn't really cover it. Widespread bribes including members of the IOC, at least 10's of millions of dollars in bribes. Forgeries, fraud and more. Again, it's a free for all. Just bring enough money, Nike.

pop_pop!_v2.2.1 wrote:

To recap where we stand wrote:

- All handling of results pre 2009 renders them useless - so we know nothing of the cleanliness of the sport.

They sanctioned athletes using samples from that era as evidence under the WADA system. And then, when they needed to explain why they permit doping, they declared the sample system unfit. Like Paula's explanations, facts change all the time to suit the circumstances.

.

I think you are mixing things up. There are three periods:

Pre passport

Period when they were sorting out the passport (2009)

post passport.

In the pre 2009 era they popped people for EPO, 'roids, stims, whatever. No passport existed.

In the intermediate period they were testing people with the passport system but it hadn't been approved to actually pop people with. This is what you seem not to understand. When Russians started showing up with absurd values, the IAAF told Russia 'look, we can't ban anyone yet, but next year we will. So clean that carp up NOW.' I don't see a problem with this.

Finally, in the post passport period, they started actually banning people with passport data.

The whole thing is a farce

Who is paying Pound for his reports and how much is he getting

How much did the Stepanovas get for their whistleblowing

Politically driven claptrap with very little substance

It cant be that difficult for WADA to enforce proper testing , and Pound was asleep on the job.

No report on Kenya yet why not.

Just get the right testing systems and budgets in place in all competing countries overseen by WADA and IAAF and keep on top of it.

Pound should move on and investigate the NFL next.

The blood data before 2009 has been shown to be reasonably accurate. The blood data before 2009 clearly showed that there was massive blood doping in Russia. This has been shown to be 100% correct.

The only thing this scandal might achieve is forcing the Russians to learn how to microdose with EPO and learn how to perform micro autologous blood transfusions.

If Seb Coe is replaced, the IAAF might elect a complete nutcase. WADA would prefer to deal with Seb Coe.

teahouse wrote:

No report on Kenya yet why not.

Just get the right testing systems and budgets in place in all competing countries overseen by WADA and IAAF and keep on top of it.

Pound should move on and investigate the NFL next.

Did you listen to the report?

There is no report on Kenya because it was beyond the scope of this independent commission. So he addressed that.

The "right budgets" of NADOs are usually entirely supplied by the governments of that country. I don't think WADA has control over the process.

I agree that the whole process is pretty messed up, but I think some of your criticisms miss the mark.

rojo wrote:

Ok, Jonathan asked this questoin.

TJonathan Gault wants to ask:

Mr. Pound, in an August 2015 interview with Victor Conte in the Japan Times, he claims that he gave you advice on how to catch athletes cheating by doing carbon isotope ratio tests from their old frozen samples. He wanted you to go back and test the big names like Usain Bolt, Yohan Blake, Carmelita Jeter, etc" from earlier in the 2000s. He says you brought this suggestion to WADA and they rejected your proposal saying, "Are you kidding me? You think we want to destroy the entire Olympic movement?"

So, did this actually happen and if so, how can we have faith that those at top want to bring down cheats even at the expense of the "Olympic movement."

Pound said that's not something WADA would say to him. They would let the chips fall where they should. So basically he denied the validity of Conte's claim.[/quote]

I'm glad this question was asked. I think the answer didn't help clarify some of the things I would like to know about both WADA and Conte.

He denied saying this exact thing, essentially. He didn't deny consulting with Conte (we know he did on at least one occasion). I don't think he denied that Conte made this recommendation. He didn't exactly confirm those things, either though.

Pretty much a non-answer to the question...

Thanks. Maybe it's best to put this another way. We have enough information to know that there was lots of cheating by many people prior to 2009 but we didn't have processes to address on an individual basis until 2009. Russia can't be alone in this.Further, out of competition testing depends on individual countries. So:Should we be confident in records set prior to 2009? Should we continue to allow athletes to be subject to very different standards based in their country budget priorities?

1000 wrote:

The blood data before 2009 has been shown to be reasonably accurate. The blood data before 2009 clearly showed that there was massive blood doping in Russia. This has been shown to be 100% correct.

The only thing this scandal might achieve is forcing the Russians to learn how to microdose with EPO and learn how to perform micro autologous blood transfusions.

If Seb Coe is replaced, the IAAF might elect a complete nutcase. WADA would prefer to deal with Seb Coe.

About Kenya, I think we can see the truth in one way only : IAAF has to make public a list of all the athletes already having Biological Passport.

When we see the list of doped kenyans, we find two athletes only who were in the whereabouts system : Mathew Kisorio and Rita Jeptoo.

All the other athletes, with the ecception of the two women of 400m (Zakarya) and 400 HS (Koki), and of Agatha Jeruto, not being inside the first in the world, but being the best in Kenya (so could be controlled in a Country with a good national antidoping agency), could not be tested IN ANY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD, since were not in the top 10 or 20 or 50 in Kenya (and there is NO COUNTRY in the world doing blood tests for athletes of medium national level, because of the cost of every test).

Many people don't understand that a Kenyan marathon runner woman with a PB of 2:28 can be good in some Country, not in Kenya. This is the same to ask domestic control for sprinters of 10:20 in US : if they are doped, they can be caught in test IN COMPETITION only, because can't be subjects included in any whereabouts, in any Country.

I again explain that it's not true domestic tests didn't exist in Kenya.

What was not possible to carry out, were blood tests, but we need to know that only with urine tests it's possible to find some doping substance (blood tests are used only for two reasons :

for creating a Biological Passport, that of course cannot be a procedure available for the most part of athletes (Kenyan or Ethiopian) running and winning marathons in the world, since they are hundred or more, and are tested only after the race

or for discovering suspicious parameters, which indicate the possibility of blood doping, and after this the suspected athletes can be tested with high frequency, in order to try to find the substance in the urine).

Rita Jeptoo an Agatha Jeruto were caught in out of competition test, while Mathew Kisorio, Zakarya and Koki in the test after National Championships.

So, people must understand that the possibility to have blood tests with Kenyan and Ethiopian athletes can regard, in any case, only a little part of runners, exactly as in US only a little part of sprinters are tested by USADA.

Of course, the little part is made with all the best in the world, something that at the moment doesn't happen.

If IAAF releases the names of all the athletes already with a Biological Passport, people can see how many Kenyans and Ethiopians are included, and can see they are clean, because the "smart athletes" able to dope but to escape from right controls can be only athletes who don't have a Biological Passport.

If, and when, IAAF can do this, people can stop to speak about top athletes of endurance doped, if Kenyan or Ethiopian.

But, I repeat again : since when WADA or IAAF don't invest some money for a lab in Kenya or Ethiopia, using not only for antidoping, but also for collecting data regarding the top athletes born, living and training in altitude, in order to understand the modifications training induces in the physiology TRAINING AT THE TOP IN THOSE CONDITIONS, all the opinions of physiologists are speculations only, without real scientific basis.

I understand the USA has representation at IAAF. Do we have any comments from the new USA rep to IAAF. Some sort of a press release even if it is only saying : I was there/ I asked/I heard/ My opinion/I'm doing/I suggested/ I questioned/ I proposed?

So, did Pound address - at any point - what the heck he thought the 'Wow' factor was?

We've been trolled by Pound, big-time. All the build-up to this press conference pointed to something mind-blowing. I thought maybe we would find out that the IAAF was secretly controlled by the Illuminati. Or at least something. So far, all we've gotten is, oh boy, that Lamine Diack sure was naughty.

WOW!!!

How many people have actually read it, end-to-end? It's worth it, and not hard to read. Tons of facts, hard to argue with.

1. Lamine Diack and 4-5 others were naughty by trying to slow down tests until after London or Moscow. They drifted into this gradually. It started in 2011.

2. Melnikov, Cisse and maybe 1-3 Diacks were super-super-naughty by trying to extort money from Shobukhova and Alptekin.

3. Neither worked, insofar as the people who had been busted all got banned in the end.

4. The IAAF did more than an other anti-doping body to bust bad people. The Russians couldn't figure out how to dodge the ABP, so a lot of them started getting flagged as suspicious.

5. The Sunday Times was naughty by stirring up a lot of sensationalism with nothing really new behind it, and possibly by misleading Ashenden and Parisiotto into thinking they had all the data, when they didn't.

6. Ashenden and Parisiotto were just a little bit naughty, in particular Ashenden claiming that the IAAF could have done a lot more prior to 2009.

7. Overall, not that many people have been officially flagged as "likely doping" under the passport, and all have been followed up and banned. For the first time in our sport a lot of cheats are getting busted.

My opinion: this really does not seem like a big deal. The bad guy at the top is gone, IAAF is changing its structure already (and you can't just do that in weeks, things have to be done through a process), they will have outside oversight henceforth. There is no hard evidence of corruption within the IAAF beyond the 4-5 known bad guys and the last 4 years, and plenty of evidence of good people trying to do a good job.

I still trust my sport far more than most other sports.

^^^^^^ This is very well put and summarises where I am on this. Assuming you trust Pound (and I do), then this is what the facts say.

When Coe took over the presidency, he said he had "deep affection" and "great admiration" for Diack. Diack had overseen the IAAF with "shrewd stewardship", that he provided "wise counsel", and that he would remain "spiritual president".

How can anybody take him seriously at this point? I know the retort will probably be that those are the right kinds of things you say to anybody when they retire, but the point is, once you've said something so outrageously wrong with a straight face, how do we know when we should believe you? When you say you'll do everything within your power to combat doping, is that just another one of those things that you say just because it's the right thing to say?

Why do people keep saying Coe is "the right man for the job"? What's so right about him? What's he done that was so great, in the field of governing? To listen to all his backers, you'd think failing to notice anything amiss during years as VP of IAAF was the best qualification you could ask for. Seriously, when a guy claims to be taken by surprise by all the doping being revealed, despite the fact that any half-wit who follows the sport could have told him, at least in general terms, that it was going on, you know he's either F.O.S., completely stupid, or both.

Because Coe hasn't done anything wrong yet.

rekrunner wrote:

Because Coe hasn't done anything wrong yet.

He is either corrupt (but hasn't been uncovered yet) or he is incompetent (because he didn't notice the corruption under his nose).

Not just at IAAF but also as the head of the FIFA ethics commission. Not exactly a resume booster when you are claiming to be a governance reformer.

Or you have the wrong expectation of an IAAF VP and the FIFA ethics commission.

Corruption tends to be kept a secret, even from VPs and head of the ethics commission.

rekrunner wrote:

Or you have the wrong expectation of an IAAF VP and the FIFA ethics commission.

Corruption tends to be kept a secret, even from VPs and head of the ethics commission.

So you are going with incompetence. OK.

agip wrote:

Finally, in the post passport period, they started actually banning people with passport data.

I'm fine with the clarification until the last point. It was anything goes, the WADA system goes official and .... no one is ever testing positive and the IAAF is doing as they please with athletes for fun and profit.

A switch did not go off and the doping stop.