Sorry Saga - “It’s actually quite funny people thinking they know more than they actually do”

Will never happen. He will disappear, be paid off or have an accident.

Barret and not doubt former (but soon to be again) fat Eddie just wanted to remind the crowd of the Saga to ensure Hird would be booed on Saturday so a whole new cycle of anti-Hird stories an be spewed forth again.

However, as no one watches that farce of a show (they had to give tickets away) the story was ignored for the beat up it was.

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The 2018 prohibited list is now up on the WADA site. Finally, TB-4 gets listed

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One point is now the people going under oath are no longer in charge at afl house cant pull as many strings now things get said evidence gets found

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they system works if it is being administered ethically

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people vilify him without realising that they actually are saying they believe he did something illegal at Essendon… even though we all know he didn’t because there is no proof he did …guess some just have to have someone to blame rather than make the real culprits talk those in the afl & asada who allowed this mess to happen & got a foreign tribunal system to override our own …

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a doctor has a dispensation from wada (make up rules to suit themselves) although it does make you think about the way their rules are set up they say one thing & allow another …like athletes who have medical conditions can play sport if their doctor fills in the form

The CAS Panel preferred starting point was PEDS were injected to Essendon players.

Riddle me this. How on earth did the above statement by the CAS Panel get past the players lawyers, or in fact, get past any lawyers anywhere in the world?

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Might I suggest that given the players used the services of AFLPA (and therefore AFL) appointed lawyers they may have been in on the fix. Afterall the informed advice is that Tony Hargreaves and Gil are best mates, and have been for a while.

You are spot on Stabby. WADA lawyers offered the CAS Panel the first strand that TB4 was used at Essendon and then went about proving, to a level of comfortable satisfaction, that all the players were administered TB4. And what did the player’s lawyers do - SFA???

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Apart from David Grace QC (players lawyer at the AFL Tribunal who was forbidden to continue to defend the players at The CAS) it seems no one was really ever in the players corner, not even their own lawyers or the AFLPA.

It was 34 footy players, against a world of corruption and self interest.

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http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/wada-puts-two-drugs-in-essendon-peptides-scandal-on-banned-list/news-story/b9c89965daa67ec5d0301ad16f084e39

WADA puts two drugs in Essendon peptides scandal on banned list

The Australian12:00AM October 6, 2017

NICOLE JEFFERY
Sports reporterSydney
@nicolejeffery

The two drugs at the centre of the Essendon peptides scandal, Thymosin Beta 4 and AOD-9604, will be specifically named on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s banned list when it is updated on January 1.

The two peptides were covered by the catch-all “related substances’’ phrase, when the Essendon supplements program ran in 2012, but will be added as specified examples in the new list, WADA announced yesterday.

WADA said AOD-9604 was added as an example of growth hormone fragments, and Thymosin Beta 4 will be listed as an example of prohibited growth factors. However Australian anti-doping expert Peter Fricker said it was unlikely that WADA had listed the drugs as a direct response to the Essendon case, which it won in appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, resulting in a two-year ban for 34 players.

“It may have been a trigger but it would not have been the entire trigger,’’ said Fricker, who chairs the Australian Olympic Committee’s medical commission.

“The way the process (of listing drugs) works is that WADA seeks feedback from every country and sport so it probably received a broader response on these substances.”

Fricker said the new WADA list reflected the agency’s philosophy of progressively trying to simplify and clarify the prohibited list for athletes.

For example, alcohol has been removed from the list because it is only a banned substance in four sports (those sports will be left to police it as they see fit) and glycerol has been removed from the list of masking agents because scientific studies have shown it has “minimal’’ effects.

The new list also adjusts how much inhaled salbutamol (an asthma medication) and athlete can take in 12 hours and 24 hours, and how much of an intravenous infusion can be used in 12 hours.

Fricker said these changes reflected WADA’s philosophy of focusing more on trying to catch deliberate drug cheats rather than those who inadvertently fall foul of the rules.

“I think the more we focus on catching cheats who are using substances with the pure intent to gain a competitive advantage, the better,’’ he said.

Two drugs have also been added to the WADA monitoring list to evaluate whether they are being misused in sport. They are bemitil, a metabolic actoprotector developed by the Soviets in the 1970s and reputed to improve mental and physical performance under stress, and hydrocodone, a prescription painkiller

So the motive of WADA has shifted from “protecting the athlete health from harm” to stopping any sort of competitive advantage. My mail is neither TB4 or AOD 9604 improves athletic performance and there is no scientific evidence to support their listing. TB4 may help muscles heal faster or maybe it has no impact at all…it might FMD, and only if the athlete trains longer is there EVER a benefit, FMD. AOD does nothing.

If you guys think this is not related to the EFC 34 you are delusional. This is DIRECTLY related to it, and is called ■■■■ covering for when everyone is called to account…would be driven by Aussie politicans / public ASADA servants without a doubt IMO

Everyone can now go see they are cheats

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It is worthy of note that the newly appointed member of Greg Hunt’s Sports Integrity Review, that bastion of integrity himself, ex WADA Director General, David Howman stated recently that he was proud of the fact that WADA had invested over US$70m in research studies on PEDs.

So I carried out a literature search on all the research projects funded by WADA since 2004. The search revealed also other projects partly funded by WADA, governments and affiliated sporting bodies. There was not one research project involving thymosin beta 4. There was one project that looked at identifying the amino acid sequence of TB500 which is a smaller peptide than TB4.

So WADA may well celebrate the addition of TB4 as a stand alone entity on the 2018 banned list but it doesn’t account for the fact that if players had looked at the 2012 WADA banned list they would not have found TB4, which is contrary to what McDevitt claimed before the Senate Estimates panel in 2016.

Bomber1408 you are absolutely correct. There is no clinical or scientific evidence that would support the contention that TB4 is in any way performance enhancing. Clinical trials that were underway in the US were abandoned because the data didn’t support the claims.

AOD 9604 clinical trials were also abandoned because the clinical evidence did not support the claims. The issue with AOD 9604 is that the peptide is derived from the HGH molecule which from the WADA Expert Group point of view is a no-no.

The clinical evidence is very strong to support the contention that HGH itself is not “performance enhancing”. The notion that a course of injections of HGH increases muscle strength has been shown in many studies to be a fallacy. However, body builders use a cocktail of HGH, testosterone and anabolic steroids which certainly increase muscle mass and strength.

The scientific rigor applied by WADA is questionable at best. One only has to consider the case with meldonium to be convinced.

Let’s face it until WADA, the CAS, IOC, ASADA, AFL etc etc. are subject to oversight, and held accountable for their actions athletes will get screwed, just for the sake of optics. And that ■■■■-weak mob of politicians in Canberra want to bury the evidence of injustice and move on.

But not this little black duck.

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Sorry, i am on the road atm. Can’t do full article.

David Sharpe’s office is full of clues to his decorated career in tackling international organised crime and terrorism.

A baseball bat from the FBI, certificates of appreciation from US Homeland Security and Drug Enforcement Administration, a photo with Pope Francis after a briefing on the Mafia.

Now his job is to tackle the ugly side of sport.

“I’m living the dream, combining my passion for sport and law enforcement background into one role,” he says.

Australia’s new anti-doping chief has the sort of build that rugby league commentators describe as “nuggetty” (170 cm) and the sort of corruption-busting resume that implies a habit of head-cracking.

But just days into his new job, he’s striking a surprisingly diplomatic stance.

When asked if the AFL had a conflict of interest as both brand-protector and adjudicator in the Essendon supplements scandal, he says, “I don’t think so.”

Timeline: Essendon doping saga

Take a look back at how events unfolded in ASADA’s investigation into the Essendon Football Club.
“In the absence of anything else, each of the sporting codes have done a very good job in setting up their own integrity bodies and their own tribunals with what was in front of them at the time,” he says.

“We evolve from that … I think a lot of credit needs to be given to the sports for actually establishing the sort of tribunals and integrity bodies in the first place because out of that stems your education and welfare roles.”

He says brand protection cuts both ways.

“If it’s promoted out there that the [sport’s] brand is a good brand and identifies with clean sport … I think it’s a good thing,” he says.

It’s a tone and position at odds with that of his predecessor, Ben McDevitt, who butted heads with the AFL over its dual role.

Independent tribunal ‘absolutely a requirement’

ASADA was forced into a controversial “partnership” with the sport because it lacked — and still lacks — the authority to compel evidence from players without the AFL’s involvement.

The saga ended with a “win” for ASADA, as it backed a successful WADA challenge to the AFL Tribunal’s result.

As Sharpe says: “No party came out of Operation Cobia [the Essendon investigation] unscathed.”

But in the end he is in fierce agreement with McDevitt that the AFL Tribunal, along with all individual sports’ tribunals, should be replaced by a national independent body.

_ CEO of ASADA Ben McDevitt_
PHOTO: Previous ASADA boss Ben McDevitt butted heads with the AFL over its dual role. (AAP: Alan Porritt)
An independent tribunal, Sharpe says, is “absolutely a requirement”.

“It makes a very clean and clear system … I think we just have to set it up in partnership with the sports… and make sure it works for everyone.”

Such a tribunal is expected to be one of the key recommendations of the current James Wood inquiry into sport integrity, that could mean no team or sport needs to repeat the unfortunate Essendon saga.

And it’s clear Sharpe is keen to use his appointment to forge closer relationships with the sports as they enter into complex negotiations about the form that tribunal should take, and the protections offered for sports’ sovereignty.

How the saga unfolded

Read how an unexpected press conference in 2013 turned into one of the AFL’s biggest stories.
Sharpe wants to reposition the agency as an athlete-focused body.

“I think what’s critical to us is having a greater understanding of the pressures on athletes,” he says.

“Since I was an athlete it’s certainly changed. The pressure is very different, the commercial impact very different. So I am keen to get out and engage and have the staff get out and have a greater engagement with the sports.”

ASADA will conduct forums in the next few months with athletes, coaches, media and schoolteachers — education is his mantra.

Sharpe’s league background brings ‘greater understanding’

Sharpe’s 30-year career with the Australian Federal Police included a stint in Washington DC dealing with Australian links to organised crime across three continents.

But the police force was only his second professional “family”. The first was rugby league.

_ New ASADA boss David Sharpe looks down and writes in his office._
PHOTO: It’s clear David Sharpe is keen to forge a closer relationship with the sports. (ABC News: Mary Gearin)
The Wagga boy played at centre with the Canberra Raiders juniors and played first grade for many years in the Canberra Raiders cup, making the 50-year-old the first ASADA chief executive to have played sport at a professional level.

He took on an assistant coaching role at the Canberra Raiders under Mal Meninga in 2001-02 and later spent two years as the Raiders’ manager.

Sharpe laughs when asked to describe himself as a player.

"How I would describe myself or how would others? Because it’s a long time since I’ve played, and I got better every year after I retired!

"I would describe myself as reasonably tough, and given my size in the game compared to others, it was a ‘never say die’ attitude.

"I was never going to be beaten and I was never going to be told I was too small to play sport.

“I’ve taken a lot of that into life with everything I’ve done.”

Sharpe laughs easily. “I’m not going to insult the AFL, but we need to have our own Tribunal so we can leave out the bits we don’t need.”

(for the TL;DR brigade)

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What concerns me the most with this is that history is being rewritten to say that the AFL Anti Doping Tribunal got the decision wrong because they were biased towards their own sport, so the ‘good fight’ needed the independent CAS tribunal to come over the top and suspend the players (and we need more of this ‘independence’).
As much as we hate the AFL, their system did get the ‘player not guilty’ decision correct; and I’ve always felt the ASADA/WADA/CAS disgraceful decision was quite independent of the AFL’s influence.
Hopefully the Jackson Taylor legal action will expose AFL manipulation and maybe the flaws in the ASADA/AFL alliance. But I can’t see how we’ll ever get accountability for WADA and CAS for their manifestly unjust decision.

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Latest editorial about new boss of ASADA ex Federal Police Officer, David Sharpe says, “One of the scariest things about the Essendon drugs scandal is the offending players were injected with substances that haven’t been approved for human use, so the short and long term health effects are still a mystery.” Really I thought it was TB4, ASADA accused the players of using and were banned for using?

He goes onto to say, “ASADA is one of the few doping agencies that, following a positive test, conducts an investigation.” Really! We never had a positive test ever, not even the tests which were done without the knowledge of the players and the EFC.

Then says, “We are not here to punish athletes. We are here to help clean up the sport more broadly and protect athletes from the threats around them.” Really but that’s not what happened in the Essendon players case.

Editorial todays Herald Sun page 53. Clean skin.

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The new ASADA boss’s comments about untested substances etc couldn’t have anything to with Dank’s up coming court case against ASADA could it? As MDSO points out the players were charged with taking TB4 and nothing else. This nonsense about unknown substances was concocted by the AFL and ASADA in 20013 to bolster their case.

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mdso, Good get.

I just found the HS and read the article in full. It would seem Sharpe has fallen into line straightaway with the statement in your last paragraph. It’s all about moving on and what we will do in the future. Forget about the devastation from the past and what we can learn from it.

I have written to journalists before relating to this statement about all these terrible substances the players were injected with. I will just drop Keith Moor an email and educate him.

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