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

Marchbank also has a long injury history.

But is anyone in the media noticing or just us?

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Fair comment. The AFL claim that about 20% of memberships are juniors. I would also point out there is a significant number of signatories on the petition who are not Essendon supporters and another group who are not even AFL followers. The comments indicate that people are not happy with the injustice of it all and the manner in which it has been handled by the AFL, ASADA, WADA and the CAS.

The parochial and emotive nature of footy, and the targeted campaign against the players was enough to generate a larger response I thought

But “sweatyman” is on the money. The level of apathy is disappointing but unfortunately indicative of the society we live in.

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I seriously don’t want any club to have to go through what we endured during the saga.
Except for these farkers. Their ex AFL chairman deserves it.

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There are some journos who are aware of it and know we were stitched up. Unfortunately these journos and, more importantly their editors, are acutely aware of the disease known as “saga fatigue” (and the ever present AFL bullies)

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9,513 have signed prior to information being made public from ether the Supreme Court (Jackson Taylor) or the AAT Hearings (Bruce Francis).

I predict a possible 165,000 signatures.

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Haha, Handelsman involved in the IAAF science on testosterone testing. Its science is being torn apart, including for doctored evidence. A summary is up on the sportsintegrityinitiative site.
Tracey Holmes did an interview on the latest Ticket program. She also interviewed the chief WADA scientist on the Froome case. He said WADA did not appeal the UCI decision because the UCI rejected WADA’s request to join as a party in the hearings. I am unaware of CAS provisions which would preclude a WADA appeal on such grounds.
There are huge structural flaws in the architecture of the global anti-doping system, with government supporting an unaccountable private sector system dominated by the Olympic movement and one which erodes athletes legal rights. Yet the Australian Government undertakes an Australian sport review with a WADA insider.
It should come as no surprise that the only teams effectively sanctioned under WADA rules (AFL and NRL) are not Olympic sports.

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AFL was warned about potential drug scandal
Nic Negrepontis - Sun, 15th Jul 2018 - 0 Comments

Respected Victorian lawyer David Galbally reveals he warned the AFL about the potential for a drug scandal to arise five years before the Essendon supplements saga.

Galbally, who spoke on Great Australian Lives with Laura Turner for Tobin Brothers – celebrating lives, said he informed the AFL of a list that contained the names of several AFL clubs and players.

This list was linked to a gym owner who had been supplying performance enhancing medicines to local footy clubs.

“It was an issue that about five or six years earlier, I had warned the AFL about,” Galbally told Great Australian Lives.

“I was involved in a case up in the country and the client I was working for had brought in a man who owned a gym and he was said to have imported some illicit drugs.

“Now they weren’t heroin or anything like that. They were all these medicines that were used for gyms and pumping your muscles up and all that sort of stuff.

“There were clubs and names of players on a list, and I saw the list, and I said to the AFL I think there might be a problem here.

“They said they didn’t think there was a problem. Five years later it blew right up.”

While Galbally doesn’t believe there’s anything more to come from the Essendon supplement saga, he believes players are still tempted by the desire to find every possible way to improve.

“I don’t think there’s more to come out from the scandal, but I think clubs have come a long way since then. Everybody’s more alert and aware,” he said.

“We’d all be fools to think that in such a competitive age of sport, particularly with the AFL, that the temptation for athletes would still be there.

“In order to get the edge in training, they would be tempted to take drugs.”

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cool

that is a micronutrient problem probably not enough vitamin C or coq10 to name a couple

IMG_8341

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On its website, FINA publishes names and dates of tests, disaggregated to in and out of competition. Perhaps the AFL could do the same in the interests of transparency.
What is ASADA’s justification for so fiercely resisting release? After all it’s what the National Anti-Doping Agencies were requesting in respect of Russia in the lead-up to RIO.

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Believe that FINA posting names of athletes who have undertaken drug tests destroys the underpinning of the system of athlete confidentiality. Athlete associations have dropped the ball on this subject

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It could be in the athletes best interests to have information publicly available on the rate of testing, particularly when questions are raised about performance. Testing has been cited by the likes of Froome, Nadal and Williams to counter scuttlebut.
There is also the issue of transparency of organisations ( which was being raised about RUSADA). Publicly available information by FINA, the ITF and USADA serves to dispel suspicions that they could be selectively testing.

The Netherlands Anti-Doping Authority has published a review by stakeholders forwarded to WADA ( including Government Health and Sports Ministry , National Sports body, Dutch Olympic Committee and Anti-Doping Authority).
Among other matters, the review calls for more transparent decision-making, rules that are easily explainable to athletes and rules that have minimal interference with good medical practice.
The text is available on the sportsintegrityinitiative site.
Questions for ASADA:
Has it undertaken comparable consultations with stakeholders?
Has it provided recommendations to WADA?
If so, will it make that information publicly available?

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Go NADA

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It’s never in the interests of athletes to have their testing regime made publically available by sporting associations or NADO’s - I’d expect WADA and NADO’s to be above scuttlebutt, rumour and innuendo.

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Mick Warner had another hit on AFL integrity at the National Sport Integrity Forum. Referencing the Essendon saga , he noted the AFL’s poor performance in some respects , suggesting that AFL integrity was compromised by its commercial interests.
Dave Culbert, as the Forum’s media manager, must have hated having to include Warner’s comments in the Forum media release.

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Hmmm.
If The Saga had happened in the Netherlands, Hurley’s T-Shirt at the presser would have looked …strange.

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