Sorry, I got it a bit wrong. The inquiry was set up on 16 May 2013, on a motion of Di Natalie. It was exclusively about sports science, promoted by the saga.
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and yet they tell us the age of entitlement is over?? thing is most of us have no entitlements anyway
Isn’t it nice to know that sporting organisations and government departments continue to be tardy in their response to what happened in 2012.
The revised WADA Code of 2015 included the following revision notes for the updating of the previous version of the Code (2009).
Significant Changes Between the 2009 Code And the 2015 Code, Version 4.0
- Theme Four: Amendments to the 2015 Code have been included to better reach Athlete Support Personnel who are involved in doping. Doping frequently involves coaches, trainers, or other Athlete Support Personnel.
Additionally, in many cases, those Athlete Support Personnel are outside the jurisdiction of anti-doping authorities. There was widespread support among the stakeholders to revise the Code to better address the problem of the role of Athlete Support Personnel in doping.
Some examples include:
Article 20.3.5: Establishes that one of the roles and responsibilities of International Federations is to adopt rules which obligate their National Federations to require Athlete Support Personnel who participate in their activities to agree to the results management authority of applicable Anti-Doping Organizations.
Article 20.3.10 and 20.5.9: Requires International Federations and National Anti-Doping Organizations to conduct an automatic investigation of Athlete Support Personnel in the case of any anti-doping rule violation by a Minor or any Athlete Support Personnel who has provided support to more than one Athlete found to have committed an anti-doing rule violation.
Article 2.10: For those Athlete Support Personnel who have been involved in doping activities but are currently outside the jurisdiction of anti-doping authorities, the 2015 amendments add a new anti-doping rule violation article entitled “Prohibited Association.” This article makes it an anti-doping rule violation for an Athlete or other Person to associate in a professional or sport-related capacity with Athlete Support Personnel who are currently Ineligible, who have been convicted in a criminal, disciplinary, or professional proceeding for conduct that would constitute doping, for the longer of six years from the conviction/decision or the duration of the criminal, disciplinary, or professional sanction imposed; or someone who is serving as a front for such a Person. Before an Athlete is found to have violated this article, he or she must have received notice of the Athlete Support Personnel’s disqualified status and the Consequence of continued association. The Athlete Support Personnel also has the opportunity to explain that the disqualified status is not applicable to him or her. Finally, this article does not apply in circumstances where the association is unavoidable, such as a child/parent or wife/husband relationship.
Articles 21.2.6, 20.3.15 and 20.4.13: Under the current Code, Athlete Support Personnel commit anti-doping rule violations by administering a Prohibited Substance or Method to an Athlete, Possession of a Prohibited Substance or Method in Competition without an acceptable justification, Trafficking, or Complicity. The current Code does not address Use of Prohibited Substances and Methods by Athlete Support Personnel
themselves. A new Article 21.2.6, has been added to the Roles and Responsibilities of Athlete Support Personnel, which provides that “Athlete Support Personnel shall not Use or Possess any Prohibited Substance or Prohibited Method without valid justification.” Violation of this article by an Athlete Support Personnel is not an anti-doping rule violation, but does give rise to disciplinary action under sport disciplinary rules. To enforce this, Articles 20.3.15 and 20.4.13 require International Federations and National Olympic Committees to have disciplinary rules in place which prevent Athlete Support Personnel who violate Article 21.2.6 from providing support to Athletes.
So the new and current Code came into existence on the 1st January 2015. That is 12 days short of three years ago and only just now “our sporting bodies” are saying they are putting in place a system that will protect the athletes from unscrupulous sports scientists.
What will become of Hunt’s Integrity Review now that he has been relieved of the Sport portfolio? I assume this decision by the sporting bodies was made in isolation to Hunt’s Review??
I am continually flabbergasted at the ineptitude of the individuals in government (both sides). It could be argued that being the Minister for Sport is like being given the poisoned chalice. Firstly Kate Lundy and her Blackest Day role and her fumbling of ACCC, AFL, ASADA, government bureaucracy relationships with regards to the Essendon saga.
Then we had Sussan Ley who was too busy flying back and forward to the Gold Coast and oversaw a Health Department riddled with sexual harassment and bullying claims, together with the deterioration of public health with respect to the failure to provide sufficient stocks of meningococcal vaccine for our children, the inability to meet timelines for the introduction of nocturnal insulin monitors, again for children. Need I go on.
Then we have Greg Hunt who entrusted a review of the ASADA/WADA case against the Essendon 34 to his own Department who advised him that there was no new evidence to support an enquiry.
Now we have Bridget McKenzie. I wish her well. However, if we were look at the “form”, in racing parlance the numbers would be “000”
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The only new thing in the ASC decision relates to funding eligibility.
The Senate Report - The practice of sports science in Australia- was released in July 2013 ( available on the APH site)
The AFL and NRL appear to have adopted the accreditation system shortly after that.
However, in charging Hird Thompson Corcoran and Reid, the AFL ignored chapter 7 of the report on governance responsibility in clubs and by the AFL, including Board and CEO responsibilities.
An interesting observation elsewhere in the report by Larkin in regard to athlete frustrations in trying to get any information from ASADA.
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So many things wrong with that article.
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Yes, strange that there were no problems at the other AFL and NRL clubs ( for example Manly, the NRL equivalent of Carlton) employing Dank and Co. and zero problem now with Robinson at the Roosters.
Also, highly likely that they would have possessed the necessary qualifications for accreditation.
All doping problems now nipped in the bud.
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This approach of more standards, more rules or more education is not surprising. It’s not a bad idea, but it won’t fix a re-occurrence of the saga as lack of qualifications was never the problem. Dank is a qualified and experienced chemist. That didn’t help so why would another type of qualification do the trick?
Everyone in government just continues to miss the point as to what did, and did not cause the saga. Weren’t we told for 3 years that governance was the source of the problem? Maybe the new accreditation process needs to be applied to AFL and club executives to teach them how to make rational and moral decisions, rather than scapegoating someone else as they try to cover up their own culpability?
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I do hope Bridget is an accredited sports scientist
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That’s nice. I’m sure the next time someone poaches a sports scientist and conditioning coach from an AFL run club who have also worked with a multiple-premiership winning team everything will be just fine because they’ll be “accredited”.
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Actually there were - 11 other clubs had “governance” issues surrounding their management of player supplements according to a brief “paper audit” the AFL quickly instigated after the EFC saga broke.
Problem was, they all got buried and have never been seen again - filed under “Nothing to see here”.
Again, it was about making Essendon taking the rap on behalf of all clubs and containing the damage to just that one club.
If it was revealed the problem was widespread then it becomes an AFL problem, not a club problem.
At the time, who was the face of the AFL?
Why, Fitzpatrick & Demetriou of course.
That’s why they went as hard as they did at our club and coach…to make sure the whole world knew it only Essendon and no one else lest the trail lead straight to their door.
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That’s very true, The irony is of course is that despite the beat up by the government, ASADA, the AFL and the media nothing was found at Essendon either. Unless you count the CAS finding that TB4 had been administered to 34 players. As Bruce Francis has pointed out that finding was corruptly false.
Remember the lies peddled that the players were given substances injurious to their health and the health of their unborn babies. Well that was supposed to have happened in 2012. It’s now almost six years on and nothing has happened to the players or their children.
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I’m sure that if he wants accreditation someone will help him secure it. After all he was 'the only one" who was cleared of anything and everything. Clean as a proverbial whistle.
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Actually, CAS didn’t “find” TB 4 was administered to the 34 players in such words.
It openly and blatantly said, in its findings, that its starting point was that Dank had administered TB 4 to the 34 players.
You can only “find” something if you look for something based on facts. That’s how findings are made - evidence (facts) is examined, analysed and then conclusions to guilt or innocence drawn.
For CAS, there was a presumption of guilt - without corroborating evidence - rather than a presumption of innocence as per any other legal or quasi-legal court in the Western world.
The E34 were administered TB 4 simply because CAS believed it so and any facts contrary to this either twisted or ignored.
Facts, literally, were irrelevant.
Which is the complete opposite of how the AFLADT ran - it was entirely fact based and documented its findings, including how the players were not guilty. It followed the trail of facts. CAS was blatantly disinterested in facts by its own admission.
That’s why CAS and the AFLADT came to polar opposite conclusions.
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Well said
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I hate disagreeing with fellow blitzers who are as passionate about the CAS miscarriage of justice as I am. But this is just not correct.
The CAS starting point was to ask the question whether the 34 players were administered TB4. That is, they were not concerned whether or not they could prove that Dank purchased TB4 or that TB4 was at Essendon (ie the 1st 2 links in the AFLADT chain).
Asking that question - did Dank inject the players with TB4 - is a very different starting point than assuming Dank did administer TB4 to the 34 players. If you read the CAS wording in its context this is very clear. This was not the miscarriage of justice, that came later, but of course the result was exactly as you described.
edit - it’s para 115 of the CAS finding where CAS say their starting point is to consider the 3rd link in the chain, rather than following the AFL ADT logic requiring a provable evidence chain from the supplier to the player.
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A panel set up by the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation has refused to sanction two Russian athletes caught up in the McLaren Report. The Panel considered that the use of indirect testimony would be a violation of human rights under European law and a denial of fair process under Swiss law.
The ISBF has announced that it will appeal to CAS and has been strongly supported by the IOC.
We may yet find out what constitutes fair process under Swiss law, in circumstances where the “indirect evidence” goes beyond the hearsay and conjecture relied upon in the Essendon case.
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I hate to disagree with you to but I have to beg to differ.
for those interested, link to the verdict is: http://jurisprudence.tas-cas.org/Shared%20Documents/4059.pdf#search=Essendon
Some of the CAS findings defy belief from a justice perspective, hence my original statement. For example:
From Para 143: Although the Panel has not found it necessary to determine whether, as WADA contends, the substance Mr. Charter sourced from GL Biochem (Shanghai) Limited was indeed TB-4, the Panel sees no reason to determine that the Chinese company did not manufacture TB-4 even
if the certificate of analysis, said to be copied from an original, was itself suspect.
- basically this means CAS accepts to certificate of analysis is probably fraudulent but don’t really care anyway
From Para 115 which is where I have made my point. It still angers me to read this garbage:
It follows inexorably that this Panel is not obliged to follow the AFL Tribunal’s reasoning
although it is, of course, free to adopt it if it were found to be persuasive. In this particular
appeal, both because of (1) the reformulation of the prosecution’s case as a strands, not a links
case; (2) the fact that the Tribunal, having found the first two links –TB4 procured for Dank
and TB4 compounded for Dank – insufficiently proven, did not even consider the third link
–**TB4 administered by Dank to the players – which has been the Panel’s preferred starting**
_point; and (3) the introduction of analytical evidence which was not provided below, the Panel_
could derive, other than from its summary of the uncontroversial facts, limited benefit from
the careful and elaborate judgment of the AFL Tribunal.
- I have highlighted exactly where CAS barefacedly states it’s preferred starting point is that Dank gave the players with TB-4 despite the fact that, without the first 2 points stated in that para, Dank couldn’t have had the TB-4 in his hands to give to the players.
No wonder the IOS/CAS rules precludes the use of normal courts of law.
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This is not correct BWAS, and this matters because one day we want acknowledgement that the CAS decision was manifestly unjust (although this is a one in a million chance), so our reasoning has to be sound.
para 115 states
It follows inexorably that this Panel is not obliged to follow the AFL Tribunal’s reasoning although it is, of course, free to adopt it if it were found to be persuasive. In this particular appeal, both because of (1) the reformulation of the prosecution’s case as a strands, not a links case; (2) the fact that the Tribunal, having found the first two links –TB4 procured for Dank and TB4 compounded for Dank – insufficiently proven, did not even consider the third link –TB4 administered by Dank to the players – which has been the Panel’s preferred starting point; and (3) the introduction of analytical evidence which was not provided below, the Panel could derive, other than from its summary of the uncontroversial facts, limited benefit from the careful and elaborate judgment of the AFL Tribunal.
para 115 states that the AFL ADT did not even consider whether Dank gave the players TB4 given the 1st 2 links were insufficiently proven, and that CAS’s starting point is to CONSIDER whether Dank gave the players TB4, regardless of the inability to prove where the TB4 came from and whether it landed at Essendon.
The manifestly unjust parts of the CAS verdict were -
- lowering the burden of proof to such a low level that ‘evidence’ was just conjecture
- leaving out the bits that didn’t suit them
- if a player heard ‘thymosin’ they assumed it was TB4 & they were injected
- assuming Dank must’ve given TB4 to all 34 despite evidence to the contrary
- dismissing the idea that it could’ve been a different form of thymosin
- suggesting winning games early in 2012 was evidence of doping
- suggesting the players were part of a cover up due to the disclosure forms being incorrect even though there was no evidence the payers filled out the forms incorrectly
- etc etc
CAS did not start by assuming Dank injected 34 players with TB4. Rather they accepted the weak case presented by WADA as sufficient to meet the ‘comfortable satisfaction’ criteria. Did they start by wanting a guilty verdict? They probably did as it assisted in their minds this new approach of using circumstantial evidence. But their written judgement doesn’t contain a confession that their starting point was the assumption that Dank injected players, rather it was to consider whether he injected the players.
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It’s not necessarily wrong to start with the question “were they doped?” if it’s established that the doper has ready access to the substance in question, perhaps as part of their unrelated work. You shouldn’t necessarily have to prove an individual shipment.
What is obviously wrong is that they simultaneously agree that Dank and Robinson sold $800 of saline to Bock.
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I agree DJR. I liken it to a murder trial where I don’t really care whether they can prove how the murderer got to the murder scene ie whether by train or taxi, all we care about is did (s)he commit the crime?
Where I think we all agree is that CAS could not have been so hopelessly incompetent in their acceptance of such weak ‘evidence’ (which shouldn’t even be labelled evidence) unless they had a preconception of guilt and/or they needed a guilty verdict for their interpretation of the ‘greater good’ of anti-doping. In this sense it doesn’t matter so much how they arrived at the guilty verdict as they were always going to find some way there.
So it’s this preconception that we can emphasise as we seek justice.
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