Wouldn’t need to be had the AFL done the right thing. Or David Evans for that matter.
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Agree. Stinky deals all around.
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Love how that hypocrite Travis Tygart head of the American version of ASADA decries the decision involving the 23 Chinese swimmers. Yet, if you closely follow anti-doping you know that Tygart is soft on American athletes testing positive and particularly soft on contamination cases.
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The Chinese take away sweet and sour memories.
Wee do Ping and Yay Wee Wun especially.
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Oh dear
Kudos to @Warwick for his piece on Radio National this morning. He highlighted the double standards of WADA in its treatment of China compared to how they went out of their way to penalize Essendon.
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Allan Hird: Why were Chinese swimmers treated differently to Bombers? | Herald Sun
Allan HirdComment
April 23, 2024 - 11:58AM
News Corp Australia Sports Newsroom
Are Chinese swimmers valued more highly than Essendon footballers? Interesting question.
The answer would be yes.
Certainly, they are by their respective government agencies for drugs in sport and sporting bodies. And certainly, they are by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
The Chinese equivalent of Sports Integrity Australia, CHINADA, has taken a different position compared with ASADA’s (SIA’s predecessor) back in 2013 when it relentlessly pursued the Essendon players.
First a few facts.
The 23 Chinese each returned positive results to a banned substance when tested by CHINADA.
The 34 Australians were tested numerous times by ASADA and always returned negative results.
The different approaches become stark once we look at what happened.
CHINADA argued the swimmers were “inadvertently exposed to the substance through contamination”.
Nothing to see here right? WADA said fair enough, we’ll let the swimmers compete at the Tokyo Olympics. No problems, even though the WADA website says this in its guide – athletes are ultimately responsible for any banned substance found in their system, regardless as to how it got there or if there was an intention to cheat.
This is the principle of strict liability, which is not so strict after all (so long as you don’t play for Essendon, that is).
Allan Hird asks why Chinese swimmers were allowed to compete at the Olympics despite positive tests when Essendon’s players were treated so harshly.
ASADA argued that even though the Essendon players kept returning negative results, they were guilty because Stephen Dank had worked at Essendon.
Based on a joint investigation done with the AFL, ASADA charged the players at an independent tribunal comprising two retired judges and a barrister. The tribunal cleared the players, stating ASADA’s case “lacked an evidentiary basis”. End of story? No, ASADA chief executive Ben McDevitt, eager to prove himself, gave WADA $US100,000 to prosecute the players.
WADA gladly accepted the cash and retried the players at the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The minutes of the WADA Foundation Board Meeting of May 13, 2015 at page 30 explain why: “The initial decision had been questioning the ability to pursue non-analytical cases, and the level of proof required to win the cases and, at a time when the new Code was entering into force and putting a lot of emphasis on non-analytical cases, it was important to set the right precedent”.
So, in WADA’s own words, the Essendon players were low-hanging fruit that WADA used to set a precedent in order to ping helpless athletes in the future.
Jobe Watson, flanked by his team mates, talks to the media at the Pullman Hotel on March 31, 2015 after his players were found not guitly of taking a banned substance. Picture: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images.
But as we see from the Chinese example, WADA is not interested in pursuing athletes from countries that will fight their corner.
Finally, let’s look at CAS, the body that convicted the 34 Essendon players after two Australian judges and a barrister found the case against them “lacked an evidentiary basis”.
T
CAS and WADA are creations of the International Olympics Committee. The governance of each is linked. For example, in 2019, John Coates was president of the International Council of Arbitration for Sport (the body that runs CAS) and the president of WADA was Sir Craig Reedie. Mr Coates represented Australia on the IOC, and Sir Craig represented the UK on the IOC.
Unlike democratic countries, where the separation of powers underpins the law, the IOC ‘jurisprudence’ unites the powers of the prosecutor and the judiciary by appointing its own directors to run its prosecution and judicial agencies.
WADA’s treatment of the Chinese swimmers has exposed its double standards.
Surely, SIA and our Minister for Sport, Annika Wells, would have a view?
But their respective websites are silent.
— Allan Hird is James Hird’s father
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Just shows how corupt Wada is the sooner the AFL move away from Wada the better
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Dank was working as a cook?
Cocaine is on The WADA Banned List under Section 6 and has been since at least 2013. Unlike TB4 which was not added to the Banned list until 2018. There are special circumstances which apply to Cocaine but the navigation through those circumstances is in the hands of the WADA accredited, anti-doping agency (ASADA aka SIA).
SIA have been remarkably silent through these latest revelations from Dillon.
The other consideration that I question is how do the AFL protect the players from exposure. How many people within a club would know that a player has returned a positive test. I suggest some of his team mates would find out. What about his family, his girlfriend, his mates. Many of these guys are not that smart.
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There would be a random number of players tested every match day. But SIA randomly test at any time or any day during the week within a season. They run a full testing profile which would include Cocaine which first and foremost is a Banned Substance. Under the testing protocol a positive test for cocaine would be recorded first and then the circumstances and timing of the sample/test would be considered. I would suggest even if the test was “out of competition” the club doctor would be informed.
SIA, as the Regulator, would record every positive test so they know who has used cocaine, yet they have been very quiet. There are many banned substances that are included in Section 6 (Stimulatnts) of the Banned List. many of them are illicit drugs also.
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I wish we had been big enough not to be bullied by the AFL
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I wish 16 teams used their integrity instead of their greed for an easy rise up the ladder
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The 34 players really need to stop staying silent, tear up their signed AFL agreements and do a collective claim to retract their guilty verdict in a major Australian court.
Get some major backers and some very astute lawyers on board. The evidence is mounting.
This needs to be finalised.
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Would the SIA tests out of competition extend to detection of cocaine ? Surely SIA would only be testing out of competition for drugs banned by WADA at all times.
If they did so at a time not covered by WADA cocaine bans, it would not be within SIA’s mandate to record any such cocaine positive tests or to inform anyone else in authority.
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It is exactly the opposite: we WERE bullied by the AFL because we were the only club (of those that had not been taking PEDs to win flags) that WAS big enough to survive* as the AwFL’s scapegoat.
It also helped Vlad that we never had a history of standing up for ourselves against VFL/AwFL bullies. (As also most recently evidenced by 2MP’s disgraceful 4 match suspension).
*We survived, but have been further penalised by another decade of crap. And the fkg AwFL has done nothing whatsoever to show any remorse for what it did to the players, the coaches, the club, the members, nor - and very least of all, in those Rsoles’ considerations - the supporters.
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Why on earth would they waste their time or money doing that?
They have moved on.
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To avoid being described as drug cheats for the rest of their lives - and even after that.
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Nobody with a tenth of a brain even calls them that anymore.
They then made 2 of the AFLs key saga flunkys who played pivotal roles in the stitch up… the AFL CEO. Eg, like keep your mouth shut & you can stick your snout into the $$ trough for as long as you want 
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